keyword-researchKeyword research is just one of many factors which determines the outcome of your effort to a successful online business. Though it’s just one, it is quite a significant one.

Screw up your keyword research and you will almost guarantee your own failure of getting anything you hoped for from your website with regard to visibility in search engines, targeted traffic and hence your online business.

So, what does it take to get the best keywords for your website to be picked up by your audience, especially through search engines? Well, for one, you need to select a keyword that is being searched by people through search engines.

And how do you know what keywords are being searched for and how much is it being searched? To start with, there are a few good places on the internet that can provide you with just that.

You can get them at the wordtracker site or the one from Google itself: the google keyword tool. These are a few of the most visible and common keyword tools on the internet. Oh, and did I mention they’re also free to use?

You can check them out at:

wordtracker

http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/

google

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Of course there are several other online keyword research tools that are also quite very popular, however I’m confident that you can find them yourself because they’re already so popular … ok … here’s another one:

seobook

http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook/

So there, as you can see, you can get the information of how much each keyword is being searched for quite easily using a keyword research tool. But it is important for you to know that keyword research doesn’t stop there. Definitely not!

Besides the searches, you also need to know how much competition there is for each keyword. Unfortunately most of the free keyword research tools do not provide you with this information specifically.

The Google Keyword Tool has an indication bar that represents the relative competition for a given keyword however it does not show the specific numbers; and that’s about there is on competition ‘data’.

relative-competition

Relative Competition

However there is a way to find out manually. Google and the other search engines provide this information and shows them on their search result pages. So, you can find out manually by going to Google search and typing in the keyword in question with quotation marks, eg. such as “dog training”. This will give out the number of webpages out there which mention the phrases that matches the query within the quotes specifically.

serp-number-pages

SERP number of pages

Competition can be an indication of a good market or niche. However, in this case you are researching the number of competing pages for your keyword. Naturally you will want to settle for the lowest competition as possible with this regard in hope that you can get into a prominent ranking in the search engines relatively easier.

The number of competing pages alone does not necessarily mean that your keyword is guaranteed to trigger a sale or conversion by itself. There are many factors that determine and make up such conversion, but one basic information you need to get before proceeding is checking out the commerciality of your keyword.

One way you can find out quite easily is by doing a search in the sponsored links for your keyword: you will get to see the ads that people or companies are putting up for the keyword phrase. Remember, these are people or companies who pay to get their ads up. So, this can be a good indication of commerciality.

Getting this kind of information is the first step towards a proper keyword research process, but don’t get quite comfortable just yet as just mentioned: this is just the first step and keyword research doesn’t stop there either. Check out part two of the upcoming post to find out more about keyword research.

 

Keyword Research (1) – Importance
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5 thoughts on “Keyword Research (1) – Importance

  • 2010-01-08 at 13:33
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    Your Keyword analytics leave no scope for error. A right keyword can be the difference between the flow of traffic and its drying up.

  • 2010-01-09 at 11:53
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    With the innovations that surround internet marketing, the online marketers should keep basics always in focus. A right keyword is elementary basic.

  • 2010-01-15 at 10:51
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    I think keyword research is the sine qua non of any successful venture on the net. Things can get rolling only with a well-based understanding of that.

  • 2012-05-31 at 18:49
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    I’m with you on the importance of keyword research. I suppose the relative competition you mentioned actually can be quantified by simply counting the number of ads shown in the search results page in the ‘sponsored’ area. Yes it takes more effort, but it’s worth for potential keywords that you aim for your business. Right? 🙂

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