Keyword Research is vital to any effective search engine optimization campaign. If you optimize your site for the wrong keywords you could miss out on lots of traffic and potential customers that are trying to find what you do.
I have broken up the keyword research process into phases to make it easy to understand.
1. Initial Keyword List: To start your keyword research you want to list keywords, phrases, and terms that you feel people would use to find you. Since you probably have a pretty good idea about your industry, you could probably come up with 5-10 keywords that people would use to find you. That list that you just created will act as a starting point to find other keywords and phrases that you may have missed or didn’t think about.
2. Analytics Data: If possible, look through your analytics data to see which keywords people used to find you. Ideally if you have goals set up, for example, you are tracking a thank you page on your contact form, sort your keywords by contact forms submitted. This will help you find keywords that most importantly converted to leads or sales.
3. Keyword Research Tool: There are plenty of good keyword research tools that you can use to find additional terms, along with their search volume. Even some of the free keyword tools out there are almost, or as powerful, as the paid tools. Put your initial keyword list into these keyword tools and they will generate a huge list of related terms that you can add to your master keyword list.
4. Analyze Your Master Keyword List: Once you have come up with your master keyword list, find the words that are most relevant to what you do and the content on your site. Use those keyword tools to see how often each of those terms are actually being searched.
5. Implementing those Keywords: Once you have come up with your list and possibly tested them, you can then optimize your site for those keywords. Use those keywords in your title tags, meta tags, throughout your content, links, etc…
Here are some Free Keyword Research Tools
1 Google Adwords: Keyword Tool
2 SEO Book’s: Keyword Suggestion Tool
3 WordTracker’s: Free Keyword Suggestion Tool
These are just a few tips for your Keyword Research do you have any of your own that you can add? I would love to hear from you so we can share with others!
To your success
Thanks for reading
Pauline
This post was written by
I am an English lady living on a Greek island.
I love to blog and help others who are just starting out, my two main niches are List Building and Affiliate Marketing
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Ian Clarke
Twitter: IanDClarke
says:
Very interesting post Pauline. I didn’t realise you could find out which keywords were used to find a site.
Ian Clarke recently posted..Creating a WordPress Blog
Pauline says:
Hi Ian
Thanks for stopping by to visit my blog
Yes you can find out lots of data regarding Keywords, I use Google Analytics for mine and you can find all sorts of information, from there you can change keywords where necessary to improve your SEO!
Have a great day
Pauline
Alex from hostinghub says:
I was always bad in generating keywords. When I am writing some posts for my site I realized that I am so obsessed about keywords that I lose my style of writing. I decide for myself that I would generate my keywords naturally. Great tips!
Pauline says:
Hi Alex
It is easy to get a little lost when we are trying to get things right, I was always bad at generating keywords when I first started but learnt from others that it is important for our business.
Thanks for stopping by, hope you have a great day!
Pauline
Ilka Flood
Twitter: ilkaflood
says:
Hi Pauline,
This is excellent information! I use the Google Keyword Tool a lot. As a matter of fact, I bring it up every time I write a blog post. And I have started to pay a lot closer attention to my analytics as well. It is very important to know what terms (keywords) people use to find you. It’s the best clue you can get
Thanks for sharing your valuable insights!
Ilka
Ilka Flood recently posted..How do you overcome fear?
Pauline says:
Hi Ilka
I prefer the Google Keyword Tool too, it is a great help! I like how the Google Analytics can tell us so much about our sites, who visit, where from etc etc
Thanks for coming back to visit, have a great day.
Pauline
Gwen Tanner from product creation
Twitter: gwenatanner
says:
I think keyword research is one of my weaknesses! Thanks for the step by step process. It’s good to have a simple, short guide to follow.
Gwen
Gwen Tanner@product creation recently posted..10 MORE Free Tools for Your Product Creation Toolkit
Pauline says:
Hi Gwen
Keyword research can be a bit daunting at first, I know when I first started out I was not good at it but soon realized it is very important to our business
Hope you have a great day
Pauline
Dee Ankary
Twitter: deeankary
says:
Hi Pauline,
I also use SEMRush. The free version shows just a handful of keywords, but what I like is that it also pulls out other sites that organically ranking for that keyword.
On the other hand, if you put in the URL of a website, it will pull out the keywords for which it is already ranking PLUS the competitors (both advertising and organic search) for that keyword.
Another great article – thanks!
Dee
Dee Ankary recently posted..7 Blog Blunders That Kill Traffic
Pauline says:
Hi Dee
I have not heard of SEM Rush thanks for telling me about it, I will take a look at it
Have a great day!
Pauline
sara
Twitter: momwithahook
says:
Still learning how to do key word research. I’ve neglected this for so long but am finding that the more I take the time to do this, the more targeted my traffic becomes.
Now, I need to learn how to use analytics effectively to track goals for specific pages.
sara recently posted..5 Reasons Why Article Templates Work
Pauline says:
Hi Sara
Keyword research takes a little time to get used to but like you say the more time you devote to it you will see results, keep it up and you will see a difference
There is always so much to learn but what I like about the blogging community is we all help each other!
Have a great weekend
Pauline
Jeremy Ruggles
Twitter: jeremyruggles
says:
Hey Pauline,
Keyword research is essential for SEO traffic. You made a very good outline of how to perform keyword research. There are a number of free tools out there that can really help with this. As I see mentioned above, there are plugins for both firefox and google chrome that can help, but also wordtracker.com has a free trial that can help with keyword research.
Another is market samurai which has a free trial and then you can use the keyword research tool forever for free….
Thanks for the great post!
Take care,
~jeremy
Jeremy Ruggles recently posted..How To Not Succeed Online! How You Can Easily Fail With Internet Marketing…
Pauline says:
Hi Jeremy
Thanks for telling me (and my readers) about a couple of other free tools I will check them out
Nice to see you here again, thanks for taking the time to visit.
Hope you have a great weekend
Pauline
Dee Ann Rice
Twitter: deeannrice
says:
Pauline,
Keyword research is very important when doing anything on the internet. I think is a place that I fail to do the best job I can. Probably not the place to be failing.
Your post reminds me that I have to be better about doing my keyword research. I do somethings but am sure I could do more.
Thanks for the reminder.
Dee Ann Rice
Dee Ann Rice recently posted..Monitor Your Pinterest Stats
Pauline says:
Hi Dee Ann
Keyword research can be hard to get around and especially to some who is just starting out so I wrote this in the hope I can be of some help to any newbies out there. I’m glad I also reminded you to think about this too
Have a great day
Pauline