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| How to Conduct Keyword Research |
How to Conduct Keyword Research
One of the questions I’m most often asked is how I perform
keyword research.
In this article, I will explain how I personally perform my
own keyword research as well as some alternative methods.
Let’s begin with an explanation how most people do it and
why this is a BAD idea.
First, most people use the Overture suggestion tool. This
is a free solution which does give some useful info… if you
know how to find it. I will explain this in a moment.
I do want to stress why I don’t personally care for this.
Keyword research is the foundation for your search engine
optimization efforts. These are the VERY WORDS you are
trying to have the engines rank you highly for. In my mind,
this leaves little room for error, and by using the
Overture suggestion tool, you are certainly leaving room
for error.
Let me explain…
Overture assigns a search count to each one of the terms in
their database. Unfortunately, these numbers are skewed.
When ANY automated keyword search tool is used to query
their DB for keywords, their numbers for that search term
also increase. By inflating these numbers, it’s giving the
keyword searcher false data. You see, the goal is to get
the data on searched terms from the search engines, not by
people researching them.
Another downfall to the Overture system is that the search
terms are often mixed up from the originally searched term.
For instance, if I were to search for ’24 hour fitness’, I
may actually get a result that shows ‘hour fitness 24’. If
you optimized a page for the mixed up term, and you wonder
why you’re getting little traffic (but have a number 1
ranking on that term), it’s because that term is very
rarely searched for, despite what Overture may show.
There are other negatives associated with the Overture
keyword search tool, but the two I presented should be
sufficient to warrant you to look for alternatives.
Before I proceed, I do want to tell you that some
innovative entrepreneurs have come up with solutions that
use the Overture database in a fashion that’s MUCH better
than using the database directly.
I’ve listed them below. I suggest you check them out for
yourself. I own them, and have used them in the past.
Product Idea Evaluator -
http://www.productideaevaluator.com/
Niche Finder - http://www.nichemarketresearch.com/
Better Keywords - http://www.searchguild.com/utils.html
Onwards…
This is how I personally do my own keyword research.
It’s actually simple, but does require a paid version of
http://www.WordTracker.com.
For my most common use, I will use the ‘Keyword Universe’
feature. Note… there are occasions where the best starting
point is the ‘Comprehensive Search’. Start there if you
have a very generic starting keyword.
Here’s what I do…
I input my starting keyword into the Keyword Universe
search box. I then drill down in the results that appear
below this box and find the top 3-5 terms that best fits
what I’m looking for. I then click on the first of those
3-5. All terms that are actually search on are presented in
a results column on the right hand side of the screen.
Beginning at the top, I navigate through each of the
resulting terms and add any to my list that I find will be
potentially beneficial to me. Wordtracker allows you to put
these keywords in a ‘basket’ in order to use them for
additional research.
Once I’ve completed going though each list (for my 3-5
terms). I will continue to the competition search function
within Wordtracker. I use Google and Yahoo as my market
gauge. These are the primary two search engines I generally
focus on, so I want to know how I may fair in their
indexes.
Now, most people stop here, I don’t. I use the export to
email function of Wordtracker and email myself the results.
Once I receive the email, I import them into a program
called ‘Keyword Results Analyzer’ which can be found here:
http://kra.ez-search-engine-optimization.com/.
Once I have these imported and sorted through this
software, I extract any and all keywords with a KEI score
over 10.
Now, I have a list of keywords to work with.
If you follow my method, you will consistently find
yourself using keywords that have the greatest probability
for being highly ranked in the search engines.
About the Author:
This article has been authored by Keith Baxter, the founder
of http://www.topkeywordlists.com. If you wish to maximize
your Adsense income and learn how to drive massive amounts
of traffic to your website from the search engines, visit
the site now. |
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