Christian Little

It’s important to understand that keywords are far from equal when it comes to copwriting for the purposes of SEO. Trying to rank well on an extremely competetive keyword when you haven’t already done a lot of seo is unlikely to result in what you’re after. Any results you do get will probably take a long time, and be erased quickly because of the amount of people doing the same thing. You need to find a keyword phrase with a high global or local search volume, but without too much competition.

In general, long and short tail are the two primary types of keyphrase. Long tail can consist of several words or a phrase, whilst short tail is only one or two words. They each have their own benefits, with long tail having a smaller search volume, but less competition, and vice versa for short tail.
If you happen to be a design practice, and your search term is ‘graphic design‘, that’s a hugely competitive term that you’ll struggle to rank highly on, whereas a slightly longer tail term like ‘brighton graphic design’ might yield a better result
There are several tools available to you to help with keyword research, including both paid and free applications. An excellent place to start for most is Google’s Keyword Research tool, available for free online via their AdWords management tool. This gives you the volume of search results both locally and globally for any word or phrase you imput. You can also use the Wonder Wheel located on Google search options; many people don’t know it’s there but it provides excellent ideas for variations on keyphrase terms.
Have a look at what’s available and if you’ve got a budget, it might well be worth investing in some specialised software for keyword research. Go for keyword phrases with high search volumes and low competition – there’s nothing wrong with being creative. Aim for keyphrases with a low level of competition (you will be able to see which these are on an keyword program) but a high serch volume locally and nationally
See what you can come up with using in-depth research and you should be able to uncover those keyphrase gems. It just takes a little bit of time, effort and patience, and should ideally be put together with the on-site optimisation, done during web design, in order o have a complete SEO package.