Keyword research is the first step towards a profitable search engine optimization(SEO) campaign. You have to be very particular when selecting keywords, as it can be very tricky to decide on targeted keywords for a website.

The selection of keywords ought to constantly be based on various aspects,  such as product names, services, brands, or broad terms. Often times, we overlook targeting geographical terms as we have a worldwide presence.

Research your market

Whilst doing keyword research, it is strongly recommended that you do a very thorough market research analysis to obtain the top keywords used by search engines to get products and services online – and find out what keywords are targeted by your competitors who are doing well in marketing on the internet.

The primary step in finding the top keywords is to create a list of the products, topics, and services that you offer. Also be sure to use your website log files to understand which keywords have brought you the traffic in the past.

Be sure to opt for keywords so as to evidently describe your business and products to drive traffic from the search engines. There are several websites which find high levels of traffic through broad keywords although they might not end up being sales.

Nowadays, users of search engines understand how they operate – for searching for products and services on the net. Users continually search for the better products, locations, etc. Therefore, you should cover all terms for all products and locations, etc.

Keyword Tools

There are numerous tools accessible which will help you identify keywords that are appropriate for search engines. My favourite on would have to be Keyword Elite

The challenge now, is to determine which keyword is the best to generate traffic.

Keyword research is one of the keys to effective Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), yet so few people ever take the time to learn how to effectively use it. For your website to rank highly, and to drive traffic to your site, you need to find not only keywords, but keywords that people are searching for.

It doesn’t help to be on the first page of google for a keyword that no one searches for.

First, you need to find out what keywords you would like to target. Next, find any related keywords. You can do this with the google keyword tool, wordtracker, or, my favourite, Keyword Elite. It is a good idea to compare results from multiple keyword research tools, as no one will give you the perfect answer. Remember to always test, compare and measure.

If you are doing keyword research to improve your page rank on the search engines, then it is important to find out your competition. You could search for other pages that use your keywords in their title, or anchor as a start. One way is to type allinanchor:keyword into google, this will return all the pages with your keyword in the anchor text. Keyword Elite has an inbuilt search for inanchor and intitlein the Market Sleuth tool, which will return the same information. This information will give you an idea of how much competition is out there for that search term.

Once you find a keyword which is has a higher search volume, but lower competition, then you will also want to research all the pages returned on the first page of google, finding out how many links they have, etc. Knowing this information will help you to move your webpage up the rankings in no time at all.

Find out more about Keyword Elite, or get your FREE copy of Adwords Made Easy – its FREE!