There has been a lot of talk lately about keywords and their use in online marketing. Keywords are simply words or phrases that correlate to a specific topic. Researching keywords will require you to find sales related keywords and moving qualified buyers to increase sales. This research is a crucial first step in search engine optimization. Caution must be used because it is not easy to select targeted keywords for your website. Make sure you base your keywords on the particular products and service you offer and do not forget that words related to your location can be helpful.
Always do a thorough market analysis when doing keyword research. This will aid you in finding the hot keywords being picked up by the search engines. Make yourself a list of your products and services you offer then put that together with the research. This way you know how to drive traffic to your products and service. Also, make note of the keywords your competitors are using especially those who are doing well.
Careful selection of keywords is essential; the keywords should be directly related to your business and products. It is no use to have a high volume of traffic to your site of people who will buy nothing. In this day and age users are much more tech savvy. They know how the search engines work and will be searching for the best of the best, even down to location. There are tools available all over the internet that will aid you in your keyword research. Tools that will tell you what is a hot trend as well as the history of searched keywords. Your goal is to use the best keywords to generate traffic that will translate into sales.
29 Comments
TeasasTips
September 26, 2008Absolutely Reed! I have learned that a good Keyword research tool will also help you with your Adwords campaign if you have one. But, we must be thinking alike or something, because I wrote a post on how keywords are the keys to success today…
TeasasTipss last blog post..3 Things You Must Do Before You Submit To Article Directories
Kenny Ritchie
September 26, 2008Took me a while to get this, Dan of seo fast start signs from this hymm sheet.
Your better to have 10 targeted visitors than 1000 visitors expecing something other than what they get when they land on your web page.
It’s not easy but it is worth the effort.
Kenny Ritchies last blog post..Coming out of the dark.
John Bandy
September 26, 2008Hi Reed,
You told it like it is. You said to note the keywords that are doing good on your competitors site, but you didn’t say we could borrow them. Just joking have a great weekend.
John
Peter
September 26, 2008Hallo Reed,
the first time in one of your Blog articles you speak about the work behind to get the related Keywords for your product promo. Online marketing this is the basic word MARKETING I think the most of the newbees or the overwhelmed starters have no idea what a helluva work is covered by the sentences of your intro paragraph.
The next to be a marketanalysis a big eveningfilling discussion and for no result.
who is going to do this if you are starting?
Also talking about tools availability ? which ones helping you to get results you like to find… not to speek about the costs for valuable tools. So I must admit this article is not even scratching the surface of the whole bunch talking about keywords and place it into your whats..salesletters/ promos/ SEO’s or what? This is of no help I’m sorry the whole article is just bla bla.
Peter
tmobil8
September 26, 2008Hi Reed, Thomas here, 19 days late? wow, i thin i may have been in that same catagory my friend lol, hope everythings works out great for you and soon to be. On to business, great info there Reed with the keyword research, the website i have will do that for you in a split second with different catagorys attached to your keywords, we research ourselves for you every 3 months to keep you in higher rankings by indexing your sites so the people can find you with no problem. Have a good weekend buddy, God_bless you. Thomas
Lynda Mekalick
September 26, 2008Hello Reed,
Firstly,to Peter.I think that one of the things that Reed tries to achieve with his blog posts is to get us all thinking about what IS important in marketing online.To that end,what he has to say here about keyword research is right on the button.His blog posts,sometimes short ones – probably due at present to waiting on Marissa and baby – are just that – posts.Reed is not attempting here to give you the whole “nuts and bolts”,rather to get you activated into getting on with your own keyword research.
Now, for my opinion on keywords.If I’m not sure of my keyword/s,even after my research,then I write several articles using the different keywords I have researched in each article.So no two articles are completely alike,and I can easily see by each article’s ranking,which keywords are the correct ones to use.Having established that I can then pump out heaps more articles based around the more successful keyword/s.This method may be a little different from what others use,but it DOES work.I easily achieve page one rankings on Google using this technique.Also the click through rates AND conversion to sale rates are quite acceptable using this method.
Once again, and I know Reed will agree,success in internet marketing DOES require you to work.It’s not a free and easy ride to overnight riches,rather more an exciting learning curve and a great ride to a better financial situation if you’re prepared to do the hard yards.
Cheers,
Lynda
Paul
September 26, 2008Hi Reed,
Definitely you are in fact, we must undertake a thorough research for our websites, but I sometimes have my websites gets placed in keywords that I did not used and are a
combination of my keywords, for which my notice today is see how our website speak us in regard to the optimization of keywords.
Pauls last blog post..The Finter Points Of Email Marketing Software
Rumen
September 26, 2008Hi Reed
Existing many bla-bla for good keywords
but good keywords its one place of good
SEO.Many people forgot say for something
important when insert the keywords
1 Title tag
2 H1,H2,H3 tag
3 Image tag
and for the end one good writen article
its the base of more customers and more
traffic
Rumens last blog post..? ????????? ???????? ?????????? ???????????
serangin
September 26, 2008reed,
i made usd3 without my own website thus i do not need to find killer keyword except to one foremost important evergreen ‘money’ keyword
Jane
September 26, 2008Hey Reed,
Just stopped by to say “be patient”…that baby will come when it’s ready! Our first was almost 2 weeks late so I know how you and Marissa must be feeling…”LET’S GET ON WITH THIS”!
Good post. I was all over the board with keyword research when I put up my first website. Google just didn’t seem to see it the same way I did. They ranked me for words and phrases I was not targeting. Quite humorous as I look back at that site now, but frustrating at the time. Took me quite a while to figure out why Google didn’t know what my site was about, but it’s a mistake I haven’t made since.
Keywords,keywords, keywords. Put them in your tags (title, meta, etc.) and be specific on each page.
Good luck…maybe we’ll see a post on Monday announcing the birth?
Jane
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promosyon
September 26, 2008This is very useful, thanks 😉
Reach Success Online
September 27, 2008Hey Reed,
I guess the important thing for you right now is to come up with a Keyword (name) for your baby. Google can’t help with that – well what am I saying of course they can after all they are GOOGLE. Seriously though I find keyword search difficult but I think I’m beginning to grasp the idea. I’ll keep reading and researching.
Good luck
Tim Southernwood
September 27, 2008Keyword research and for that matter thorough marketing research should be done before any marketing effort. Without this research your efforts are a faint hope guess with little chance of success.
I can’t tell you the empowering feeling of knowing the numbers, and having done the research to know the market and what people are actually LOOKING FOR, not what you HOPE they are looking for.
So do yourself a favor. Do the work. Do your due diligence, and leave the guessing to those who have more time and money than common sense.
Peter mentioned some ambivalence to the quality of the post as in part it failed to deliver substance, but I believe it did indeed carry the most important message of DO YOUR WORK, but in an effort to satisfy everyone and improve the experience I include here two very simple and FREE keyword research tools to get you started. Start here with your main word to find associated words and to gauge possible market activity https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
Then generating a list of the most active words with lots of advertiser activity follow this link to determine an approximate daily search on those keyword terms http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/
(times by 30 for your monthly totals)
A good rule of thumb if you want to be in a “money market” is to shoot for nothing less than 50,000 searches a month (some say 100,000)
It the number is too low, you may have “drilled down” too deep within that niche, in which case move your focus to a higher level keyword. If your searches are way to high..move your focus inward.
Dogs would be high level with too many searches (almost 740,000) and not specific enough. Dog training would be a level down with about 49,000 searches and small dog training with 240 searches is too specific not worth your time.
Now. Follow my link, check out a kewl blog and maybe win a prize!
Tim Southernwoods last blog post..Drastic My Anime Blog
David Smyth
September 27, 2008Dear Reed,
Firstly, best to you Marissa and the whole family; you are all in my thoughts and prayers!
Thanks for yet another great blog post Reed! Some of those who leave comments on your weblog seem to be less than enthusiastic about the content of a few of your postings.
I, however, find that I learn something every time I visit this site and am extremely grateful for the marketing wisdom that you impart!
I find keyword research invaluable when I am writing new Ezine articles for Google’s organic listings. And, I research keywords when I am setting a new Adwords campaign. It is imperative to discover the most visited and searched for niches yet one does not want to follow too many specific channels that have mountains of competition, scrabbling for the same sales that you are!
There are many great keyword research tools available on the Internet and one does not have to pay out large sums of money in order to secure a good one! I often use the free tool at Google Adwords and it serves me well!
Best of luck again to you and your family Reed!
Kindest Regards,
David I. Braybrooke – ‘Fatherspirit’.
David Smyths last blog post..~ Marketing On The Internet – (A Beginner’s Expert Guide); Original Article by Fatherspirit. ~
David Smyth
September 27, 2008I thought that I should explain to you and your readers Reed; I write under two pen-names, David Smyth and David Braybrooke as I was adopted as a child and have two family names.
My Internet pseudonym is ‘Fatherspirit’ (with a ’69’ extension on some of the bigger marketing sites).
Thanks,
Dave.
David Smyths last blog post..~ Marketing On The Internet – (A Beginner’s Expert Guide); Original Article by Fatherspirit. ~
Carl
September 27, 2008I used to use google’s keyword research tool to find keyword phrases with at least 100 searches per day. Then I would do a Google search for the keyword phrase in quotes and find these phrases with well than 100,000 competitors.
Now I use the software Market Samurai to do this. Not only does it do it much faster, but you can also get the percent of these people searching who are also buying.
Whatever method you use, you must do keyword phrase research. Otherwise, you may be wasting you time.
Carl
http://parentinghelpme.com
Carls last blog post..How much Allowance should we give our teens?
Nancy Woodward
September 27, 2008thanks for the great info reed. which programs do you use for keyword research currently?
admin
September 28, 2008@TeasesTips what tools is that?
@Kenny yep targeted visitors that will actually convert are all that matters
@John yes being able to borrow your competitors keywords can help
@Peter I’m sorry you didn’t find the article helpful
@tmobile8 is that the superseosubmitter link?
@Lynda thanks and yes the site is meant to help and to encourage thought/commentary with everyone.
@Paul research is key as long as we take action
@Rumen good points those can help with SEO
@serengin congrats on your success but I implore you to think bigger $3 where I live doesn’t do much.
@Jane thanks, hopefully we will have the birth soon. Marissa is getting anxious.
@promosyon glad to help
@Reach I hope future posts can help even more.
@Tim thanks for providing those links
@David thanks, I’m sure the baby will come soon. As for some of the guests not liking some of the posts there are a few reasons. 1. Perhaps they expect better from me 2. Perhaps the articles weren’t as good as I thought 3. You can’t please everyone since that is impossible.
Either way I’m taking notes on what they are saying and hope more articles will please more of them but I do take it as somewhat of a compliment when someone takes time out of there day to disagree with me because if they truly wanted me to fail they wouldn’t tell me anything and just leave it at that. Thanks for clarifying the name issue I was slightly confused.
@Carl what’s the link for market samurai?
@Nancy a lot of my keyword research is more gut based. I will base it off what I wrote and what my competitors sites are like.
Ray Cassidy
September 29, 2008Just as your previous commentators have confirmed, that step of getting some market research done on the niche is crucial. Being pretty new to this game I have been down the road of keyword harvesting and setting up sites that in the end didn’t have a market with a big volume of traffic. The numbers are crucial. It’s just so damn confusing when you come from such a rabidly anti marketing past life as I have. Ho ho. For anyone that’s after a tool which helps analyse the keyword scene try Nichebot – shame I can’t put my own link to it here, but take a look. It does carry a serious learning curve warning though.
Ray
Jussi Koiranen
September 29, 2008I need definitely to get more info on Keywords. I decided I need to rank on Googles top page with my first name, surname already done.
Jorge EZ Affiliate
October 2, 2008Hi Reed,
Here’s more info on keyword research; your readers may find useful…
Besides the known Google AdWords Keyword Selection Tool for keyword research, there are two other very good Google tools I think should be mentioned for keyword research:
Google Trends and Google Insights.
Take care.
Jorge
Jorge EZ Affiliates last blog post..3 Great Strategies for Finding New Niches for Your Affiliate Websites
admin
October 5, 2008@Ray thanks for the suggestion of nichebot some people here might be interested in that.
@Jussi great work, keep it up
@Jorge great tips
2ask.ws
October 8, 2008There has been some bad experience for me in keyword research. Though I’m ranking well for some keywords which have high traffic according to wordtracker I’m nowhere getting that kind of traffic.
2ask.wss last blog post..Do’s and Dont’s of SEO for Google
admin
October 8, 2008@2ask hopefully things will improve for you, keep on trying, you will get the results you dream of.
Bill Foster
October 16, 2008Was going to purchase software Market Samurai today, however after seeing the warning:
UNRESTRICTED ACCESS to my system files I was scared away.
Has anyone had any issues with this appliction
Would really like to take for a test drive, in need of a keyword tool like this.
Brian Carelse
October 17, 2008Hey Reed,
Keyword / Keyterm research is so important. Since the internet is the world wide web which ranks information. The correct key terms are worth their weight in silicon chips.
Many newbies believe that by having all the keyterms they will get more hits. WRONG.
If you did a search on cat and found a website which sells cooking ebooks – would you be happy … probably not — why would you want to frustrate a person by draging them to your site which has nothing to do with what they searched for.
The correct keyterm is like bringing a hungry man money in hand to macdonalds. That’s targeted marketing!!! Worth millions!!!!
I have a marketing ebook called The revolutionary Internet Marketing System which does that. It Lets the client decide what info they get and they sell the product to themselves!!! get a copy at http://www.e-marketingsolutions.info for only $2 until I change the price to $15
Thanks
Your Great Friend who is routing for you
Brian
admin
October 26, 2008Thanks for you work you have been helpfull with your message
Pat Gunning
December 3, 2008There are many Free tools that are very effective for keyword research. Wordtracker for one has several great tools but google’s adwords keyword tool is far above the rest. Google’s Search-based keyword tool is a great spyware tool as well.
Check them out!
Shawn Horwood
December 17, 2008Keyword research is one of the most important parts of an online business. If you don’t target specific keywords, then you won’t convert your traffic and you will be wasting your time. I personally use: Google Keyword External Tool, Overture, Wordtracker, and a couple other free tools online. I am looking into grabbing a copy of Brad Callen’s Keyword Elite, but I am doing alright currently, so I am going to wait before trying it out.
Shawn Horwoods last blog post..Ewen Chia’s Autopilot Profits System
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