Keyword Research – Tips on Finding and Choosing Keywords

June 6, 2009 by Butterfly Filed under: SEO

Keyword research is essential to the success of your online business and finding the right keywords to use can be challenging and time consuming. You can do a lot of keyword research but if you end up using the incorrect words, your online business will constantly struggle to produce a profit.

Understanding Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Effective Search Engine Optimization involves finding keywords that relate to your product or service. Yes, you can easily locate keywords, however you must find the right keywords in order to drive traffic to your website as well as optimize your pay per click ad campaign.

Choosing the Right Keywords

Choosing the right keywords can mean the difference between maximizing your profits and barely breaking even. Keywords will drive traffic to your website but the question you need to ask yourself: Is it the right kind of traffic for my product or service?

For example, you could find keywords related to “work from home” but you need to know what your prospects are specifically searching for when they type in “work from home.” The term “work from home” could mean anything from finding products to sell so you can work from home to finding actual jobs that allow you to work from home.

By using the term “work from home” it is very likely that the traffic you are driving to your website will not be the targeted traffic who will specifically be interested in your product or service. By getting more specific with your keywords, you are pre-qualifying visitors who will sincerely be interested in what you have to offer.

Brainstorming Keywords

To brainstorm the keywords that are appropriate for your product or service, you want to begin with general keywords that relate to your type of business.

Referring back to the “work from home” keyword phrase, the term is very broad and generalized, however you could begin by adding terms like “work from home jobs” or “work from home business.” The idea is to begin your keyword research by thinking of every possible keyword combination related to your product or service that someone may type into a search engine.

Once you have a good list of the broader terms, then it is time to get down to more specifics like “work from home jobs New York” or “work from home selling xyz widgets.”

Do Your Research

Once you have generated a good list of broad and specific terms, it is time to find out what your competition is doing by entering your keyword choices into a keyword research tool such as Wordtracker or Google Keywords.

Your keyword research tool will give you the specific information you need regarding the keywords list you have generated. Specifics include the number of people typing in the keywords as well as the number of competing websites. Additionally, you can receive information on the level of competition for the keyword and average cost of bidding on the keyword for a pay per click ad campaign.

Driving traffic to your website begins with an understanding of what your prospects are specifically searching for and why, as well as the specific words they are using to conduct their search. Without these two basics, your website will forever be struggling to convert traffic to sales.