Before beginning any campaign in marketing online, SEO or SEM, it is important to look at who you will be targeting with your website. Really, your research should begin with the planning of your website, however, if you have published something already, you will need to look at your keywords on a regular basis, not daily, but I suggest quarterly at most, yearly at least.
Here are a couple of steps that are important, and a few (free) tools to help you get a better picture of search traffic.
Questions that you need to answer:
What vertical are you targeting?
Is the vertical too vague or should you target a niche within the vertical?
Now that you know which direction you need to face, keyword research can be done. Start from what you are already thinking about and the next question is ready to be tackled.
What keywords would you use to get to your website?
Build your list, stay away from the plurals and common misspellings, these will add considerable time and energy that can be wasted.
If you have a website that you want to get a real insight into what search engines see, look at Google’s Keyword Tool and select the Site-Related Keywords tab and find out what Google thinks your website is about.
Here are a couple of tools that you can use to see the amount of search traffic that keywords, and related keywords are getting:
Yahoo Keyword Selector Tool (aka “old faithful”)
Want to find out the trends (also known to some as seasonality) of keywords look to Google Trends
Not specifically a keyword tool, however, Google Suggest can give you some insight into what keywords are related.
Some of us, like to have everything at our fingertips, so for those of you who really want to weigh in on all of the many research options available, check out SEObook’s keyword research tool.
Please note, MSN has been working on may tools in their adCenter Labs to help webmasters, developers and marketers alike, however, I have only experimented with a few of them and find them to be a bit quirky.
OK, so I didn’t write this post to show off any particular keyword tools, however, keyword research is extremely important aspect of design, optimization and marketing of a website. Another important thing to remember, keyword trends change, so keeping up with these trends should not be left to only assumptions of what is happening. Search marketers also need to be aware of changes in search traffic from regions.
Don’t forget: keyword research, link building and other forms of optimization should be an extra consideration behind your users!
Do you have any insight? Are you using other keyword tools that would be useful? Please share!
Related Posts >>
- Google Out to Destroy Keyword Estimation Tools?
- SoloSEO – Link Search Tool
- More SEO Tips from the AdWords Camp
- Beanstalk Provides Tools for Search Marketers
- Site Explorer – SEO Tools from Yahoo!
{ 2 trackbacks }
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Great site and article You have laid out the essential steps for keyword research using the best tools Jon Roussel