Keyword research is the most important step to take before creating a site or even purchasing a domain because you want to incorporate keywords in the domain.

Many newbies starting in web site marketing neglect keyword research totally or complete only basic research by guessing what keyword to rank for and checking how many searches per month are performed for it. This tactic is insufficient if you desire to succeed. Target the incorrect keyword and you’ll end up wondering why you have no traffic.

So how do you do keyword research?

The most precise keyword research tool is https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal This tool is recommended since statistics are specific to google, the undeniable search engine leader with 90% of overall searches.

Create a worksheet for your research. Label your columns: Searches, Keyword, Competition, Allintitle and Allinurl

Here is an explanation of each heading:
1. Searches: Monthly searches for the specific keyword/keyphrase
2. Keyword: The actual keyword or keyphrase
3. Competition: The number of pages targeting that particular keyword
4. Allintitle: The number of sites targeting the keyword in their title.
5. Allinurl: The amount of pages with the keyword in their domain name

The first two columns of information come directly from the Google tool. The other three columns are researched on google by performing the following searches.

To ascertain competition carry out a search for your keyword with quotes (“) around it (example. “Weight loss”). Google will return results from websites targeting the exact keyword/keyphrase. This filters out sites targeting ‘weight’ or ‘loss’ only. Enter the amount of results generated in the competition column beside the keyword. This figure is found at the top right hand side of the browser window.

To discover how many websites include a keyword in their titles carry out an allintitle search. The format for this is allintitle:your keyword. Exchange ‘your keyword’ with the keyword you want data for. Enter the number of results returned into the allintitle column next to the keyword.

To perform an allinurl search use the format ‘allinurl:your keyword’ and enter the corresponding number of results in the allinurl column

Why investigate allintitle and allinurl? Because utilizing primary keywords in the title and URL is an extremely valuable factor in gaining good rankings with search engines for those keywords. Ultimately, you should use principal keywords in both. If our targeted keyword appears in the URL of 4000 sites then that is the highest number of competitors we have to compete with. Including the keyword in both URL and title puts your site in front of most other sites in terms of on-page SEO.

Which Keywords should you Target?

It depends how much SEO practice you have which keywords you should target. It’s simpler to rank for low competition keywords. Inexperienced marketers should seek out keywords with fewer than 20,000 results in the allinurl column. This makes it easier to outrank competitors. This might look like a cop-out. However, sites that rank well for lower competition keywords will find it easier to rank for related high competition keywords.

It’s vital that traffic be laser focused to enhance conversion. For example: A site promoting GPS systems shouldn’t specifically target ‘GPS systems’ because it has considerable competition making it tough to rank for. Furthermore, a person searching for ‘GPS systems’ is most likely in research stage. A person searching for ‘Tom Tom GO 930 prices’ is considerably more targeted since it indicates that they are in purchasing phase. Of course, ‘buy Tom Tom GO 930′ is even better! Although far fewer people will search for that term, those who do are in purchasing stage. It’s better to seize them in buying mode than in research mode!

Don’t aim at general keywords that have more searches because that exposes you to more opposition. You need traffic that converts to sales. As you gain SEO skill and your site gains reputation (i.e. Google pagerank) you can target high competition keywords. If you purchase PPC (pay per click) traffic from search engines it’s crucial to target converting keywords.

Two factors determine the best keywords to target:

1. The amount of searches (higher is better)
2. The amount of opposition (lower is better)

Try to obtain keywords with both of these factors. Balance is the crucial factor here. Each webpage ought to target one primary keyword and contain several associated keywords. Try to target combination keywords that contain more than one keyword like ‘online marketing techniques’ which targets three keywords including; online marketing techniques, online marketing and marketing techniques. While two word keyphrases have increased opposition making them harder to rank for, using them means you won’t have to insert them later on when you do want to rank for them.

These methods are especially important if you are trying to learn how to make money online

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Tags: how to make money online

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This entry was posted on Saturday, October 31st, 2009 at 12:45 am and is filed under SEO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.