Keywords refer to the words or phrases that a web searcher types into the search engine box for the purpose of research. The term “keyword research” is therefore defined as the act of determining those keywords and phrases by which people search for a topic of interest on the Internet, and especially on the search engines. Choice of appropriate keywords is an art, which allows you to optimize your web pages by using those particular words and phrases in the web page copy. Using your target keywords, phrases and search terms renders your web page vulnerable to potential traffic from the search engines, when a particular keyword is ranked high on the search engine results page.
Keyword research is one of the most fundamental components of search engine optimization and marketing. If you want your website to rank high on the major search engines, keyword research and analysis is of utmost importance. Without doing proper keyword research and analysis before starting your online marketing campaign can doom your website to failure. Similarly, targeting the wrong keywords and phrases can ruin your otherwise perfectly planned online business from start.
Now there comes the question of how keyword research is to be carried out?
Keyword research involves a number of steps that need to be undertaken so that you do not end up targeting the wrong keyword phrases.
Brainstorming for appropriate keyword terms is an important part of keyword research. You should put yourself in your potential website visitor’s shoes to come up with relevant keywords that describe your business. This will give you an idea as to what sort of keyword terms would a searcher find for on a search engine in order to have your website or web page displayed to him. Brainstorming also enables you to think of alternate spellings, synonyms etc.
A very important aspect of keyword research is conducting a survey of past and potential website visitors. This will give you an idea of which keyword terms draw the most amount of traffic and produce a high rate of conversion. This is considered to be a good method of expanding your database of keyword phrases.
Process of Keyword Research
Keyword research formally starts with a keyword or phrase that describes your website or online business. If you are an SEO company, you can take an initial list of keywords from your client. From there, you need to expand on the keywords to get a list of related keywords. At this step, it is of vital importance that the list you carry comprises those words that people type in search engines. The more close your keywords are to what people are searching on the search engines, the more likely your campaign will be successful.
Searching your keywords on the search engines can also help you expand your list of keywords. Normally, the results displayed on the first page of search engines use important keywords as well as synonyms and key phrases related to the search term. Adding those keywords to the list can also help expand the list with relevant keywords.
There are several Keyword Research Tools available to carry out Keyword Research conveniently. These tools provide associated data for each keyword, telling the searcher how many times a keyword is searched on the Search Engines every month. They also tell how competitive a keyword is and if it will be difficult to optimize your website for that keyword.
Once you compile the list of keywords, it is time to carry out keyword analysis. In this step, data is analyzed to reveal how many other websites have the same keyword phrases on your web page for a given key word. Keyword Analysis helps identify the competition for a keyword, depending on how many times a keyword is searched by web searchers and the number of queries which are fetched by the search engines for that keyword in the search results.
Use keyword tools available to automatically determine the competition for each keyword for you. These tools will give you information on the number of times web searchers have used a particular search term. You can analyze your keyword trends using keyword research tools.
Before you use keyword tools to make your final list of keywords, there are some important points that must be kept in mind during keyword research:
- Get familiar with the target audience
- Select keywords that have high search volume
- Familiarize with the specific industry terms
- Reach a balance with regards to volume and quality
Some other points to consider include the following:
- General terms are more competitive
- Low volume but very specific keyword can get quality traffic
Keyword Research Tools
When choosing the keywords and keyword phrases you need to have tools. Keyword tools are critical to your success in Internet marketing as they are used to identify what words people are using when searching for something on the Internet. Use of proper keyword tools allows you to optimize your website around relevant specific terms and have less competition. Keyword tools save you money and time.
Most important keyword tools available are:
- Wordtracker: Wordtracker keyword tool lets you start with a search term keyword and display up to 100 related results along with the words daily search volume.
- Keyword suggestion tool: Keyword Suggestion tool helps you find additional keywords related to a base keyword. It returns the number of times a particular keyword phrase or variation of that phrase has been searched for during a particular month. It also helps find terms that are relevant to your website’s particular product or services.
- Google Adwords: Google AdWords keyword tool is a very useful tool to get new keyword ideas. It also allows you to search for keywords by specifying geographical regions.
- Keyword discovery: Keyword Discovery Tool by Trellian is one of the most important keyword research tools that can be used to widen your keyword research.
Long Tail Keywords
Long tail keywords are those 3 to 4 word long specific keyword phrases that people search for related to a product or service you are selling. Targeting long tail search phrases is incredibly valuable because people who search for long tail keywords are often at the end of the buying cycle. This means they know what they want and are looking for information to confirm their buying decision and take action.
People who search for long tail search keywords are much more likely to become purchasers because highly targeted search keywords are very often likely to result in a sales conversion. Searching for long tail keywords is an action frequently taken by consumers. That is why it is a strategy you should implement if you want to maximize the amount of revenue your website generates. Targeting long tail keywords effectively puts you at the end to capture the hungry buyer by offering your product, or an affiliate link.
Once your keyword Research is complete, you can move on to identify the different landing pages on your website which you will be using to target all those keywords. It is essential to group different words together to target on the different web pages.
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