Everyday, hundreds and millions of Internet users access the Internet in search of something they need or want. Billions of content from websites all around the World Wide Web are found by searchers because of the role search engines play in sorting through and indexing the pages of these sites.  One of the process of sorting and indexing these sites is determining the topic or theme within each web page.  Keywords play a huge role in determining topic or theme.  This is why keyword research is one key strategy used in search engine optimization (SEO). 

Think of the right keywords as the “Open Sesame!” of the Internet. Finding exactly the right words or phrases together with on page optimization and off page optimization tactics, and presto! Hoards of traffic will be pulling up to your front door. But if your keywords are too general or too over-used, the possibility of visitors actually making it all the way to your site or even seeing any real profits from the visitors that do arrive - decreases dramatically.

'Keyword Research is Discovering The Words Your Customer Uses When Searching For Your Products or Services'

Keyword research is very important if you want your website optimized for the search engines. Putting it simply, do you want surfers on the Internet to find your products and services when they key in related keywords on the major search engines like Google™, Yahoo™ and MSN™.? If you answered, “Yes”! Then it is really important to do keyword research, because it is one factor that the major search engines look for when they index your web page for the correct searchable keywords.

What is keyword research?

Keyword research is the core of any Search Engine Optimization (SEO) campaign.  Keyword research is the process of finding and selecting keywords or keyword phrases, which relate to your web page and are commonly entered on the search engines by Internet surfers.

When it comes to getting free traffic from the search engines, it is important to keep in mind that they look for keywords to show on their result pages when listing web pages. This is the reason why you need to do keyword research to ensure you rank for the correct and related keyword phrases for your web page.

Why apply keyword research?

• Keyword research will provide you with keywords and keyword phrases that are used by Internet surfers to find the products or services you offer online.

• Keyword research gives you a list of keywords and keyword phrases that you should use on your web page to help search engines determine what the web page is all about. Hence, the search engine indexes the web page accordingly.

• Keyword research also provides your business insight on customer’s behavior for your market research. It lets you know what words your potential clients use when searching for your services or products you offer.

• Keyword research can also give you how much volume of searches are executed for your products and services by the keywords you select.  This provides you an insight of the market demand.

Tips on How to Do Keyword Research

• Focus on one web page at a time.

• Brainstorm keywords and keyword phrases for your targeted web page. Think of word phrases that you and others would use on the search engine to find your products and services and make a list.

• Take your above list and use Google's free keyword tools  to get more suggested keyword phrases.  

• Avoid choosing keywords that are too general in nature, choose more specific keyword phrases. Example, a vague keyword phrase is "dog training". A more specific keyword phrase are "dog training ebook", “dog training guide” and “dog trainer in Toronto”. Even more targeted and specific keywords are “bulldog training guide” and “licensed dog trainer in Toronto”.

• Group your keyword phrases that are similar in nature. For example, “dog training ebook” and “dog training guide” are similar. But, “dog training ebook and “dog trainer in Toronto” are different.

• For each web page assign only 2 to 3 keyword phrases to focus on.  Make sure the keyword phrases are similar in nature.  If you would like to use more than 3 keyword phrases, then we recommend you develop another web page to optimize for those keyword phrases.

• Develop or modify your current web page content and incorporate your keyword phrases within your content. Your content must remain well written to attract your visitors to continue reading it, but you also need to strategically place your keywords within your web page so search engine algorithms can determine what your web page is about.  Our next article "Writing Content For Search Engines" will cover this topic more in depth, so make sure you get into our mailing list.  The sign up form is available below.