How do you know the price or, rather, the value of a keyword ? 

We recently discussed the common idea that you can buy keywords. In fact, you can't literally "buy" a keyword, but you can buy a good temporary position on keywords that interest your business. However, these keywords do have a price, a value. This value will allow  search engines to estimate the price you should  pay to be well positioned on them. Even your own keywords have a value depending on how you use them. In this case...

Why is it interesting to know the value of your keywords ?
How is the value of a keyword calculated ?

1. The importance of knowing the value of a keyword

There are millions of keywords on the Internet. But not all them have the same value. Indeed, several criteria define the value of a keyword. It is on this value that the search engines base themselves to attribute a price to the keywords on which you’re willing to rank your website. Your keywords, i.e. those on which you have decided to position yourself, also have a value defined by several criteria. Why is it important to know the value of "your" keywords? For two main reasons:

• To know its current level in SEO : the higher the score, the better you are positioned
• To know the quality of your keyword : the more the keyword is searched, the higher its score and the more you are sure to be positioned on good keywords

Knowing the value of your keywords, those you’ve chosen for your site, has an analytical and strategic role. Analytical because it allows you to know the SEO level of your site. Strategic because it allows you to know if you are positioned on words that make economic sense in terms of demand and research among your potential customers/readers.
 

REMEMBER

• All the keywords on your site have a different and fluctuating value depending on several criteria
• It is important to know the value of your keywords for analytical and strategic reasons
• The more relevant your keywords are, the higher their value will be and the more visible you will be in the SERPs

2. Estimating the value of a keyword

How is the value of a keyword estimated ? Search engines like Google assign a price to a keyword based on supply and demand. This means that the more a keyword is searched by Internet users and used by sites, the more its price increases. Concerning your own keywords, what is important to know is : What will determine the value of your keywords is the general optimization of your site, the search volume and the positions you already occupy on them. Basically, if you want your keywords to be valuable and to bring you good positions, take care of the overall SEO of your site and follow the state of the market in terms of keyword queries. So the three criteria to consider are :
 

• The general state and the level of the SEO of your website
• The quality of the keywords chosen according to the user’s queries
• The  currently positions occupied by your site for these keywords

If you combine these three elements, you are going  to have high value keywords !

REMEMBER

• The value of your keywords is calculated according to three criteria : the general state of your SEO, the demand of Internet users and  the positioning of your site on these keywords
• Optimizing all these three aspects allows you to improve your performance in the SERPs

3. How to know the value of a keyword ?

There are several ways to know the value of a keyword and thus its potential in the SERPs. You can use tools such as Cocolyze to get an accurate estimation of a keyword value. The calculation criteria are, among others : the user demand, i.e. the search volume per month, the SEO optimization of your site, the Google Adwords algorithms, your current positions on the given keyword.  With this tool you can also get an overview of your return in terms of SEO investment. Besides helping you increase the general SEO aspects of your website, you can also measure how much money you are saving by working on the keywords you’ve chosen. 
 

REMEMBER

• Tools such as Cocolyze have algorithms that calculate the SEO value of keywords
• They also keep you informed of the daily evolution of the value of your keywords,  just like the stock exchange
• These SEO softwares also help you to improve the value of your keywords and therefore their positions in the SERPs

Conclusion

Keywords can have a very specific and fluctuating value. You can increase this value and thus your positioning on the results page by optimizing the overall SEO of your site. To know the current SEO value of your keywords, and even better, to follow its evolution on a daily basis,  we recommend you to use an SEO tracking solution.

If you want to know the value of your keywords, check our Keyword planner tool !