Keyword Research 101 – Where to Begin?

Why is Keyword Research so important?
How do you find the right keywords?
Which keyword research tool is best?

Without understanding the importance of keyword research your online business will not be successful. For instance when I started marketing my web design business by writing articles and submitting them to online publications I wondered why I wasn’t receiving much traffic. Only when I began weaving keywords into my content that people were searching on did my traffic increase.

Understanding the importance of keywords

Search engines find your website based on the keywords contained in the content. For example if someone types “how to write an effective article” in the Google search box my article appears at the top of the page out of 255,000,000 other results. This is because the article contains the keyword phrase “how to write an effective article” in the title, meta tags and many people have linked to it from their website.

If you gain first page rankings for the specific keyword or keyword phrase you used in your website content you’ll attract lots much more traffic than if your website ranked on the 5th page. The more competitive your niche is the harder it is to achieve high rankings.

The importance of finding long tail keywords

With millions of websites on the Net and 1000s more coming online every day there’s a high probability you’ll have many competitors in your niche. Long tail keywords refer to keyword phrases containing 2 or more words as illustrated in my example “how to write an effective article”

Long tail research is crucial to your online success because you have less competition from other websites and it gives you a much better chance of getting high rankings in the search engines. Also long tail keywords generate much higher conversions than general keywords.

How to find the right keywords to use in your content

This is where a keyword tool comes in very handy. It sorts through millions of keywords in its database and displays the keywords people are using to find information about a specific topic. It will show you how many people searched on that keyword each month and how competitive it is. For example if I enter “how to write an effective article” in Google’s free keyword research tool it displays:

Global Monthly Searches………..260
Local Monthly Searches…………110
Competition…………………..Low

This means 260 people Googled this keyword phrase globally, 110 Googled it locally and it has relatively little competition.

Here’s another example:

A keyword research tool will help you identify:

• the most relevant keywords and keyword phrases in your niche
• the level of competition (how many people are trying to rank for the same keyword)
• the number of people searching on that keyword each month
• the amount that keyword would cost per click if you were running a pay per click campaign
• the potential traffic you would receive to your website from these search terms

A study in long tail research revealed that for any topic the top 100 keywords account for just 5.7% of all website traffic, while long tail keywords account for the remaining 94.3%. That’s why it’s very important to use a keyword research tool to discover those low competition keyword phrases.

Which keyword tool is best?

Even though the Google Keyword Research Tool is free it has many limitations. Here are a few:

• Only generates 100 keywords for every search. This dramatically limits your ability to find valuable long tail terms and phrases.
• Gives you no idea of how much competition you have. It only says the competition is high or low.
• Google’s Help Center is primarily orientated toward people who already have AdWords accounts.

The keyword tool I personally use and recommend is:
Market Samurai (paid and free trial)

Watch the Video Below to see
How Market Samurai Easily Finds Long Tail Keywords

Related Articles
Keyword Research – Irrelevant Keywords Can Be Costly
SEO Rankings: How to Outrank Your Competitors in the Search Engines
How To Research The Market Value Of Any Keyword
SEO 101 – How To Begin A Search Engine Optimization Campaign
How to Choose the Right Niche to Start an Online Business

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