Short List of keyword

Shortlist your keywords

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Now you have a long and versatile list of keywords and keyphrases to choose from.
For my little son this would be enough, but we're after something much bigger than pocket money. Thanks, Andy, now your dad has to make a final decision. Alas, it's always dad who bears the burden of responsibility. ;)
So let's brush aside all stuff and shortlist your search terms. Again, you can choose between a free but long way to do this, or use Rank Tracker tool you already know to make this task a snap.

Option 1: Sweep away the keyword trash, by hand

Calculating KEI

Here we go with the magic wand of SEOs. That's the SEO know-how called KEI, or Keyword Efficiency Index. This index shows you how good a keyword is for bringing traffic to your site.

You need keywords with high KEI.

Here's what the importance of your keywords depends on:

• Relevance (R): it is how closely your keyword is related to what you offer to your customers.

We use the three-grade scale to estimate relevance. So now you need to make a separate column for Relevance in your spreadsheet, and put one of the following numbers next to each word or phrase:

• 1 for Excellent
• 2 for Good
• 3 for Poor

• Search Volume (Sv): it is how many queries are made for a keyword per month.

Here's how you can check Search Volume for each word or phrase: go to Wordtracker and type in your search term, say free ecard. Wait a while, and along with keyword suggestions, you'll see number of searches per month.

Free Wordtracker Keyword Suggestion Tool

Just like you can see on this picture, people search for free ecard 11384 times per day, or about 347201 times per month.
Now, in your spreadsheet, make a column for Search Volume and enter the number of searches values for each phrase.

• Competition (C): that's how many websites are already more or less optimized for this keyword. Generally, all sites that have the same keyword as you are your online competition. And the fewer websites are optimized for the same keyword, the better KEI this keyword has.

The way to check competition is simple. Enter the keyword in Google and click to search. Now look at the image below to see where you find the Competition value:

Google competition for the free ecard keyword

In a separate column for Competition in your spreadsheet, enter values for each keyword.
Here's how your table will look:

Relevance, Search Volume and Competition Values in Excel worksheet

So what makes a KEI better? Higher relevance, higher search volume, and smaller competition.

Now, let's count the magic KEI number for your keywords.
The classical formula for KEI looks like this:

Keyword Efficiency Index formula

I personally use, and always recommend an improved formula. Use it to get a much better estimation. It takes into account real relevance of your keywords.

Keyword Efficiency Index with Relevance

Now make a column for KEI in your Excel spreadsheet and apply the second formula to calculate KEI for each phrase.

Keyword Efficiency Index in Excel worksheet

Let's choose the best keywords

First, sort all keywords in your spreadsheet by KEI. As I already said, the higher KEI, the better your keywords.
You do not need many keywords to optimize your site for, so look at your list and choose top 5 keywords. Mark them as the major ones (say, color them green.) Then, choose the following 30 and mark them as important (you can color them yellow.) Some more 65 or so keywords should be marked as supplemental (e.g. red.)
Now you've got a nice list. We'll target the green-marked keywords in the first turn, make use of the yellow ones as alternative and mind the red ones just in case.