The graph above shows the average search volumes in Australia for keyword terms associated with SEO and broad basket of keywords. Using Google Keyword tool, we pulled up the data for over 700 keywords used in the last year. The first batch was for terms relating to just SEO and the second batch was a broad basket of terms relating to everything from plumbers to carpenters to homes and electronics. The second batch  gives us a baseline of the average number of searches recorded by Google to compare the SEO batch against.

You can see that in the month of April, searches for SEO terms fell by almost 40%. The search term in this market that showed the biggest fall in volume were terms like “web design seo” which fell by almost 75%. General keyword terms also fell by about 0.3%. Keywords such as “Plumbers Sydney” fell by about 55%. However this was counteracted by keywords such as “online sales” which grew by about 30%.

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Every month we take a basket of 100 odd keywords, from “Mobile Phones” to “Bakery” and we look at the average CPC (cost per click) of advertising using that keywords. We look at the competition and cost, so we can multiply the two together to get a cost adjusted for competition. We then take that information and compare advertising in Australia to the UK and the US.

There are a few things that make this task a little cumbersome and prone to inaccuracies. One is the Google never seems to give the same keywords using their keyword tool. Each time we run this, a different set of keywords comes out even when we “force” the tool. This means we have to piece the information together by running several searches, and then removing all the information for the keywords that dont appear consistently.

The second thing is currency fluctuations. At the moment the Australian Dollar is very high against the US dollar, making it appear very cheap for Australian companies to advertise overseas.

You can see our raw data here.

A few things have remained constant since last month. You still get about 30% less value for money when you advertise in Australia compared to the US. When you normalise for competition, the average cost of advertising in Australia is $1.31, where it is $1.03 in the US. This basically means for all keywords, regardless of competition, Australian advertisers either bid more, or are squeezed up more by Google, than US advertisers.

The top 5 biggest falls in cost for Australia were “appliances, computers, books, insurance, pink mobile phones”, which also gives you an idea of the sorts of keywords we are using to base our data on.

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When you are building a website, before you do anything else, you should understand what keywords you are going to build your website around. This is good SEO practice.

Search engines look for keywords that best describe the webpage being indexed. Before you build your website you need to know what people are searching for and what words they are using. When you are planning your website you need to set in stone a three-word phrase and a four-word phrase that you will use consistently to describe your service on your website. You will also need to know the other keywords you will use consistently.

1. Go to the Google Keyword tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal)
2. Use the search function to find all the keywords related to your industry. You should put in as many terms in the search box as possible. Ideas for this are
   How to do something in your industry
   Find the lowest prices for your industry
   Reviews for your industry
   Product names
   Alternative products
   Industry names.
3. Look for keywords that fit your business, or keywords that are closely aligned to what you do.For this we will use a case study: Bondi Pilates. We would search for words related to; Pilates, Bondi Pilates, Pilates excersize, where to find pilates, how to do pilates, Australia Pilates.
4. Once you have found all the keywords you can, save the results in a spreadsheet, so the data is easy to manipulate.
5. You then need to sift through the results and remove the keywords that don’t relate to your business, in this case Pilates, or the content you are producing. You should look for the keywords that are closely aligned to your business.
6. You then select the top 10 keywords based on monthly searches. Based on the results, for our case study, we want to build content around the following keywords;

Common keyword groups to include in your research;

• How to, guide, help with,
• Locations, make sure you include country, state, region and town
• All words that are used to describe your industry specifically, it might be accounting, finance, tax.
• Any activities associated with your industry such as excersizes, classes etc.

Once you have your groups of keywords, try to use them as much as possible. This includes in links, as headings, as well as the content of the page.

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