Keyword research basics part 1

keyword research basics part 1

If you didn’t already recognize the importance of keywords, you wouldn’t be reading this article.  On the other hand, knowing that the use of keywords is the primary way that users will find your site for the first time doesn’t even begin to impart the process of choosing those words.  In this article, we’ll look at the keyword research basics, which will give you enough insight to begin the quest for how keywords can be effectively chosen.

To begin let’s define a keyword.  In SEO circles, a keyword is not a single word, as many would assume, but is a keyword phrase, comprised of 2 or more words used together.  “Kite” is an obvious keyword for a site that specializes in kites, but is also a poor choice for a site keyword, solely because there are over 9 million search results for that word used alone.  “Kite” alone leaves you as only one of an unimaginable multitude of choices.  By comparison, “box kite”, with only 198,000 search results, narrows the field to a competitively possible number.  For practical purposes, a keyword refers to any phrase that is used to illustrate the content of the site.  With that bit of explanation out of the way, let’s look at how to find the right keywords for your website.

There are online tools that can reduce the time spent searching for effective keywords.  Some are widely used by the “big” players, and others are relatively simple utilities that may be popular with many, but largely ignored by the so-called professionals.  Webtrends is one of the big commercial tools, while WordTracker gets much less recognition.  Both perform web analytics, checking popular search engines for specific terms, and comparing the SERP results, frequency of use of the term by humans, and number of search listings found for the term.

Other tools, such as DupeFree Pro, can offer you alternative search terms, or keywords that use variations on the particular phrase you supply.  This type of tool, using what is known as LSI (latent Semantic Indexing), is likely to offer you possible choices you hadn’t thought of, but which are often just as relevant to your site’s contents.  Don’t expect that everyone will type in the most popular phrases.  The truth is the exact opposite, as most humans may know what they want, but may not know the exact phrase you want them to use to find your site.  It is the task of the site designer to anticipate what terms will be used, and to plan for them.

To do this, perform a bit of research using one of the online tools listed above, and write down a list of possible terms.  Now, as the site is developed, create a variety of pages within the site, each one being directed to ONE of those terms.  As an example, we’ll use “kite” as the keyword for our main page, not because we expect it to rank the highest, but because it is the word used most frequently, and pertains to everything else on the whole site.  Another page, which is pointed to by the main, will use “box kites” as the primary keyword, and we WILL hope to achieve a top position with this one, so it is important to refer anyone on this page back to the main page for more information, using a simple text anchor link, such as “Learn more about kites.”  A third page may have content devoted to the “history of kites”, and a fourth will be concerned with “homemade kites”.  As you see, the primary keyword is being used on all pages, with phrase modifiers that further define the content of each page.

Article written by SEOnotepad.com