The first search marketing tip of the year is a quick check list of what to consider when reviewing the search terms you are promoting your site for.

It is key to ensure that your search terms remain the right terms to gain rankings for that will drive the right people to your site.

The terms that you promoted your site for a year ago may not still be the right ones for you.

So make sure you run through the following questions at least once a year for each of the terms you are promoting your site for:

How well is the site ranking for the term?

Is the term driving any traffic to the site?

Is the term still a popular search term according to keyword research tools?

Are there any terms driving high numbers of traffic to the site that you are not promoting?

If you have good web analytics set up, do visitors to the site through the search term convert for you?

Then apply the following thought process:

If a term is not ranking well but it is still popular leave it as a promoted term in the hope that one day your hard work pays off and you gain positioning for it.

If a term is ranking well but driving no traffic (and you have a well written title and description in your listing) then take it out of your list as it is not resulting in visitors for you.

If a term is driving traffic to the site but is not an actively promoted term, you need to make sure you make it a promoted term to capitalise on it’s visitor potential.

If a term is ranking well and driving high amounts of traffic to the site but that traffic is not converting, then bin the term.

Add any terms that are relevant to your site pages that are receiving a high number of searches but you are not actively promoting. However, remember a limit of 4 to 5 key search terms on each page for successful optimisation and promotion.

The above points should give you some food for thought!!!

Any changes you decide to make to the terms you are promoting your site for then need to be incorporated into the content, internal link navigation and Meta Tags of your site. You then need to ensure your link building and social media promotion efforts include the new range of terms.

Remember not to carry out this review process too often as any changes you make as a result of a search term review will take a while to kick in before you can determine their effectiveness.

Have fun!!!