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There are some SEO providers who will advocate regularly changing your keyword strategy/assets. I'm not one of them.

While it pays to monitor referral stats and search positions and perhaps change what clearly isn't working, when I approach any given keyword problem, I like to create a long-term solution that gains immediate (if modest) results, but also contains the potential for more lucrative results.

Search engine optimisation is all about being relevant to the query (keywords) and establishing, bettering or maintaining your reputation (link popularity). As your link popularity improves, the more likely it is that you will perform for more lucrative queries. Let me show you how can perform for a range of increasingly-lucrative keyword combinations by using a single Page Title as an example. Step with me into the lab...

This is a Page Title that could appear on the front page of any chocolate seller:

NomNom (UK) - Buy chocolate online

As you see, it's a very short Page Title, but it contains a lot of information. Here are some of the main search queries that this Page Title it will respond to, in order of popularity (the figures relate to the number of Google users who search for each exact phrase, on average, each month):

1,220,000 - chocolate
1,300 - buy chocolate
720 - buy chocolate online
480 - chocolate uk
36 - buy chocolate online uk
16 - buy chocolate uk

While this Page Title may only perform for the 'lower' queries at first (i.e. if the site begins with a poor reputation), it will always have the potential to perform for the queries with higher popularity, and the only ongoing task will be improvement to link popularity in order to unlock* this potential.

(*Keeping in mind that relevance and reputation overlap, and there may be aspects of your link generation strategy that also support/influence your relevance, rather than simply 'unlocking' it.)

As the site's popularity improves, it will respond to more lucrative terms, but it will still be relevant to all terms under this. Imagine our keyword list in a beaker that's being filled with water; as the level increases, coverage improves, and includes all of the queries you performed for previously, as well as the most lucrative query:

||_ 1,220,000 - chocolate
||_ 1,300 - buy chocolate
||_----------------------------------------
||_ 720 - buy chocolate online
||_ 480 - chocolate uk
||_ 36 - buy chocolate online uk
|| 16 - buy chocolate uk

This scaled and cumulative approach to keyword strategy can extend into a category/product level, and I have found that many clients depend on this level of relevance when first establishing themselves; a hardware store, for example, may not perform for 'hardware' related queries immediately, and may initially rely on high placement for queries relating to product categories ('insulation'), sub categories ('loft insulation'), specific products and/or specific brands.

This in itself is a form of scaling and a very effective one, but scaling can also be applied to this data, as shown by this example, where we split our imaginary chocolate seller's website into two categories, and look only at the Page Titles for the front page and each of the main categories:

NomNom (UK) - Buy chocolate online
NomNom (UK) - Buy milk chocolate online
NomNom (UK) - Buy dark chocolate online

Here's the keyword demand for the subsequent range of queries relating to chocolate, milk chocolate, and dark chocolate. Some of these examples fall below the reliable detection range, but I would hope the pattern is clear:

1,220,000 - chocolate
45, 000 - dark chocolate
12,100 - milk chocolate
1,300 - buy chocolate
720 - buy chocolate online
480 - chocolate uk
260 - buy dark chocolate
46 - dark chocolate online
36 - buy chocolate online uk
28 - buy milk chocolate
16 - buy chocolate uk

A good generic keyword strategy that is scaled brings you immediate results at every level, has the capacity to bring better results with increased link popularity, and should last for years without any need for revision.

A key advantage to this method is that you do not spend money on the constant shuffling and juggling of keywords, but instead invest mainly in your reputation, and enjoy the accumulating benefits over time.

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