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Keyword Research – First on Your List

Written by: Adam Lotz

Article Overview: Keyword research is a practice used by search engine optimization professionals to find and research actual search terms people enter into the search engines when conducting any queries. Keyword research should be the first step in any SEO campaign. Finding the perfect keywords for your specific niche or industry is a must.

Keyword Research – First on Your List

Keyword research is a practice used by search engine optimization professionals to find and research actual search terms people enter into the search engines when conducting any queries.
Keyword research should be the first step in any SEO campaign. Finding the perfect keywords for your specific niche or industry is a must.

Without knowing which keywords you want to target, you won’t be able to write any content for your website. When you write content first and then research your keywords second, you probably will have to plug those keywords into your written content, wasting your valuable optimization time.
Finding the right keywords to target can be quite a process:

Firstly, you need to research your industry and find out what keywords or phrases people are using to search for the products and services in your industry. Luckily for us, Google provides you with a free keyword research tool that will give you a pretty accurate average based on current keyword searches. When using this Keyword tool, you will also have to research which country or countries will be the target market for your product or service.
It doesn’t end here though. When you know which keywords and market will be targeted, you will have to refine your keywords to the industry and accommodate it with the product/service specific keywords. Targeting the key phrase “Cape Town Travel” when you have a Cape Town accommodation site simply won’t do. This keyword is too generic, and will not bring in the desired or potential client i.e. someone who is looking to book accommodation in Cape Town.
There are many more aspects to consider when researching possible keywords for your site such as:
• Branding Perceptions - Many company leaders and CEO’s have their own interpretation of how they want their brand to be portrayed and ostensibly perceived online.
• Existing Brands - If a company decides to sell Nike trainers online, the market is already highly competitive, and the Nike brand itself is predominant.
• Geographic targeting - Depending on what a company sells or offers, overlooking the likelihood of the inclusion of geographical locations in the search query may be highly detrimental.
• Long Tail Keywords - The long tail in keyword research is basically an expansion of a core, generic and high volume keyword phrase which includes numerous combinations and permutations of the keywords and their associated or relevant phrases.

Simply put, there is much more to keyword research than just choosing the keywords that you would search for and then hastily plugging that keyword everywhere into your site. So when you build your new site, Keyword research should be the first thing you do.

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Article Tags: accommodation in cape town, book accommodation in cape town, cape town accommodation, cape town travel, company leaders, free keyword research, free keyword research tool, google, keyword research tool, keyword searches, niche, nike, nike trainers, perceptions, phrases, queries, search engine optimization, search engines, search terms, target market



Related Forum Posts
Re: What I'm reading this weekend - Feb 18, 2011 - Hi Evan, Thank you for a great list as usual, I haven't had the chance until now to read them as I spent all yesterday helping my father to re-build half of his house (or it seemed that way,LOL) I will make a start reading them today and I particularly like the look of Keyword Research in Google Webmaster Tools, thanks again, Mal.
Most Useful SEO Tools For Webmasters - Hi, My name is Jeff, I work for WebBizIdeas.com and we are developing an article called "50 Most Useful SEO Tools for Webmasters." We have ranked & listed our top 30 SEO Tools but want to get your opinion on what SEO Tools are most useful to you; as Internet Business Owners. Google Webmaster Tools Google Analytics Google Alerts Yahoo Site Explorer SEOBook.com Keyword Research SEOBOOK.com SEO For Firefox Tool SEOBOOK.com Search Engine Rank Checker SEOBOOK.com Back Link Analyzer SEOChat.com Keyword Difficulty Compete.com Quantcast.com Alexa.com Archive.org Stompernet Site Seer Technorati.com PRWEB.com ADDTHIS.com SHARETHIS.com EzineArticles.com Scribd.com Squidoo.com YouTube.com StumbleUpon.com Reddit.com Digg.com Del.icio.us Wikipedia.org Flickr.com NewsVine.com Yahoo Answers NOTE: When you list your answers please include a description on what the site is, why it is important to you, and your experience please....we may include it in our article. Jeff
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


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