To categorize effectively, look for patterns in the way that people search online. Are they looking for a specific type of something, or do they seem concerned with style, color, features?

It’s actually easier to do this if you’re working on your own site because you know the subject matter so well.

Do these seem like your customers? Are your competitors showing up? There’s nothing worse than wasted effort on a keyword that won’t convert to visitors or customers.

If you find a keyword like this, take an extra minute to go back and take out any similar keywords. Keep in mind that you might change categories a couple of times as you get more familiar with the patterns. It’s always better to start with too many categories and consolidate them later than to go back and re-categorize one that was too broad.

Are there keyword categories that don’t match anything you have on your site? Make a quick editorial calendar of content to create. Prioritize the content however you want; you might choose to do the highest profit margin areas first, or the areas where you currently have the lowest traffic, or you might even have a seasonal product/service that it makes sense to write about first. This editorial calendar will help you continue to create relevant, interesting, keyword rich content over time.

Don’t worry about creating all of the content at once; even one new piece of content per month can make your site more attractive to search engines. As you create the content, don’t forget to add it to your Google sitemaps.

So you’re done ? Nope. You’ll need to refresh this research periodically, because people change the way they search for things over time. You’ll also want to refer back to this research each time you create a new page or add a new product or service. But it will be much easier next time, since you won’t have to start from scratch