Keyword Research Part 1

Keyword research is one of the most important aspects of creating a successful website. By selecting the proper keywords you are building a strong foundation on which to build your marketing, advertising, and link building campaign. In the next few paragraphs I will go over a few tips and tools that can make selecting keywords a little less painless.

When thinking about what keywords for your website, think about words that people would type in to find your product and/or topic. What is your audience trying to accomplish and what are they going to ask? Write a list of words you think answer these questions. Don’t be afraid to be broad with your keywords, don’t be too specific.

Once you have this list, you can do further research by using tools that are available online for free. Try using Google Suggest. This can help you find more terms that people might be searching for to find your topic. From here I would start doing a bit of manual research.

Start typing in a few of the keywords into Google, take note of how many results were found, and research the sites that are in the top 5 or 10. Are they top level domains? Do they seem optimized for this keyword? What is their link popularity? This is where you can size up the competition and see what keywords you think you can compete for.

From there I start using keyword research tools. Many of these tools will show you information about how many times a month they are searched. For your convenience I’ve listed a few below:

http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/keyword-suggestion-tool.html
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
http://www.nichewatch.com/
http://keywords.freehostia.com/

To decide on what keywords you want to target, consider a few things. How many times does it get searched for a month? The more the better. Does it rank well? If it does, then even with low search numbers, it could produce a good amount of targeted visitors. Can you make money? If you know you have an affiliate campaign or advertising opportunity that fits a certain keyword then capitalize on that by using the keyword.

With any luck, at this point you should have a list of keywords which you think will be productive. From here we will develop search phrases and then finally decide on which phrases/keywords we you will ultimately be targeting. I hope you found this helpful in selecting keywords for your next project.

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Related Posts:
Ranking in the SERPs - Part 1 - Keyword Selection
Keyword Research Part 2
Ranking in the SERPs - Part 3 - Tips & Techniques