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1. INTRODUCTION

Keyword research is a skill which is central to internet marketing. At it's simplest:-

Keyword research is the act of determining the key words, or key phrases, by which people search for a topic of interest on the internet.

By knowing which search terms are used by our target market, we can position our products and services on the internet with a view to gaining maximum exposure and return on investment for our marketing costs.

In other words, keyword research is central to the goal of internet marketing, which is sending targeted traffic to relevant offers. It is also invariably linked with attempting to have our web presence rank highly in the search engines for those relevant topics.

The precise methods used to undertake keyword research, and the information we need to ascertain about potential keywords, will differ according to the use we intend to make of them. However, as keyword research is such an integral preliminary foundation to so many marketing practices, it's worthwhile exploring the basics as a precursor to more advanced marketing strategies.

2. GETTING STARTED

It is important to understand that keyword research is not as simple as ascertaining which keywords are most searched for on any given topic. There are three primary considerations/tasks when deciding which keywords you are going to focus on for your marketing.

Keyword Brainstorming

First and foremost, it is essential to have some familiarity with your target market. In doing so, you can then brainstorm a list of keywords which can be used to promote your product or service using highly relevant terms. Some industries have terms which are specifically associated with that industry. Think of it as similar to using slang. If you know the vernacular used by the target audience, you have a better chance of getting their attention. Using an example, in Australia, filing for bankruptcy is often simply referred to as 'filing a Part 10'.

Hot Tip - Public forums are a great way to gain familiarity with the language used by our target market. Try doing a search for 'keyword forum' where keyword is your relevant topic.

Search Volume

Search Volume is of course, important. If no one is using a keyword to search for a topic, it is of limited value. However, it is important to keep in mind that whilst keywords which are generic in nature might have high search volumes, and therefore can potentially result in large amounts of traffic, they are frequently highly competitive. In addition, they are often non-specific and may not result in the targeted traffic we need to generate sales.

As an example, if we were a company that specialized in selling 'quad core processors', the term 'computers' might not be the best term to use, even though the word computers has a massive search volume. A person who puts in the term 'computer' is just as likely to be looking to buy a whole new computer, or a disk drive, or memory, or a range of other things not really related to our quad core processors.

Generally, it is better to find keywords which may have a lower search volume, but which are clearly relevant to the product or service we are offering. In the above example, the term 'computer' is searched for almost 9,000 times per day on the primary search engines. Conversely, 'quad core processor' is searched less than 40 times. However, the latter keyword is far more likely to result in a person who is looking to buy our product clicking on our link as there is a high correlation between their search term and our product. This is also more likely to result in a sale (also known as a conversion).

Keyword Competition

This dynamic ties in with the points raised above in relation to search volume. Your goal in marketing is to gain exposure with your relevant market or audience. It is essential to find a balance between using keywords which generate targeted traffic, but which aren't so competitive that your web presence gets buried in the search rankings.

Returning to our earlier example, a search for 'computer' on Google returns 1,430,000,000results. Ouch.The prospect of us getting on the first page of Google for a search with that term are staggeringly unlikely. A search for 'quad core processor' returns only 550,000 results. Far better, but still a large volume of competition. Scraping our way onto page 1 is still going to take a lot of effort. How about we refine our keyword again? Let's try 'Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Processor'. This search term has 150,000 competing search results, and still gets around a dozen searches per day. This is still competitive, but a far cry from the one and a half billion results our first attempt gave us.

Let's try another example. Let's say we are promoting an ebook on aspergers. The term aspergers has 1,400,000 results and is searched for 1300 times a day. This is highly competitive.

The term 'aspergers syndrome and definition' however only yields 70,000 competitors but is searched for almost 70 times daily. Whilst not perfect, with good marketing practices it should be possible for us to rank fairly well for this keyword, and start to generate some of our own quality traffic.

Long Tail Keywords

Keywords with more than three words in them are known as Long Tail Keywords. Refining our keywords or key-phrases even more has the desired effect of uncovering keywords with lower competition but which still generate sufficient traffic.

Frequently it is far more lucrative to focus on a group of specific highly targeted long tail keywords which each generate a small number of leads each day, compared to one generic word which is so competitive it's almost impossible for us to take a slice of the traffic pie. Quite simply, this is because long tail keywords have less competition, enable us to rank well in the search engines, and so generate ongoing organic (free) traffic. It also has the advantage of sending highly targeted traffic to our products or services, which increases the likelihood of their search converting into a sale or a new customer.

Whilst our analysis of competition must ultimately go further than a simple comparison of the numbers of competing sites for a particular term, it's a good starting point.

In Summary

A careful consideration of these three factors will take us a long way in making certain that our keyword research ultimately yields results, and allows us to use good search engine optimisation techniques to improve our web presence.

Visit Internet Marketing Guru Or Bust to obtain your copy of our free Keyword Tracking Software