5 mistakes when choosing keywords

Almost daily I speak with a marketing director, business owner or other managing type who is beginning to think their keyword focus is out of touch with real world business needs. Most often as these conversations move along I end up breaking down preconceived notions on how keywords are chosen and what makes them important. Here are my top 5 tips on common keyword mistakes. 

1. Focusing on a small number of the most popular high volume keywords and not spending much time on long tail keywords. Long tail keywords generally convert better than the more general popular keywords.
2. Choosing keywords that are common industry-speak rather than using keywords that are more accepted by consumers.
3. Believing the various sources indicating likely keyword traffic are, in fact, accurate. Most keyword traffic tools over estimate the amount of traffic that can be expected. If you use Google’s Keyword Tool make sure you set the keywords to EXACT match. While not always accurate, it will be much closer than the default setting.
4. Not performing split testing or other analysis to determine if the keywords chosen are actually those that convert into sales or leads.
5. Not building the Web site pages around keywords. Too often, proper keywords are chosen after the content and page structure has been finished. Shoehorning keywords into page content is less effective than starting with a good keyword plan.