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SEO and Keyword Selection

Written by: Pasquale Spadafora

Article Overview: Keyword research and selection play a major role in search engine optimization because it reveals and helps us understand how people are finding your website. In fact, this aspect of SEO is so important that the choices made surrounding keywords can make or break a campaign.

SEO and Keyword Selection

The backbone of every successful search engine optimization campaign is choosing the right keywords that relate to your business. Researching and applying the right keywords will increase the amount qualified web traffic to your site from the search engines. Focusing on the wrong ones will target the wrong people, making converting visitors into buyers a sales nightmare.

There's more to keyword selection then just choosing the terms that are most often searched. Any good Internet marketing campaign will include a variety of high-, medium-, and low-traffic search terms that clearly describe the objectives and content of your website.

How do you pick the right keywords for your SEO campaign?


Three Steps to Keyword Selection

There are three steps that will help you choose the right keywords for your website:

• Think like your customers. If someone had to find your site on Google, what words or phrases would they use? Look for words you think your customers would use to describe your product or service. However, if your website belongs to a specific industry avoid using jargon.

• Research your keywords. There are many keyword tools that are available to research keywords for your particular domain. These tools can not only provide suggestions, but also reveal its popularity and competitiveness. Below you’ll find a list of the most popular keyword tools online.

• Be specific. Your keywords should not be overly broad. The more descriptive and specific your keywords the more qualified traffic you’ll receive. Using targeted keywords or a particular search phrase will increase your chances of appearing on atop the search results.


Keyword Research Tools

Of the many online keyword tools that exist, the ones below provide a good idea of what keywords are being used to find products and information related to your business.

Wordtracker (www.wordtracker.com) is perhaps the most well known keyword research tool. The free trial system shows you the number of times a keyword, and some variations thereof, was searched for in the previous month. A Wordtracker membership offers much more extensive results.

Google has become synonymous with search. So it's no surprise that the AdWords Keyword Tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) is perhaps one of the more useful online research tools. Although the Keyword Tool is designed to help AdWords advertisers, it does offer keyword variations and synonyms that can be useful to include in your SEO campaign.

The Keyword Generator at MIVA offers results for what Europeans use most to search.

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Article Tags: AdWords Keyword Tool https, business, business, Google, Google, Internet marketing campaign, keyword research tool, Keyword Research Tools, keyword selection, Keyword Selection, Keyword Tool, research tools, search engine optimization, search engines, search phrase, traffic search, web traffic, Wordtracker



Related Forum Posts
Re: Keyword Selection - Hi All, Very interesting topic of discussion! Website success mainly depends upon the target keywords so the keywords should be relevant to website theme. Long tail keywords often rank easily in SERP. You can also use Ad word Keyword tool for keyword selection. Keyword having less competition and high monthly search volume are easy to rank.
Re: Best Internet Marketing Strategies - I'd disagree with the first point. Keyword research is important, but it should not be the complete focus when doing niche research. A niche is typically made up of thousands of keywords, and researching them all is very difficult, because the keyword tools won't tell you what most of them are. Plus a niche is not a bunch of keywords, it is a demographic interested in a particular topic. You need to learn about the people in this demographic. Keyword research tells you their search habits and gives clues to competitiveness and potential profit, but you are looking at through a very narrow window of a much bigger picture.
Re: New SEO Tool from WordStream - Looks like a new one. Need to explore for its intuitiveness. I use IBP and Keyword elite. Thanks Robert
Re: New Video - Make Money Online Selling Advertising - Hi Evan, I thought I'd been a bit dumb, but when I checked the Google Keyword Tool today I couldn't find the CPC info, so thanks for mentioning that I need to turn it on!
Re: How To Pick Keywords To Rank For - Hi Anelly, You can also use the Google Keyword Tool to get # of searches per month for each keyword. I find it to be the most accurate measure because it's using Google's actual data.


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