If you think that keywords aren’t important even today after all the search algorithm changes, you’re wrong. Keywords and keyword phrases are more important than ever. It’s still how your audience finds you, and it will be for a long time to come. It’s important to periodically clean and organize your keywords so that you can more easily use them on a daily basis when creating any type of content for your business.

Find Keywords

Using a keyword tool like Wordtracker or Google’s Keyword Planner you can create a list of keywords to use for your niche. When you first save the keywords you’re not going to worry much about anything other than to toss out keywords that are either too competitive, or no one is using. Try to get at least 100 keywords and keyword phrases. Then save them and keep them ready to use and organized.

Wordtracker link: http://www.wordtracker.com/
Google’s Keyword Planner link: https://adwords.google.com/ko/KeywordPlanner/Home

Use a Spreadsheet

Once you have a good number of keywords and keyword phrases you can import them into a spreadsheet. You want to note certain things about the keywords such as whether it is a main category keyword, a subcategory keyword, or a negative keyword. Plus, you want to note whether you’ve used the keyword or phrase before and where, plus the response. You can actually work toward having up to 2000 keywords if you desire. If they’re organized into a spreadsheet you’ll be able to keep track better about when and how they’ve been used.

Use Specialized Software

Depending upon your budget, there are many software programs that you can purchase that will help you manage and predict how well a certain keyword or keyword phrase will work for your niche. A few to take note of are: Adobe AdLens, Keyword Organizer from Clever Gizmos, and Good Keywords. Each piece of software works well to help you keep your keyword list organized and clean. Try them out to find out which one you like the best.

Adobe AdLens link: http://success.adobe.com/en/na/programs/products/adlens/1207_21709_overview.html
Keyword Organizer link: https://clevergizmos.com/keyword-organizer/
Good Keywords link: http://www.goodkeywords.com/good-keywords/

Keep an Alphabetical List

You can go old school and simply keep an alphabetical list of keywords and keyword phrases that you want to use in your content on your blogs, websites and in social media in a document, saved in a file with the other information about your website. Just start at the top of the list, writing articles, blog posts, social media updates, and then work your way to the bottom. Do fresh research every few months to come up with even more keywords to use. Toss any keywords that are too competitive, or that have no real use within your niche.

Check a Keywords Performance

Long gone are the days when you create content from every single possible keyword that you can find that’s remotely close to your niche. Today, your content needs not only keywords, but a reason to exist. The content needs to provide value in addition to providing a place for keywords and keyword phrases to reside. Poor performing keywords should be eliminated and otherwise usable blog posts and articles should be updated using better words and phrases when possible.

By periodically organizing your keywords you’ll be able to identify new words, create more useful combinations of keywords, delete useless and old phrases that no one uses anymore, and keep your current list organized and clean.