The question is then, how does one go about finding relevant keywords to position for?  From an organic search perspective, how does an organization determine which keywords they should be found for in Google, Yahoo, Business.com, YouTube, or other search engines?  Well before we dive into how you should go about your keyword research, we must first visit the issues that are at hand.

Issue #1:  My Industry is new and we’re not sure which keywords are specific to our business consumer - This is the whole reason why you perform keyword research.  To identify terms and key phrases that can be used to intercept your audience or your consumer.  Developing a keyword strategy is critical at this point for your business to be able to intercept your targeted audience in hope of generating fresh and qualified leads.  One of the greatest assumed practices of online marketers is that keyword research is a one time happening.  The fact is that it is not.  Keyword research is something that is on-going and is something that will need to be continually refined as you progress with your online efforts.  This is a key point to remember:  Keyword Research needs to progress and evolve.

Issue #2:  Using industry jargon that people may not be aware of – Marketers are the worst for this are they not?  We continue to see this all of the time.  We get a client who comes to us after working with another SEO vendor or marketing agency and the messaging on their site is full of industry terms… terms that may or may not be being used by people looking for their service or for information about their service.

Issue #3:  Our Industry is so niche, that there are only a few phrases that people use - While this may be the case, this gives you an exciting opportunity to define the language of your industry.  You can help mold the language of the industry and build a foundation of relevant keywords that your audience will quickly adopt and use.

Issue #4:  Getting over your ego and thinking that you already know which keywords to focus on – Have you heard this before:  "We don’t need to do keyword research, we’ve already established our keyword list…"  Even in 2009 we continue to have clients dictate that they have already defined a keyword basket.  Yet as we review these phrases, we see that they lack search volume (i.e. nobody is searching for them in the search engines) or they are branded phrases which they already rank for in the engines.  Developing a proper keyword strategy sometimes means trusting someone other than yourself to identify relevant keywords for your online marketing efforts.

Issue #5:  Lack of online marketing activity - Would you believe that there are still companies, yes even B2B companies that are still not allocating sufficient marketing budget to online initiatives?  It becomes difficult to establish a keyword strategy to promote your online properties, if you do not have budget to do so.  We think that there will be a huge shift in this respect in 2009, as SEO/organic search marketing has proven to provide great return with minimal investment (when compared to traditional forms of advertising and promotion).  Keyword research is part of a total online marketing strategy.  Companies, especially new companies in niche markets cannot afford to neglect online marketing efforts.

How to Approach Keyword Research in a Niche Market/Industry

Keyword research can be challenging, but it can be even more challenging when you are in a niche market or a fairly new industry.  So what do you do when you are involved in a new industry where there may be a lack of relevant terminology and potentially a lack of competition?  Businesses in niche markets need to work at keyword research and selection.  In order to do that there are a few items that should be considered and practiced:

1. Understand your Business - not to state the obvious here, but you need to understand your business and which key phrases are relevant to your business.  Of course branded phrases play a role, but chances are you should be ranking well for your branded phrases anyway.  In a niche market, you should be able to determine a core basket of head type key phrases.  These are phrases that are more general in nature and tend to have higher search volume.  By understanding your business and online goals, you should be able to establish a list of head and torso phrases that you can optimize your web properties for.
    
2. Understand your Audience - this is huge.  The better you understand your audience or your target consumer, the easier you will be to intercept them as they proceed through the purchase cycle.  Whether they are in the research phase or are close to making a purchase.  An effective keyword strategy will ensure that your brand and your business is up for consideration throughout the various phrases.  Learn the language of your customer.  Frequent environments that they frequent.  This is where social networking serves some benefit for business-to-business companies and B2B marketers.  Understanding the buzzwords of your audience will go a long way in shaping your keyword strategy.  Keep in mind that your audience will be changing and the terminology being used will also be changing.  Remember, Keyword Research needs to progress and evolve.
   
3. Keep it Simple - Depending on the nature of your business, you do not need to have baskets and baskets of keywords.  This is especially true for B2B sites.  Avoid focusing on too many keywords.  Select a core group of phrases and build from there.  Especially if your website is smaller (in terms of pages that it consists of) as you cannot effectively optimize a 100 page website for 10,000 keywords.  It just doesn’t work that way.  Remenber that ideally a webpage should be optimized for a single key phrase.  The search engines cannot treat a single page as an authority if the page consists of nine or ten different key phrases.  When it comes to keyword research for organic search initiatives, keep it simple.
    
4. Seek Assistance of a Reputable SEO Firm – keyword research is vital and while it’s true that anyone can technically do it, you should seek out the assistance of an SEO firm that has experience with keyword research strategy.  Sure every SEO firm offers keyword research or keyword analysis, but few focus on overall keyword strategy.  Especially for companies in niche markets, bringing in a third party with a fresh set of eyes can provide great insight into keywords that you should be positioning your web properties for.  For companies that are fortunate enough to have experienced SEO staff on hand, having the understanding of search experts can be a huge benefit when it comes to keyword research and keyword strategy.
    
5.  Evaluate Online Competitors - another helpful resource for constructing B2B keyword research is to examine your online competition.  While in niche markets this is more difficult as there may be less competition, there is always some competition lurking around whether direct or indirect.  Examine their websites to see what keywords they are focusing on.  Compare this to what you know about your target audience.  Are these same key phrases relevant for your business, for your site, for your audience?  If available, competitive insight is a great source of keyword intelligence that B2B companies in niche markets can leverage as part of their keyword research process.
    
6. Specialize but don’t Overwhelm - the great thing about being in a niche or newly emerging market is that the area of focus is smaller.  As a result you have the opportunity to define new terminology that can become mainstream in your industry.  You have the ability to contribute new buzzwords. You have the ability to create "niche key phrases" that are relevant solely to your industry.  The trick here is not to create an entirely new environment of industry jargon that no one other than businesses operating in the industry use.  There is a fine line in that, industry related terms must be adopted by the audience in some manner.  So while you can specialize and create your own relevant industry terminology, try not to overwhelm the audience.  Allow them to adopt these phrases and begin utilizing these key phrases as part of their vocabulary.

B2B keyword research when you are in a niche market, may take some extra work.  You just have to keep at in and ensure that your messaging incorporates the language of your audience, not necessarily the language/jargon of your business.

As you track the return of  your sponosred campaigns,  remember this little stat.  Based on some of our original research inside the mind of the searcher, we found that Organic results received the majority of clicks on a SERP.  We found that the split between organic vs. paid clicks was as high as a 70%-30% split.  Over the past couple of years this ratio has changed slightly, but the fact of the matter is, more people click on organic results.  Now of course further research suggests that there are other factors that affect what people click on when they perform a query in a search engine.  Factors such as:

• Blended Search Results appearing
• The phase of the buying cycle that the searcher is involved in
• Brand Awareness or lackthereof
• Type of keyword/phrase queried

Ah yes the all mighty key phrase.  Depending on what the users types into a search engine may dictate whether they click on a sponsored listing or an organic result.  So as online marketers, where should you spend your time?  Organic or Sponsored?  The answer quite simply is both.  SEO and PPC work together quite nicely when establishing your keyword strategy for your online campaigns.  However, how many of you have a balanced SEO/PPC online marketing campaign?  When it comes to keyword strategy, something to think about when planning your keyword strategy is understanding where you are today.  That is how competitive is the online space that you are trying to occupy?  Are your "money" phrases hyper-competitive and expensive to bid on?  Ask yourself if you can really rank for <insert your desired key phrase here>.  Note: Prior to establishing your final keyword list it is assumed that you have performed research into your target audience and have identified the language that they will be using to search for your solution or product.

Keyword Strategy:  SEO or PPC?

Ok so you have an understanding of your target audience and of what they may be searching for online.  You’ve looked at some of your competitor’s web properties and you’re aware of what they are trying to position their sites for now what?

Step One:  Determine the Genetic DNA Make Up for your Keyword Strategy - When you think about it, there are three types of key phrases.  Head Phrases, torso phrase and long-tail keywords.  You will need to establish which combination  will work best for you in terms of being able to intercept your audience.  How does SEO and PPC fit in?  Well head phrases tend to be hyper-competitive but can drive a ton of traffic to your site.  In this case, a simple SEO strategy may not get you the rankings that you hope for, instead you’ll want to utilize a sponsored strategy where you bid on some of these hyper-compettive phrases to drive this traffic to your website.  Depending on your budget, the level of success depends on which phrases wil provide the best bang for your advertising buck.

SEO on the otherhand can be effective when optimizing your site for long-tail keyphrases that are more specific to your industry.  These tend to be phrases that the user will type in a search engine when they are closer to making a purchase decision.  A lot of times long-tail phrases tend to be less competitive, but they drive more qualified traffic.  More qualified traffic to your site means more qualified leads.

Step Two:  Monitor Your Exisiting Visibility – from an organic (SEO) point of view, monitoring your visibility in the search engines will determine where you draw the line between sponsored budgets and organic SEO for your site.  If by chance you are lucky enough to rank in the natural search results for a relevant head-type key phrase, you may not need to put sponsored spend towards this phrase.  Instead you can either A).  Save this spend (which affects your bottom line as less money going out) or B).  Put this spend into other keyword groups or baskets that may require a boost.  By monitoring your visibility, you will determine the right balance needed between SEO and PPC when positioning keyword visibility for your site.

Step Three:  Consider Timing – Considering the timing of when to use PPC to boost SEO is critical to the success of any online marketing campaign.  We all know that SEO can be very rewarding and that the results are longer lasting, but the fact is that SEO takes time.  Do not expect to improve your website’s visibility overnight with SEO.  So as part of an effective keyword strategy is understanding when to use PPC and SEO and when to use PPC with SEO.  For example if you are planning a website redesign, you will want to use PPC to mitigate any risks from organic ranking decreases as a result of transitioning your website durning the redesign.  For a period of a couple of months, you may need to use PPC to boost site traffic until the SEO and organic results are "revived".  Also if your business is somewhat seasonal, you may want to boost sponsored spend during this time while optimizing your site for organic visibility.  If all goes well, once you enter your "slow-season", you can reduce sponsored spend and time it so that your organic rankings drive traffic to your site.

Step Four:  Revisit Your Keyword Baskets – for both SEO and PPC, you’ll want to visit your keyword groups and baskets on a regular basis.  Your target audience will not remain status quo with their searching habits.  Identifying the latest buzzwords that your audience is using is critical for obtaining qualified traffic to your site. 

SEO and PPC work nicely together when establishing an effective keyword strategy.  The key is to know when to empasize one over the other, or when to use when to support the other.  SEO is effective when focusing on long term keyword strategy.  PPC is effective when you need immediate traffic, together the two of them work to ensure that your site remains visible in the competitive online space that is the World Wide Web.