Before answering the question of this particular article, I want to translate the term ‘keyword research’ into a qualitative and demonstrable application. If you own a shop and suddenly everybody who has shown a particular interest in the range of particular goods you sold headed to your door, with the exception of your shop being rather jam-packed, we’re going to start to receive some rather valuable information.
Each of these customers, in term, asks you a particular question regarding the item they’re searching for;
- Do you stock the widget 500?
- Can you recommend a suitable upgrade for my Widget 400?
- Is the Widget 600 compatible with my system?
- Whats the latest version of the Widget?
- Do you offer a free trial of the Widget 1000?
Not only are you opening up direct communication with your customers you’re building a tremendous understanding which allows you to build plans for your shop relating to;
- which products to stock?
- current demand levels for particular products?
- which products customers are drawn to?
- which products you should highlight as soon as a customer walks through the door?
So, how is this relevant to you and your Internet business?
Instigating and understanding Keyword Research tells you;
- What your potential customers are looking for
- What phrases they are using to find what they are looking for
- The importance of demographics in relation to what product/service they are seeking
- The demand for a particular product/service at any one time
- The size of the field within which you are competing
- Where particular niches may exist for you to exploit through your internet marketing campaign(s)
Through Google API based software, for which I’m happy to recommend if you drop me an email, you can access levels of information which will allow you to build a thorough understanding of your business potential online.
The key to a successful SEO campaign is a equally successful keyword research platform
No SEO campaign is complete without these initial key areas of research. Whilst you may have a hunch or good idea of what terms your potential visitors may be using to find your business online, there’s no substitute for true reliable information.
It happens time and time again with new clients – the constant surprise of just how competitive particular terms are (usually the reason why they are speaking to me in the first place!). Likewise, how many opportunities exist when you have a better picture of keyword trends and how this translates to producing quality site content and your lead generation process.
As a business owner, or marketeer, who has a complete picture of their industry’s search patterns you can begin benchmarking particular terms, building them into your SEO strategy and creating a structure to measure your Search Engine Optimisation ROI. Not only will Keyword Research help develop your SEO strategy, the information converts perfectly for building immediate presence through a carefully constructed and measurable Paid Search campaign.
Keyword Research should not be viewed purely as an ‘initial’ part of an SEO campaign setup. A key factor within managing a truly effective campaign is constant monitoring of your keyword lists for;
- Demand growth or slumps for particular product/service trends within your business portfolio
- Seasonal demand curves
- Conversion analytics based upon particular keyword categories
Keyword Research and Analysis is at the core of your SEO campaign management. It’s the information that tells you what your potential customers are searching for, how to tailor your content to enhance your Google Page Rank and, in turn, to drive your online sales revenue and lead generation.
As someone that works a lot with content marketing for clients, I’m constantly surprised by how little they understand about keywords. nnPersonally, I’ve found Market Samurai an excellent way of showing them just how easy it is to work out how competitive keywords are.nnOf course, the proof is in the pudding and once clients see how well online content marketing campaigns do in Google they start to get the message. nnMy advice is to always start with researching keywords to identify gaps in the market and where you need to build more link equity to achieve the kind of results you’re looking for. nnGreat post!
Hi Jon – thanks for your comments.nnTotally agree with you . It’s surprising just how disconnected thoughts and expectations are in relation to the actually search results that deliver results. Thankfully, a large percentage of any business’ competitors are still focusing upon poorly researched keywords which either simply don’t deliver results, or don’t receive the expected search demand. As you rightly point out, the gaps are there, it’s just a case of finding them and optimising them!
Yes, I’m also agreed with Jon Buscall that’s keywords research is not difficult kind of work, it is just need to check the actual competition of the keywords as i also used Samurai having great features in one place to get all those compete sites with their rank & links many. And Keyword research is important in order to be able to narrow you niche so that there is less competition for your page when it is crawled by the Search Engines. It is just one of many factors that may contribute to higher search engine rankings more traffic.
Google has a free keyword research tool to help you find the best keywords and phrases for your topics.
The best keywords have:
a) high search volume – lots of people searching for that phrase
b) low competition – not too many pages on the web that feature that phrase