What is Keyword Research? – How to do Keyword Research Without Banging Your Head On a Wall

First of All, What are Keywords?

Simply put, keywords are the words that people type into a search engine when performing a search. A keyword describes a website’s intent for its visitors. Targeting a keyword that has nothing to do with your site can be costly for your online business. A keyword can be a single word, phrase, or a concept used to rank in the search engines. They can either be directly related to the topic, a single word or a phrase like “best weight loss programs” to rank in the search engines.

Almost all traffic starts with a keyword, whether you are article marketing, ranking content for your website, or using them for pay per click marketing. Your success will depend on how relevant a keyword is to your product and your how well you understand your audience. Internet marketers refer to keywords as broad or long tailed.

Broad VS Long Tailed Keywords

Okay, so what are broad and long tailed keywords? Broad keywords are general keywords that people type into search engines and it’s not very specific or targeted like the terms “weight loss,” “make money” and “dating”. These are the keywords that you want to use to describe your website and you should try to rank for them once you have targeted the more specific (long tailed) keywords.

Long tailed keywords consist of about six or seven words and are more targeted towards a specific audience or a need. For example, “how to lose weight fast for women,” and “how to make a guy want you” are excellent examples. Long tailed keywords are marketers preferred keywords for a good reason and that’s because these keywords are closer to a customer making a sale or looking to solve a problem. For example, “Brazilian Butt Lift Reviews” would be an excellent example of a buyer type of keyword. We also have a better understanding of who our audience is and hopefully, that’s woman  These keywords that consist of a specific product name and the word review means that a customer is closer to making a purchase.

Once you find your main keyword, you create specific and quality honest information based on what details they want to know about that product including testimonials and your personal experience with that product. If you don’t own the product, then you can leverage information from other sources.

The Importance of Knowing Your Keywords

According to internetlivestats.com, there are currently 2.9 billion internet users in the world with the highest number of users being from China and the United States. That’s currently 40% of the world’s population with the most popular search engines being Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask.

These search engines read the words on a page with a computer program also knows as a spider, bot or crawler which can only read words and not images or videos. If we know what keywords to use, we can place ourselves right in front of them and increase our traffic and sales.

What is Keyword Research and Why is it So important for SEO?

Keyword research is the process of researching targeted keywords that have a decent amount of searches and a low amount of competition. This is important because you must not assume that you know what your target audience wants. You want to make a website that has high quality information based on what interest your target audience.

If you’re targeting the wrong keywords, no one is going to find you. By being able to understand and really master the keyword research process, you will be on your way to creating a successful website. Almost every online transaction starts with a search and being able to target and rank for search terms allows to attract an endless amount of traffic whenever you want.

A Formula for Keyword Success

Relevant Keyword that leads to a Relevant Page or Content = SUCCESS ($$$$)

The Problem with Different Keyword Tools

Doing keyword research can be very time consuming using the Google AdWords Keyword Planner because it doesn’t give the exact competition. You have to enter the keyword in quotes in the Google search bar, click search, and click your way to the last page to find the exact competition for a keyword. Not only that, but it’s confusing to use, doesn’t show broad or phrase match searches, they reduced their features and you must have a Google AdWords account to be able to use it.

There Must Be a Better Tool

The Keyword Spy is $90 a month and the Moz Keyword Difficulty is $99 a month- not exactly cheap in my opinion.

 

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Ideally, to save yourself a lot of time and money, I recommend you use either the WA keyword tool or Jaaxy. The WA keyword tool outlines the competition, allows you to “dig” for more relevant keywords, and gives article marketing and PPC metrics. The WA keyword tool also allows you to store your list for easy reference. Jaaxy pulls data from all the major search engines, and within a couple of seconds, you have a lot of profitable and relevant keywords that are ready to rank in the search engines.

How to Do Keyword Research for SEO

When doing keyword research, it’s better to start out with a broad keyword because it’s easier to think of and it allows you to discover various keywords that you might not have come up with. To find keywords, enter a broad keyword that is relevant to your niche. This can be using Google’s AdWords keyword planner, Ehow, wikiHow, Yahoo Answers, or Ubersuggest. In just minutes, you can have a handful of awesome and targeted “solution” type keywords words that will typically have a small amount of competition.

You can also type your keyword in the Google search bar and Google will reveal a list of keywords for you using Google Instant that is much more updated as keyword data can be a month delayed. The only down side is that is also gives terms that don’t get searches, but the important thing is leveraging every keyword possibility.

Once you have your list of keywords, type them in your favorite keyword tool and analyze the number of searches and the amount of competition. The competition of a keyword is the most important factor to look at. Ideally, you want about 50 or more searches and less than 400 competing pages- the less competition you have, the better it is to rank on the first page of Google. Ranking under 10 terms that get at least 50 searches a month is roughly 500 free visitors to your website.

To find out more about how to do keyword/niche research for search engine optimization, I suggest you check out my article on What is a Niche? – 5 Ways to Find a Profitable HOT Niche and Search Engine Optimization Mastery-12 On and Off Page SEO Strategies. These articles will give you ideas on how to find a profitable keyword and how to do prepare your website to rank in the search engines.

Finding profitable keywords and starting a successful online business is not hard when you’re equipped with the right tools and training.

To Your Success,