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Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI) Values

The key to achieving high placement on organic Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) is the Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI). Calculating KEI values provides a rating system to evaluate the effectiveness of long tail keyword phrases. Search terms with a greater KEI value rating increase the probability of a high placement in the SERPs.

Sumantra Roy, President, 1stSearchRanking invented the equation used to calculate KEI. He has granted permission to reprint his original article below. Please note: Revisions have been made to reflect changes in the market place.

In the original article examples were given using AltaVista. AltaVista is now owned by Yahoo! In the 2nd quarter of 2008 AltaVista's global market share was .09%. All of the examples below have been updated for Google. In the 2nd quarter of 2008 Google's global market share was 78.35%.

The short version of the equation to calculate a KEI value is the number of times a long-tail keyword phrase was searched in the last 90 days, squared, divided by the number of competing mentions. A competing mention is a web pages on which the phrase is present, regardless of whether it's present in the meta tags, attributes, tags, links, or the page's content (text visible on a page). Obviously, given that the number of competing mentions a search engine could have indexed will differ, the KEI values for the same long-tail keyword phrase will correspondingly differ in each search engine.

The Long-Tail keyword phrase in the example below (using search figures from the United States), “fig preserves recipes”, was searched 1,432 times in the 90 days preceding July 27th, 2008. Google has indexed 80 competing mentions. This gives a KEI value in Google of 25,632.80. MSN Live Search has indexed 109 competing mentions. This gives a KEI value in MSN of 18,813.06. Yahoo! has indexed 160 competing mentions. This gives a KEI value in Yahoo! of 12,816.40.

Long-Tail Keyword Phrase	Date	Searches	Google	Google KEI	MSN	MSN KEI	Yahoo	Yahoo KEI
fig preserves recipes	07/27/2008	1,432	80	25,632.80	109	18,813.06	160	12,816.40

What does all of this mean?

Long-Tail keyword phrases with KEI values above 400.00 are golden. Any phrase with a KEI value 4.00 is OK—though, generally, I recommend that sufficient KEI research be completed to achieve a depth of 100 long-tail keyword phrases with a KEI value above 20.00. Please be aware that long-tail keyword phrases with more than 1,000 competing mentions are often too competitive to render the same benefit as a search term with a similar KEI value that has substantially fewer competing mentions.

The larger task is one of implementation.

Having completed sufficient KEI research to be armed with 100 long-tail keyword phrases the question with existing sites is how many pages will be revisited? At a minimum I recommend the home page and all pages that link from it. If all 11 tags and attributes to which Google pays attention need to be revisited this could easily average an hour if not two hours per page. At what point does that become cost prohibitive?

Implementing proper (Best Practice) Search Engine Optimization (SEO) on a new page or as a site is built requires only 20-30 minutes per page. Obviously, it's considerably more cost effective to perform implementation during an initial build rather than having to retrofit tags and attributes with new KEI research—esp. if the tags and attributes weren't included with the initial page build.

• • •

Sumantra Roy's original article defining Keyword Effectiveness Index values.

by Sumantra Roy, President,1stSearchRanking.

The Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI) is a measure of how effective a keyword is for your web site. The derivation of the formula for KEI is based on three axioms:

The KEI for a keyword should increase if its popularity increases. Popularity is defined as the number present in the "Count" column of WordTracker. This axiom is self-explanatory.
The KEI for a keyword should decrease if it becomes more competitive. Competitiveness is defined as the number of sites which a search engine e.g. a search engine displays when you search for that keyword using exact match search. Exact match search means that a search engine searches for only those sites which use the keyword exactly as typed in by the user. It is the equivalent of entering:
```
“quiz shows online”
```
Partial match search means that a search engine also searches for sites which contain the individual words of the keyword but not necessarily occurring together or in the order typed in by the user. It is the equivalent of entering:
```
quiz shows online
```
Partial match search presents a distorted picture of the competitiveness of a keyword because when you optimize your site for a particular keyword, you are actually competing with sites which have used the keyword exactly as typed in by the user.

So to clarify, competitiveness is defined as the number of sites which a search engine displays when you search for that keyword using exact match search, that is with quotes surrounding the term. Rather than those web sites returned when entering the phrase only partially, that is without quotes.
If a keyword becomes more popular and more competitive at the same time such that the ratio between its popularity and competitiveness remains the same, its KEI should increase. The rationale behind this axiom requires a more detailed explanation. The best way to do this is to take an example:

Suppose the popularity of a keyword is 4 and a search engine displays 100 sites for that keyword. Then the ratio between popularity and competitiveness for that keyword is 4/100 = 0.04. Suppose that both the popularity and the competitiveness of the keyword increases. Assume that the popularity increases to 40 and a search engine now displays 1000 sites for that keyword. Then the ratio between popularity and competitiveness for that keyword is 40/1000 = 0.04. Hence, the keyword has the same ratio between popularity and competitiveness as before. However, as is obvious, the keyword would be far more attractive in the second case. If the popularity is only 4, there's hardly any point in spending time trying to optimize your site for it even though you have a bigger chance of ending up in the top 30 since there are only 100 sites which are competing for a top 30 position. Each unique visit is no doubt important, but from a cost-benefit angle, the keyword is hardly a good choice. However, when the popularity increases to 40, the keyword becomes more attractive even though its competitiveness increases. Although it is now that much more difficult to get a top 30 ranking, spending time in trying to do so is worthwhile from the cost benefit viewpoint.

A good KEI must satisfy all the 3 axioms. Let P denote the popularity of the keyword and C the competitiveness.

The formula that we have chosen is KEI = (P^2/C), i.e. KEI is the square of the popularity of the keyword and divided by its competitiveness. This formula satisfies all the 3 axioms:
1. If P increases, P^2 increases and hence KEI increases. Hence, Axiom 1 is satisfied.
2. If C increases, KEI decreases and hence, Axiom 2 is satisfied.
3. If P and C both increase such that P/C is the same as before, KEI increases since KEI can be written as KEI = (P^2/C) = (P/C * P). Since P/C remains the same, and P increases, KEI must increase. Hence, Axiom 3 is satisfied.
Note that the formula for KEI is not unique. In fact, this is one of the nice things about the KEI. If, instead of using 2, you use any power of P greater than 1, the resultant formula will also satisfy the 3 axioms. For example, (P^1.5/C) and (P^3/C) both satisfy the 3 axioms. The exact power of P that you choose depends on how much emphasis you want to give to the popularity of a keyword viz-a-viz its competitiveness. Higher the power of P in the formula, higher will be the emphasis on popularity. If you are very confident about your search engine positioning skills, choose a higher value for the power of P.

The Keyword Effectiveness Index was invented by Sumantra Roy. Sumantra is one of the most respected and recognized search engine positioning specialists on the Internet. For free articles and tips on search engine positioning, subscribe to the 1st Search Ranking Newsletter by going to 1stSearchRanking.net.

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Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI) Values

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Sumantra Roy's original article defining Keyword Effectiveness Index values.