KEI, or Keyword Effectiveness Index, was first used by Sumantra Roy, one of the most respected search engine optimization experts in the internet, of 1st Search Ranking. In a nutshell, KEI is the initial research done for determining your best dropship business keywords by combining data about Competition and Daily World Searches.

Why Use Keyword Effectiveness Index?

The purpose of preliminary keyword research is to get keyword suggestions that are based on your basic keywords. Once you have gotten the suggestions, you can then determine the KEI for each keyword. This is basically how it works: The higher the Keyword Effectiveness Index, the more traffic this keyword should have because your competition for that particular keyword is low and the number of searches done for that keyword every day is high. Armed with the KEI, you can choose from the best suggestions for each of your dropship website pages. This list will provide you with your prime keywords,  secondary and so on.

How to Calculate KEI

To calculate the Keyword Effectiveness Index, use this formula:

KEI = (DS^2/C) = (DS/C * DS), where DS is the number of daily world searches and C is the competition. The KEI ranges from 0 to over 400.

Here is the determination for poor, good and excellent keywords:

• < 0.001 = Poor keyword
• 001-0.010 = Good Keyword
• 010-0.100+ = Excellent Keyword

So if people were searching for the keyword “love for search engine optimization” 300 times last month and Google only showed 100 results, your KEI would be 3 and you would have a much better chance of getting ranked higher by putting “love for search engine optimization” somewhere on your site (make sure you are doing it in a white hat way though).

KEI might be useful for gauging what keywords are popular without much competition but it never gauges the quality of that competition. The competition might have a large SEO team and thousands of back links making it look like you might have a good chance of ranking for a word but then never do.

Problem with Keyword Effectiveness Index

The other problem with using the KEI is how it might not be useful for comparing across all keywords. Since all keywords could be calculated differently and filters can cause huge misrepresentations for some, the validity of the comparison might be called into question.

With the analysis result of the KEI, you will have a clear awareness of which kind of keyword is competitive and popular. And you can choose the best one for your SEO. As we have introduced above, the higher your keywords effectiveness index, the higher you will be in the search results. You are advised to write articles using the keywords that have a higher effective index. And you should add a few tags without spamming. And you are advised to hunt for dofollow backlinks to increase your position in search engines.

Using the KEI is a classic example of working smarter instead of harder. With the keyword knowledge you gain using the KEI, you will be better able to use best SEO practices and the keywords and keyword phrases that will perform the best for your dropship business.
Overall, the KEI is just one tool in many for choosing the right keywords. The right keywords are a must for any optimization campaign. The more tools you have to help you get the best ones to bring your ranking up the better.