Ah, so you’re starting a new website from scratch? In one way, isn’t it fun when you get to create a brand new site from the ground up and see where it all takes you in the future? I’d have to say, yes, yes it is fun to create a new website because it’s a blank canvas. With this canvas, you can do anything with it, and setting it up right the first time (in terms of SEO and structure and what have you) is one of them.
But as usual, with any new website, there’s always going to be good news, and there will always be bad news.
The good news is that you have access to a modern infrastructure, as well as research technologies. Also, you don’t have to worry about adapting bad legacy decisions that webmasters mad years ago.
Now, here is the bad news. Data – you don’t have any of it….at all. Just like with the website itself in terms of creation, you’re starting from scratch. We’ve seen all of those blog posts and advice columns telling us that in order to rank well, you can analyze your analytics data to make good decisions. But that’s the problem, you don’t have ANY data whatsoever to go off of. So all the keyword research advice that people give you just flat out isn’t going to apply here.
In this case, it almost seems like you’ve been defeated before you even began. But this doesn’t have to be the case, after all. You are a search marketer! You don’t have to take this laying down. There are a number of different ways that you can get good, usable data for your new website.
But, you may ask, how do you do that? Well, I think I got something for you guys to check out. It’s a Search Engine Land post by Matthew Barby that goes into some detail about what you can do to get some usable data. In his post, Matthew gives us some tips for conduction keyword research in the absence of historical website data.
To check out his tips, visit his post by following the link below.
Search Engine Land: Keyword Research For A New Website