This guide takes a simple look at keyword analysis, and what the procedure involves. Whilst the pointers which we will provide you with may be basic, they are of the utmost importance, and should be applied to every website undergoing analysis.

Links on the homepage

In order to ascertain how many links are required for specific keywords, several things need to be looked at...

- Determining how many links point to the homepage of your client’s site is one of the first things which you need to look at. Once you have done this, you are then free to make a comparison between how many back links you have to your website. This will allow you to calculate how many links will be required to offset the difference. Several great tools are readily available which will give you an accurate number of backlinks- including the popular Yahoo! Site Explorer.

- For each of the chosen keywords, you should then search for the top 10 keywords. This will give you an indication of the competition which you are up against.

- An average of links can then be calculated- you can do this by analysing the competition and the amount of links which they have. This information will give you an estimate of how many links are required.

Home page and sub page comparison

During keyword analysis, it’s not uncommon to find that only sub pages rank in the first half of results. However, you can get around this by doing the following:

- Look for the homepage which ranks highest within the results. This will give you a vague idea of how competitive the keyword/ keyphrase is.

- Take a look at the difference between the links to the sub page and those to the actual site.

- Look at the actual quality of the links to the subpage.

- Analyse internal links- this is vital in tracking the amount of link juice to the sub page.

Determining the cleanliness of the site

Finding out the cleanliness of a site is a relatively simple process, and can be determined through the use of the Google site command www.YOURURL.com. Through the use of this command you can determine whether or not the site is being indexed correctly, the existence of duplicate meta keywords/ descriptions, whether or not the right pages for keywords are showing and whether there are any duplication issues regarding GET parameters.

Age of the domain

Domain age also helps with the analysis of a website, and it is generally assumed that a newer site won’t rank as highly as an older one. This isn’t always the case though, and only applies when a domain has been subject to promotion for a while.

URL strength

Another extremely important aspect of how a site ranks is URL strength, although it’s tricky to gauge the level of preferential treatment which Google gives to a websites with good strength.

Inner Pages

Many people fully optimise the home page of a site yet fail to pay adequate attention to inner pages, and they are often neglected altogether. This is not good practice though, as Google doesn’t view websites as a whole, and instead indexes separate pages. This is why it’s a good idea to target these pages with longer phrases or keywords which aren’t as strong. Keep them relevant though.

These are just a few of the basics which should be followed in order to conduct effective keyword analysis.