The Importance of Keyword Research for SEO - Internet

Keyword research is one of the most important facets of search engine optimisation, alomng with content marketing and link building. It is the process of researching the most appropriate words or phrases used by the consumers looking for a particular business, product or service. Simply put, it is all about targeting the words typed by the users into the search engine entry box.
Why keyword research is important?
It is absolutely critical to know the relevant and important keywords related to your business as it assists your customers to find your website, thus driving traffic to it. If you target the wrong set of keywords that are rarely used by the consumers or do not directly relate to your services, your web pages would be optimised for the wrong keywords and you may attract unqualified traffic which would not convert into your leads. In addition to this, the content strategy adopted by you would prove futile as it may not incorporate the right keywords. While trying to analyse important keywords to target, as per the market and user demand, you not only learn which terms and phrases to target with SEO, but also have a better understanding about your customers as a whole.
How to carry out keyword research?
Step into your customers shoes and think about the words you would use to search for a particular service or product for your business. Brainstorm with your team and prepare a list of the keywords that best described your service/product with emphasis on regional and geographic elements. Then ask yourself will the searchers find what they are looking for on your website when they search using those keywords? Be more specific while targeting keywords as it influences where your website is ranked on search engine results. After selecting the list of keywords, determine the amount of competition for each of them. If you are a novice with a new website, you should target keywords with medium to low competition levels as the keywords with higher levels of competition are very difficult to target at the initial stage.
There are several tools available to assist you in the keyword research process. Some of the more popular ones include:
Google Adwords Keyword Tool - This is a powerful and most importantly free keyword research tool that helps you to research keywords that best suits your business. It helps you to determine related keywords, competition, number of global monthly searches and local monthly searches too which helps you to analyse the potential of each keyword in enhancing your website visibility on search engines.
Market Samurai - This is one of the most widely used paid for SEO toolsused for keyword research with emphasis on what keywords to target, ranking and competition of the keyword,how to purchase domains for them, promotion of your keyword etc.
Long Tail Pro- Long Tail Pro is an easy-to-use, paid keyword research tool which is most preferrable for key phrase generation, site visitors and competitive analysis.
Besides these, there are other keyword research tools such as SEMRush, Wordtracker, SEOmoz, Woorank Website Review tool that helps in keyword research process. Keyword reserch is actually a critical link between users search and your webiste. Keyword research not only helps to get higher rankings in the searches but also helps you to understand the market trends and produce products and content that consumers are already seeking on the internet. This is why is it a vital and important ingredient for your website success.
Kuldeep Bwail is a Director at eTrack Media which is a leading Search Engine Submission Service and SEO Link Building service provider to customers in Redditch, Bromsgrove, Birmingham and Worcestershire, UK.
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SEO Course - Keyword Research - EzineArticles Submission - Submit ...

Keyword research is a critical part of SEO, but often the part that gets rushed, failure to conduct thorough keyword research can either make it much harder to achieve high rankings, but even worse can make the whole SEO project a complete waste of time. For more information on why keyword research is so important please refer to my blog post 'SEO: How Important is Keyword Research'.

This course however will focus on how to conduct keyword research, as I feel there are lots of articles from experts already stating why you should do this or that, but very few actually providing practical steps to actually do what is necessary.

Firstly I like to ask clients for a list of phrases that they would like to rank high for in search engines, I then look through their existing website of any other available company literature to gain an understanding of their product or service offerings, keeping a look out for any niche more specialist areas. I then list all of the phrases along with any related phrases from my own research, unfortunately this is the point at which many people think their research is complete, but this is merely a starting point.

The next phase is to find out exactly which phrases people are searching for on a daily basis in Google, Yahoo, Bing and all other major search engines, this can be vastly different to your expectations, and many a client of ours has been shocked by the findings, which is why this step is so crucial. The data we're looking for is the number of searches per day, as well as how many websites are competing for rankings on a chosen key phrase. In order to complete this research I would recommend using the Wordtracker tool, there is a small monthly fee, however it is widely recognised as the best keyword research tool available. There are free tools available such as the Google keyword tool (although this is more based on pay per click data), should cost be an issue.

I prefer to use the 'keyword researcher' tool within wordtracker, initially I key in generic phrases, not because I intend to use the generic terms, since in my opinion they are often not specific enough to bring qualified traffic to your site. The reason for doing this is because by being more generic initially wordtracker tends to throw up a great variety of specific phrases related to the generic phrase, often uncovering some great keywords you may never have thought of or realised people were searching for.

I then run through my list of key phrases entering them into the keyword researcher tool, when the results are returned you will see an approximate number of searches per day next to each phrase. It can be tempting to only select phrases with a very high number of searches, however before qualifying out any phrases I would recommend waiting until the next phase which is the competition analysis, as sometimes a phrase with a low number of searches can be very valuable if there is very little competition.

Select the keywords relevant and specific to your business offering and then select 'Evaluate' to go to the next phase, you will then be asked to select which search engine you would like the data to be based on, by default I select google. The returned results will add two more columns to the phrases called 'Google UK' which is the number of competing sites using the keyword in their page title, and 'Google UK KEI', which means Keyword Effectiveness Index. The KEI score is basically a system for scoring the effectiveness of a keyword by analysing the number of searches compared with the number of competing sites, a score of 500 or above is generally considered to be good. This is why it is so important to wait until this phase to eliminate keywords, as a phrase may only receive a few searches/impressions per day, but if no one else is competing on it, it should score well on the KEI system and means that it should be easy to achieve high search engine rankings for. This may mean less potential traffic to you website, but could mean you have a much higher conversion rate due to less competition, traffic is great but if it doesn't convert into sales or leads then it is pointless.

That said sometimes you may decide you need or want to optimise your site for a key phrase with a low KEI score, this is still possible but be aware it will take a lot more time and work to achieve, just try to be sensible and don't choose totally generic terms.

The number of keywords you need will very much depend on the size of your website; I would recommend just 2-3 phrases per page though.

Whatever you do don't rush the keyword research phase; keep going at it and you may come across some real gems (high KEI phrases) that could have a very positive effect on your future online success. When you have your final list of key phrases, you can simply export them to an excel document, save it and for goodness sake back it up somewhere!

Look out for the next chapter of this course soon, this will cover the subject of 'Implementing Your Keywords'.

Thomas Ridley is a professional SEO consultant and director of Kit Happens, an online marketing business providing Search Engine Optimisation, Graphic Design, Email Marketing and Website Design in Milton Keynes, and throughout the UK.

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Keyword Research - Article Marketing With Free Keyword Research

Imagine you are selling a product for dog training. This is a great niche to work in, but the competition is fierce if you do not pick the right keywords. For instance, if you wanted to use the keywords "how to train a dog", you would find over 60,000 people per month are searching for this exact phrase. Now, while that may sound good to you, it is important to see what you competition for that keyword is. When I look up the competition for that keyword, I find that there are 1,750,000 results for that keyword. That is way more people than I care to compete with and it make take a long time to work up the ranks to get to the front page of Google.

What is a long-tail keyword?

A long-tail keyword is a keyword that has been expanded from an original keyword phrase. Here is an example:

Dog
Dog Training
How to Train a Dog
How to Train a Dog to Stop Barking
How to Train a Dog to Stop Barking at Strangers

Keyword Competition

As your goal in article marketing is to get to the top of Google and other search engines, having the least amount of competition is extremely important. To find out what your competition is, type in your long-tail keyword into Google in quotes. "how to train a dog to stop barking at strangers". On the top right of the page it will give you the search results for that term. The purpose of putting quotes around your keywords is that it tells Google to only show results with that exact phrase in it, word for word. That is your real competition. The standard number that you want to be under is 5,000. If you can find keywords that are under 5,000 you will probably be able to rank highly on Google.

Keyword Monthly Search Results

You also want to check out how many people are actually typing in the keywords you want to rank for. Of course, the bigger the number, the more potential traffic you will have. You can find the free Google tool to find out this information if you type into your browser adwords.google.com/select/keywordtoolexternal

When you get into the keyword tool, just type in your keyword phrase and click on "get keyword ideas". This will not only give you a monthly average visitor count, but it will give you many other keyword ideas. The minimum number here varies from expert to expert, but usually most people are looking for 100 monthly visitors or over.

Natural Listings and Page Rank

The last thing you want to check out is the natural listings under Google. When you type in your keywords without quotes, you want to look and see who your competition is. Every listing on Google has a page rank that goes from 1 to 10 with 10 being the highest. You can check each of the top sites to see what their page rank by going to prchecker.com. If the place where you are submitting your articles has a higher page rank than those listed on page one, you have a very good chance of being listed on the first page.

To summarize, if you do not have good keywords, people will not find your articles or landing page and you will not make sales. Keyword research is paramount, but does not have to take a long time. Do not spend days on this, an hour or two is sufficient to find the words you are looking for.



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Keyword Research - Get Down To The Basics

Keyword research tips, eBooks, software, videos and articles are all over the web. With all this information available to us it is no wonder that we become overwhelmed. Just take a look at the keyword tools software with their push button this and push button that. You have seen it before haven't you statements like this tool will get you all the keywords that people are searching for on Google in a matter of minutes then you will be driven an abundant amount of traffic to your website.

Never the less keyword research is actually a very important part of marketing your business website online. There are a few simple basic rules to understand and follow to achieve this from the outset.

1. Knowing the intent of the searcher: First off you have to know and understand your customer in that is in your target market. The aim of this is to connect your customer to the phrases that they are liable to search with. Spending time in this process will help when selecting your targeted keyword.

2. Now dig right in and go and study the competition and find out what keywords they are using. Just pick say the top 12 that are in your targeted niche and save all of those keywords in an excel spread sheet for future use. If you are not familiar with the market you will have to spend time learning the language and terminology of the market. There a couple of free tools available to do this like the Google keyword tool and keyword spy.

3. The keyword research you are doing is all about people remember. Just think about the intent of the searcher when analysing these keyword phrases. Some of these searches will be from people that are not your target market. So really think hard about the keyword phrase. What was the real intent of that searcher when using a particular phrase? Negative keywords also come into play with searching but that is a large topic to cover in this article.

4. Search Volume comes into play a little bit and it depends a lot on how strong the market is. If go into one of those extra big popular markets then the higher the volume of searches the harder and most times it is impossible to rank for. If you have main stream big companies that have large authority sites with many pages then those keywords you have to stay away from as it will be imposable to rank with them.

As you can see there is quite a lot involved when it comes to keyword research but as you go through the processes you will soon get the hang of it. A lot of common sense comes into play with keyword phrases and knowing what your competitors' are using is one of the crucial elements of the whole process.

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Keyword Research and the Use of Effective Internet Marketing Articles

Internet marketing articles are one of the most important tools for SEO. They can easily drive traffic to your pages and they can be powerful tools for lead generation or sales conversion. However, not a lot of people understand how to use these marketing articles and the main fault lies in the way they use keywords. Keyword optimization is something that has become very crucial in making effective marketing articles.

Do Your Homework!

One of the most common mistakes people make is that they will write an article and then later pick what keywords to relate the article to. This is a very bad method to use because you may not be sure if those keywords are relevant. It's like building a car with lots of new features without even bothering to find out if people need those features.

There are a lot of tools you can use such as those provided by Google, internet marketing dashboards, and keyword research tools that will allow you to check which keywords are hot and trending. You want to know how often they are mentioned on search engines, social media, and others. You also want to know how tight the competition is for those keywords so you can create a strategy on how to put the market's focus on your work and not on your competitors.

List down the keywords that you got from your research tools, then start writing Internet marketing articles revolving around those words. This will ensure that they are SEO-friendly and relevant to the market you are trying to tap.

Focus on Quality

Another common problem with most marketing articles is that they fill their articles with keywords from top to bottom. Search engines hate this because it is obvious that the owner is just trying to draw in traffic and a higher page rank. You can get penalized for this and your pages will be ranked down. Obviously, readers will find your articles annoying and useless because all they see are random keywords stuffed together in a paragraph but the overall article doesn't tell them anything that makes sense-Google does not like this. So, you have to focus on quality content.

Keywords should appear in certain locations such as the title and a few strategic places within the article body. This is to increase visibility with search engine crawlers. However, the article as a whole should be readable, credible, and relevant with well-researched quality content.

Educate Your Reader

If someone told you outright to buy XYZ lawn mower because it is the best product in the world, you probably wouldn't even care to look into it. However, if they first educated you on its health benefits, prices, and how it is different from all the others you probably would go in, look more into it, and perhaps buy it. Case in point: don't focus on hard, cold selling because nobody cares about what you claim. Instead, your Internet marketing articles should focus on customer education to get them interested and invested in what you have to offer.

If you want truck load of traffic and high ranking on the search engines, you absolutely have to discover how to use Internet Marketing articles all top earners online use.

Article marketing has stood the test of time and remain one of the best internet marketing strategy ever here: http://www.celestinkanga.com/

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Keyword Research: Why It Really Matters Right Now

Keyword Research

Why it is so important? In short, without it, the search engines will not know where to find your website, where to rank it so that the right visitors can access it and will keep you from profiting. For those who are looking for a way to boost their bottom line, improve campaigns or just to get started, keyword research is critical.

Keyword Research - What Is It?
In short, this process involves learning what words people type into the search engines in order to find the type of information or products you have to offer. For example, if you were a retailer selling dog collars, basic keywords such as "dog collars" helps the search engine to know what your website is about. That way, when people go online and type in "dog collars" into a search engine, the search engine knows what type of information to display for you. However, it is not this simple.

Keyword Research - What Makes It Difficult?
Keyword research is not meant to be seen as a simple process. In fact, it can take some time and often requires a good deal of hard work. Some outstanding keyword research tools can help you to learn what others are searching. Here are some important points to keep in mind when it comes to this area.

You will need to know what type of words people are inputting that fit your topic. That is harder than it seems.

You also need to know how much competition there is for that keyword. In other words, how many other websites are targeting it and therefore competing with your website for those keywords?

You also need to find the right combination of keywords plus the results you need. While you need traffic to your site, you need the right type of traffic that will make purchases and sign up for your service.

Keyword research is a tool that can enable you to achieve several things. First, it helps people who want what you have to offer to find you. Second, it helps you to turn traffic into profits. Of course, you will need to use the keywords in the right fashion on your website to achieve these benefits. Most importantly, this type of research helps ensure that you have the foundation you need to achieve your goals of turning a profit online. If you do not have this information and just "guess" at the keywords you use, you could be wasting your investment.

Keyword Research - How to Get It

In order to obtain effective keywords for your website, do invest in a keyword research tool. These tools do all of the analysis for you. The best products do more, such as track your campaigns and give you results based on the words you do use. For those who are looking for a way to improve their bottom line and to see profits from their websites, this type of tool is an investment in success. It is not an option, but using a tool that is user friendly and effective really can make it simple.

The concept of keyword research is one that is now widely familiar to most people. When it comes to online marketing, knowing which keywords to use can make or break a website's presence on the Internet. Attempting to mine for the right keywords on your own can be time consuming and stressful, which has led to the creation of special tools and resources that are designed to streamline the process. SECockpit is the latest keyword research tool that many are turning to.

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Keyword Research - Why It Is So Important

Keyword research is the foundation of a good Internet marketing campaign. Keyword research gives the company an idea of where they should focus their energy. However, it is important to note that people really do not know what the keyword will do until they have the keyword in their possession. However, making educated guesses at what keywords will bring results is this very smart thing to do for any person in Internet marketing.

Actually, this is one of the foundational problems with most bloggers. They do not know what keywords they are aiming their articles or blog posts for in general. Therefore, they fail to get traffic because they are not generating a keyword inventory that has any value. These types of bloggers have blogs that remain empty of traffic and conversion. The blog does not generate income for them therefore; it stays a hobby for that particular blogger.

A blogger with good keyword research and target those keywords in their posts and start to pick up traffic on keyword terms that they have selected. Sometimes, the keywords will not deliver the results that blogger or website owner wants. Yet, the fact is that getting keywords on to a page will allow the search engines to take all the words on the page in make combinations of keywords to provide to the results on their keyword search results.

Once those blog posts or pages start getting traffic and those keywords are tracked within the server logs or the analytics profile then the blogger or website owner can make a determination that allows them to figure out what keywords are of value to that business in general. Once they have a good idea, what keywords generate traffic conversions they can optimize their site to get more of those people in those keywords funnels.

Therefore, the best thing to do when trying to do keyword research is to pick out the best possible keywords ahead of getting the traffic itself. Once the traffic is in place then it is best to look in the server logs or analytics profile to find out what traffic is actually converting into sales. Once that is figured out the business can then focus itself on getting more of those people and focusing on that particular topic to get more of those people as well. This is a scientific way for doing keyword research that is sure to deliver results as long as the business owner is willing to do a little legwork.

In closing, keyword research is what gives an Internet campaign a foundation. This foundation allows a business to make money and find new clients and customers through the Internet. Therefore, it makes a lot of sense to spend a lot of time doing keyword research and then digging through the results of that keyword research once those words get traffic to the website. If a business owner or individual focuses on this type of keyword research, they are almost guaranteeing themselves success when marketing on the Internet.

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How to Execute Keyword Research - EzineArticles Submission ...

Keyword research is an essential part of online marketing, and is especially relevant for freelance writers, online publishers, and bloggers. It is one of the most important, critical, and high return activities in the search marketing field. You have to understand that ranking for the "right" keyword/s can either make or break your website.

You probably believe that getting a lot of traffic to your site is a positive note. However, it's not always about getting visitors to your site, but about getting the right kind of visitors, who, in the future, can potentially be converted into sales.

With keyword research, you can predict the movements in demand, respond to changing market conditions, and produce the products, services, and content that web searchers are already actively searching. The usefulness of this information cannot be overstated.

Knowing How Much is a Keyword Worth to Your Website

The keywords your visitors type into search engines are often available to webmasters, and we can find this information through keyword research tools. However, those tools cannot explain to you directly the importance of this receiving traffic from those searches. Thus, what you need to do is to understand your own website, make some hypotheses, test, and repeat if something went wrong.

The Basic Process for Measuring a Keyword's Value

· Evaluate yourself

Assess if your keyword is relevant to your website's content and if searchers will find what they're looking for on your site when they search using these keywords. Furthermore, also know if this traffic fetches you benefits and achieve other organisational goals.

· Look for the term/phrase in major search engines

To provide you valuable picture into the competition, and also the difficulty it will be to rank for the given term, you should understand which websites already rank for your keyword. Also, know if there are search advertisements running along the top and right-hand side of the organic results. Those advertisements naturally means a high-value and directly conversion-prone keyword.

· Purchase a sample campaign for the keyword

There are times that your website doesn't rank for the keyword. However, you can buy "test" traffic from Google AdWords and/or Bing Adcenter to see how well it converts.

· Determine the exact value of each keyword

Using the data you've collected, determine the exact value of each keyword.

Keyword choice is the most important part of a SEO campaign because choosing strong keywords to compete for will help you not only to rank higher in the search engines but also it will make it easier for you to optimise your content well.

Are you looking for a professional who can help you with your keyword research? Check out Perth SEO Company or visit http://perthseocompany.net/ for more tips on how to improve your search engine ranking.

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Keyword Research - EzineArticles Submission - Submit Your Best ...

SEO may be the answer to the age old question of which method of traffic generation should I use? SEO or Search Engine Optimization is guarantee to long-term website visibility and ranking. Now when you combine the power of good seo with the intent of locally marketing your product or service you are setting yourself up for complete domination of.

When promoting your company locally it becomes increasingly more achievable to get to that highly- sought after front page. When you are on the front-page of the search engines your business is more likely to be seen by consumers looking for what you have and giving you more of a chance to make the sell. There are several factors that will help propel you to the front page and we will talk about them briefly.

Keyword research is at the heart of good seo. This is probably the most essential element of the SEO processes and crucial. You must find the right keywords that consumers are using to browse the net to find your product or service.However, these keywords are not going to just jump off the page into your content, you have to do some research to find them. In order to find them you will have to do a little research, usually called keyword research.

When performing keyword research it is important to remember that not all keywords are equal. A keyword is a term used to retrieve documents in an information system such as a catalog or a search engine. There are literally billions of search words and phrases that are available for people to look upon and gain information.

The term 'long tail' was is used to describe the strategy of targeting less-competitive niche markets rather than the hugely competitive broad keywords. A long tail keyword is something like "Macon Internet Marketing Specialist" while a short wail keyword is something like "Internet Marketing". Long tail keywords are said to be more of direct keyword because if a searcher is going to go through all the trouble to type in exactly what they are wanting to find chances are they will make a purchase.

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Keyword Research Techniques - Keyword Research The Easy Way

In search engine optimization, keyword research is very important to improve your search engine rank and attract your customers. It is a need that one should know the right keywords and how they should be used. Keyword research is the foundation in achieving success in the search engine optimization and even increasing your own revenue.

So if you're not using the right keywords for your website, it is very much impossible to increase your website traffic and be competitive. One of the ads in Google.com, listed few ways to have an effective keyword search. They have categorized it into the following phases:

Phase 0: Demolishing Misconceptions - in here one should realize that most website owners think that they already know what common customers are looking for when they type in a to search about a particular thing but the truth is they don't, unless they do some research.

Phase 1: Creating the list and checking it twice - start slowly, do brainstorming and focus on words that are relevant but not overly used.

Phase 2: Befriend the keyword research tool - determine the activity for each of your proposed keywords. You want to narrow your list to only include the highly attainable, sought-after phrases that will bring the most qualified traffic to your site.

Phase 3: Finalizing your list - narrow down the filed and decide which terms will make it into your coveted final keyword research.

Phase 4: Plan your attack - prepare your list of about 10-20 highly focused keywords and launch them.

Phase 5: Rinse, Wash, Repeat - keep monitoring your keywords and make tweaks as necessary. With all these ways being done, success is achievable.

The best keyword research tool is called the Micro Niche Finder!

The most recommended Keyword Research Tool will indeed help you save a lot of time researching for the right keywords, a must have for your research.

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Keyword Research - Reaching Your Target Audience Through the Backdoor

Keyword research is the core component of Internet marketing. The amount of traffic that a website attracts depends to a great extent on the type of keywords and the way they have been used. When it comes to making the content easily accessible for the target visitors through various search engines, the keywords are the king.

The usage of the right keyword and that too in the correct manner is critical to the success of any website. There are two things that you must have to research the keywords properly - the right tools and the proper mindset. You must think the way your target audience thinks. Only then will you be able to achieve your objective.

The Backdoor Keywords Are The Key To Reach Your Target Audience
When you start doing your keyword research, you will find that most of the common keywords associated with your chosen niche have a very high search volume with an equally high rate of competition. For example, if you are running a website on yoga, you cannot just concentrate on the keyword 'yoga' and other common keywords like that.

If you want to get to the top ten search results in a specific search engine, you are recommended to concentrate on keywords that have a low competition rate but a decent search volume. In case of Google, a decent search volume refers to at least 10000 searches. This way, you will be able to get a pretty high page rank for your website within a very short period of time.

The Idea Behind The Long Tail Keywords

Some people, especially the beginners, tend to have a strange dislike for long tail keywords. However, these are the very keywords that can actually bring your website to the top ten by attracting your target audience.

The objective of keyword research is not to attract just any visitor to your website. Driving the targeted traffic is the gateway to success. Always remember that each keyword may represent a different audience. For example, just using the word "yoga" will attract the common visitors that are looking for some information on that subject. However, when you use the keyword "yoga mat", it will attract only those visitors who are looking for information about yoga mats. But what if you are running a website that is about the accessories that help in cleaning a yoga mat? You will have to use a long tail keyword, such as "yoga mat cleaner". This way, you will be able to attract the visitors that your website is targeting at.

Most importantly, you must use the right keyword research tool. It is not a bad idea to use a mix of different keyword tools. You will get more effective results that way.

Yefi Gureni is a co-founder of PPC Bully, a keyword research tool for pay-per-click advertisers that spy on your competition and uncovers your competitors' winning combinations of keywords, ads, merchants and landing pages, so you can dominate the PPC playground. Check out the video here: http://ppcbully.com/?ref=ezine

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11 Steps to SEO in Plain English (steps 1 to 5) by Tim Meadows Smith

One of piece of 'new media jargon' that has got the vast majority of business leaders confused is SEO, search engine optimisation. Too many people have been charged too much for either inappropriate or ineffective SEO services, often because the supplier does not really understand it either. This article is pitched for people who are not experienced or very knowledgeable when it comes to SEO, what it is for and what it can do.

If you have focused objectives and a clear online strategy then SEO will almost always be a good cost effective addition to the marketing tool set. The first thing to understand is that search engine businesses, like Google, Yahoo and Bing, have customers to satisfy too. Their customers are searching and they expect to see the 'best and most relevant' search results. I expect like me, you get frustrated if your searches bring irrelevant results first. No one should be surprised, the methods search engines use to prioritise results are designed to satisfy the searcher. They work hard to eliminate bogus SEO services that aim to cheat.

It is possible for you to make your website 'the best and most relevant' for certain searches and to convince the search engine operator you are just that too. That is SEO. Each of my 11 steps to SEO heaven is necessary. I assume that you will be committed to a long term marketing strategy, and to measuring results with a view to adjusting your activity. The steps include those of preparation as well of those of continuous repeated activities. The early preparatory steps are perhaps the most important as errors here will frustrate the effectiveness of the later ones.

Armed with our clear objectives and online strategy:

Step 1 to SEO Heaven - Keyword Research

A vital first step that should not be undertaken lightly. Whilst experienced pay per click advertisers will know that you can easily test and change hundreds of keywords in paid search campaigns, they should understand this not possible for organic search optimization. It is normally advisable to concentrate on one to five key phrases for the whole site around a core theme. Then, for individual pages only one to three phrases. For large sites with hundreds of pages is it hard to optimize every single page, the effort and cost of SEO to the full extend produces diminishing returns.

Step 2 to SEO Heaven - Competitive Intelligence

SEO is competitive, there is only one front page, only one top slot so it is important to know you competition and perform better. What are they doing? Where do they rank, for which Key words? Who is linking to their website and why? The less competitive your industry is online the easier is it for you to outperform your competition. This is an important determining factor in the cost and resources necessary to achieve your desired SEO outcome.

Step 3 to SEO Heaven - Web Design and Development

Like trying to cable an old building for modern communications, or boosting performance of an obsolete machine, fixing a bad website design is much tougher than building properly from scratch. When you create a new website, make sure to consider search engine friendly design and architecture before and during the actual development of the website. It is almost always a long job to properly prepare a table based (templated) website for SEO. A good design from the start will save you a lot of time and money. In most cases it will put you ahead of a considerable number of your competitors. In most cases a high performing design for SEO is also a user friendly design but occasionally compromise is necesary.

Step 4 to SEO Heaven - Get Your First Inbound Links

There is no need to pay to submit your website to any search engine. Just as soon as you create inbound links from other websites to yours the search engines will find your website.

There are plenty of scam products and services. Avoid them. They are a waste of your money. No one can guarantee you a number 1 ranking it must be earned and maintained by being best and most relevant.

There are some web directories that are recognised by search engines and gaining a trade listing there will be a helpful kick-start to your SEO campaign. Then ask your customers and suppliers to place a link to your website from theirs, most will be pleased for the favour to be returned.

Step 5 to SEO Heaven - Sitemaps

The larger search engines allow webmasters to submit a sitemap to them via a webmaster console. The search engines also provide reports and other useful information, such as technical problems with your websites you might not be aware of via their console. Even if you decide against the submission of a site map to the search engines, is it advisable to create an account and register your website with them, just for the reports and statistics they provide free of charge and which are invaluable for your internet marketing efforts.

With the first 5 steps complete they should be scheduled for occasional review whilst the remaining tasks require regular and repetitive effort. In Eleven Steps to SEO Heaven (steps 6 to eleven) we look at taking a website that is SEO ready site with a campaign ready to run and look at the steps and work needed to claim a high search engine ranking.

About The Author Tim Meadows-Smith is a hands on investor in early stage and turnaround businesses. He works as an experienced non-executive chairman, director, business advisor and mentor. Tim has a classical marketing background gained internationally with famous global brands. He helps business leaders take the jargon out of online marketing. Reach Tim by email at Tim@Meadows-Smith.com further articles at http://www.timmeadows-smith.co.uk/

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Best Keyword Research Tool Could Considerably Help With Producing ...

Anybody that has anything to do with internet marketing or publishing material online comprehends how essential it is to have the right best keyword research tool. People that are involved with generating income online or nearly any kind of task on the internet should constantly remain to come up with distinct material to publish. It is commonly stated that content is king and distinct material is the lifeline of such task online. If such person quits publishing or otherwise using brand-new distinct material then sooner or later his company is likely to fail. Nevertheless, without a good best keyword research tool it can be extremely difficult to not only consider but primarily analyze the proper keywords to target when producing such content.

There are a great deal of people that struggle with their online business. If they ever stop and analyze the reason for their obstacles, they could see that a great deal of it has to do with lack of appropriate keyword research. However, if they had a great best keyword research tool that they had access to then a great deal or all these problems might be easily eliminated. Keyword research and specifically research utilizing the right best keyword research tool could absolutely mean the distinction in between success and failure online. Besides, if an individual fails to recognize the possibility in using such device then their competition is likely to use such device rather and acquire a substantial competitive advantage over them.

Additionally, creating good special content is a must for those people that try to place their internet sites in online search engine like Google. It is necessary to utilize a great best keyword research tool to pick the right keywords to compose the material about and make use of those exact same keywords in online search engine optimization projects. Without a good tool, it is simple to miss out on really important keywords and hence lose out on big opportunities of ranking websites highly in search engines. If that takes place, such on-line entrepreneurs and blog writers are likely to lose out on a substantial portion of potential traffic that they could possibly have gotten if they were targeting the right keywords. This is why utilizing a really good keywords technique tool is a requirement.

The whole sector of online search engine optimization in huge part is based around selecting and targeting proper keywords. The days when it was feasible to rank any poor quality page with bad material for any keyword are gone. Search engines are a whole lot more selective these days with the content that they rank. Best keyword research tools make developing and optimizing content a great deal much easier so that online search engine could get exactly what they desire and, in turn, incentive content creators with high rankings. Websites truly need to be optimized correctly for these keywords, otherwise Google and some others significant search engines can penalize website owners and they can quickly lose their positions overnight. Having the right keyword research tool can help remove the possibility of this taking place.

In essence, unless an online business owner gains page 1 position in search engine for their keywords of option, it is near impossible to obtain any results and make any cash online. This is why severe online entrepreneur comprehend that having the right keyword research tool in their tool kit is not a luxury or an option but a need. A great keyword research software can not only recommend good keywords to target however even analyze existing competitors for such keywords. The software can do this within mins however it could conserve numerous hours of help the individual that develops one-of-a-kind material. Occasionally it is tough or even impossible to determine whether a particular keyword will be simple or tough to place. A great best keyword research tool can figure this out rapidly and make the rest of work extremely reliable for such person. It does not make good sense to begin to produce content and attempt to rank it on the internet if such individual does not understand how simple or tough it is going to be to rank that content and, as a result, generate income with it. Generally, people commonly wind up picking wrong keywords to target and they end up squandering a great deal of time and energy, in addition to their hard made money at the same time.

There are rather many choices to choose from when it comes to picking a best keyword research tool. Not all software tools are made equal. Some are really useful and some will simply end up losing time. Many of them are very hard to learn and make use of. It is important to discover the right balance in between efficiency and efficiency is such software. There are some cost-free choices on the internet however if a person takes his business seriously then the honest truth is that free of cost tools will not get the entire task of keyword research done for him in the best method possible. At the same time, it does not indicate that a great keyword research tool needs to cost a fortune.

It is possible to choose an excellent keyword research tool for simply a small one time repayment. As long as it's the right device, it will repay its owner over and over once again, in addition to save a heap of time. Time is the most important possession and it is essential to use it wisely. A good best keyword research tool could enable that to occur and make the entire experience of developing terrific one-of-a-kind content enjoyable and easy.

Using best keyword research tool will help any severe online business owner make even more money and save time, while making the procedure of developing unique content enjoyable and easy. Click the following link to see the 2 best keyword research tool software on the marketplace today in more specifics.

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How to Use Google Keyword Research Tool - Business - Affiliate ...

Google keyword research tool that provides the edge you need to get in front of the other writers and rank # one in Google.

If you want to be an effective blogger, or do other things on the web, visitors will have to increase their organic results right? So why not do what effective writers do? I am here to tell you how to do this properly.

In my opinion, "Daily Steps 2 Success" outlines just how you should use the Google Research Tool of keywords to increase your potential customers to optimize organic search engines. The thing is that many people want to focus on the most highly watched key phrases and I hope that the ground around the first page of Google for any of the key terms of great respect. For most people, this expectation is simply not realistic.

Here, I will describe how to use the tool keyword research correctly for maximum benefits and best results if it means that traffic.

Google keyword research tool, and your blog.

Make no mistake, your site is the window to the relaxation of the whole world. Well, let me put it another way, your site may be the window of the world for you. This is when you publish all the other pearls of knowledge and permission to accurately determine how bright you are, and how to increase the market value.

Steps for effective use of research tool keyword Google

Step One: Create a free account with Google AdWords, this is actually the easy part.

Step Two: Under Tools, discover the "Google keyword research tool"

Step Three: Find a word that is considered, for example, "network marketing" or any topic of your site could be about, you would like to focus.

Step four: Of all the results, are among the key phrases that generally were not seen, possibly 200-300 monthly global searches.

Step Five: Write articles with this keyword in particular, with my secret search engine optimization tool.

My secret search engine optimization tool mentioned in step five, is the reason why I am on the first page with a minimum of 90% of each and every keyword you select on my blog entries. Without optimization tool search engine, will have almost no chance to write your blog so you can get significant traffic.

This tool maximizes the recent results of key phrases, even heavy, and definitely allows you to get traffic every day of the phrases that someone is trying to find somewhere. Want proof? Very good. Find the word: "Tips training multilevel marketing" in Google. When you have finished kicking the tires, follow the link I provided above, to find my SEO Ace in the hole.

Learn to make money online from FREE Traffic. Click Here!, You don't want to miss this!

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10 Tips to Remove Keyword Research Mistakes - Search Engines - SE ...

Keyword research is an essential part of the SEO process of a website for better rankings and enhanced visibility. To popularize and add brand value, a website has to avail the services of search engine optimization that begins with keyword research. If right keywords are not chosen, the proposed promotional targets won’t be achieved easily. Therefore, it’s important that keyword research mistakes are avoided to guide the website towards the path of success, better rankings and brand creation. In this write up, we discuss 10 tips to remove keyword research mistakes, like:

Doing extensive keyword research

Many a time, good results are awaited even without putting in any relevant research, let alone extensive one. The same happens when webmasters or SEO people anticipate good rankings and results without engaging in the primary task of keywords research. The Google AdWords Keyword Tool is available to analyze the weight and significance of keywords across industries and it must be used. Relying on the guts, or being too much confident won’t pay, as a little research is what can help a lot.

Relevant keyword selection

It’s often observed that pointless keywords are used to achieve better ranks and SERPs that end up offering nothing. The keywords which are in demand, or extensively used by the searchers always offer good results. Relevant keywords are adhered to for driving home the desirable traffic, as it’s easy to stick with such a set of keywords. Keywords that match the area of business, or align with the cause of the business would definitely fetch good results. So relevancy must be the basis of keyword selection, above everything else.

Cost matters for small business

Popular keywords and phrases indeed have enormous value, but won’t ensure high conversion rates. Furthermore, they always remain in great demand and cost astronomically high, always out-of-bounds for small businesses. A keyword that is extensively sought though does not ensure an excellent result is not worth investing money in. Not being blinded by the popularity of the good is suggested for better results in reasonable cost.

Preferring conversion rates than popularity

Popularity of a keyword is not a criterion to go for it, rather conversion rate is. A website needs good rankings to convert prospects into sales and hence, the conversion rate always holds significance. Industry specific keywords are a good bet as visitors are at least attracted. Conversion rate is indeed a good measure for selecting a keyword for better prospects later on.

Avoiding single word as a keyword

Many users and webmasters often show a preference for a single work for keyword, which is not an ideal situation. A single word may have fierce competition with high cost to acquire; the favorable results are also not a guarantee by this bizarre tactics. When competition is tough, results are not achieved as per the planning. It’s suggested to go in for a 8-10 long tail keywords for good conversion rate, low cost and moderate competition.

Selection on the basis of the trends

Keyword selection should be done on the basis of the changing trends to align with the needs of the business. There are many occasions and trends that needed to be capitalize on, and keywords must be tweaked accordingly for reap rewards. A webmaster should assess the nature of prevalent trends around to benefit the business. A keyword selection on the basis of trends would definitely add value to the business.

Regular keyword updates

Search engines do follow a mysterious and bizarre algorithm to attribute ranks to websites. The algorithm keep changing from time to time, thus it becomes essential to bring changes to the keywords. If regular assessment is not done, the rankings would be impacted and lowered as the time goes by. A monthly-basis analysis is suggested to counter the threat of search engines; tweaking of keywords is also suggested.

Not using complex technical jargons

Many a time, technical jargons are used by specific industries to good effect, though not always. Keyword selection is an art that includes many aspects, including users’ interest and preference. Keywords must never be either too complex, or of entirely technical nature, as it hardly gets the coverage needed. The common users always remain comfortable with simple words and terms, and search similarly.

Competitive analysis

Competitive analysis is a vital step of keyword selection as it sheds a lot of light on the preference and patterns of the competitors. As per the business domain, a website must start the research by first analyzing the keywords of the competitors. What is giving them benefits, what is turning prospects into sales and type of regular updates by the competitors must be assessed to do a good job for the own business.

User preference

For success online, users’ preference holds the key, as they the ultimate game-changer. Therefore, the keyword selection must be based by analyzing their preferences and interests. Most of the time, websites fail to read users’ mind and thus, pay for it. The keywords must be aligned with the needs of the users, and they are going to search, not you. It’s thus suggested to tweak the keywords to meet users’ needs and preference for better sales and growth of the business.

Conclusion

Keyword research is what that starts the whole process of SEO which, in turn, enables better ranks and SERPs to a website. If mistakes are made in this process itself, the whole purpose of a website would be wasted then. This article has listed 10 tips to remove keyword research mistakes; users are invited to add more to the list for better SEO of a website.

Ajeet Yadav is a web designer and developer who spends most of his time on Drupal. He is an expert on services to convert PSD to Drupal and regularly writes on the same. He also likes to crack the mystery behind search engines in his free time, and by now he is very well versed in SEO.

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Root Keywords Are Key To SEO Efforts by Halstatt Pires ...

Whether you are just starting out with search engine optimization or an old pro, keyword research is the foundation upon which top rankings are built and root keywords are the most important.

Root Keywords Are Key To SEO Efforts

Keywords, keywords, keywords ? the term used so often in search engine optimization that it can get a bit overwhelming at times. What exactly are keywords? How do I find them? How do I use them? Why is the term spelled keywords instead of key words? Ah, there are so many questions we can go into. Of course, we should talk about something far more important.

The key to keyword research is focusing on the key word. How is that for a sentence? Okay, now for something understandable. When identifying terms you wish to use in the optimization effort for your site, you must look to the base word of the area you are researching. That probably is not much better, so here is an example.

Assume I am researching the keywords for an online internet marketing company, to wit, the site promoted with this article. Should I type in ?online internet marketing? into my favorite research tool? No! By doing so, I limit myself to finding only those keywords that contain these three words. Taking this approach, I would even miss the basic term ?internet marketing.? Obviously, I have not focused on the root word of my research.

Returning to my research tool, I should go ahead and find all the words for ?internet marketing?, right? No! Doing so will return more keyword phrases, but I am still limiting myself to only those phrases that contain the two words. In this case, I will miss out on phrases related to ?internet advertising? or ?online marketing? and so on. By taking this approach, I have followed the seo herd and missed out on some juicy opportunities.

The best approach to the above scenario is to research two words first ? ?internet? and ?marketing?. Do them separately and then work your way into the various combination of words that will appear. These are your root words. Bow before them. Treat them nicely. Research them and you might just find some massive traffic with low competition, the stuff of dreams!

There is a tendency in seo to by into the hype of going niche. Yes, certain situations definitely call for focusing on a very defined niche. When doing your keyword research, however, always start with the root words. They will lead you to the niche you can make money in.

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Keyword Research - Get Down To The Basics

Keyword research tips, eBooks, software, videos and articles are all over the web. With all this information available to us it is no wonder that we become overwhelmed. Just take a look at the keyword tools software with their push button this and push button that. You have seen it before haven't you statements like this tool will get you all the keywords that people are searching for on Google in a matter of minutes then you will be driven an abundant amount of traffic to your website.

Never the less keyword research is actually a very important part of marketing your business website online. There are a few simple basic rules to understand and follow to achieve this from the outset.

1. Knowing the intent of the searcher: First off you have to know and understand your customer in that is in your target market. The aim of this is to connect your customer to the phrases that they are liable to search with. Spending time in this process will help when selecting your targeted keyword.

2. Now dig right in and go and study the competition and find out what keywords they are using. Just pick say the top 12 that are in your targeted niche and save all of those keywords in an excel spread sheet for future use. If you are not familiar with the market you will have to spend time learning the language and terminology of the market. There a couple of free tools available to do this like the Google keyword tool and keyword spy.

3. The keyword research you are doing is all about people remember. Just think about the intent of the searcher when analysing these keyword phrases. Some of these searches will be from people that are not your target market. So really think hard about the keyword phrase. What was the real intent of that searcher when using a particular phrase? Negative keywords also come into play with searching but that is a large topic to cover in this article.

4. Search Volume comes into play a little bit and it depends a lot on how strong the market is. If go into one of those extra big popular markets then the higher the volume of searches the harder and most times it is impossible to rank for. If you have main stream big companies that have large authority sites with many pages then those keywords you have to stay away from as it will be imposable to rank with them.

As you can see there is quite a lot involved when it comes to keyword research but as you go through the processes you will soon get the hang of it. A lot of common sense comes into play with keyword phrases and knowing what your competitors' are using is one of the crucial elements of the whole process.

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Steps to Advanced

Some keyword research is surface-level, fire and forget type stuff. If you just need to see relative volume levels, then a basic keyword research tool is all you need. If, however, you want to really dive deep and get the full skinny on your keywords, I'd recommend having each of these data points.
There are three sources on the web that I've found to work best for comparative numbers research. These are:
Google Adwords: Keyword Tool - enter any term or phrase and get back data about both the average search volume and the volume from the previous month.MSN AdCenter: Research Keywords Tool - you need to be logged in to use this, but the data is solid and shows actual counts.Wordtracker: Keyword Tool - although the numbers Wordtracker shows are frequently less accurate than the two above, they are reasonably decent for estimating comparative search volume. Unfortunately, due to the declining share of Wordtracker's data sources (the Infospace owned search engines - Metacrawler, Dogpile, DoGreatGood, etc.), niche and long tail term volume estimates can be way off.

Here's why I don't use Yahoo!:

From there, rather than build a spreadsheet just showing raw numbers, I like to work in comparative sizes (the real numbers rarely prove accurate anyway). Thus, rather than having a graph of data like this:
I can have one like this:
Note how, in this view, I'm showing the relative volume percentage of the demand for keyword "SEO" made up by "seo services" and "seo tools." This graph tells me that while Google thinks "seo tools" and "seo services" are tiny fractions of the volume that comes in for the broad term, "SEO," Microsoft & Wordtracker both say these phrases make up a more substantive percentage. Since keyword targeting is really about choosing one keyword over another and much less about trying to estimate exact traffic, the latter system makes much more sense to me.
When are your queries in highest demand? Knowing the answer can help you predict when competition may ramp up and additional SEO efforts are needed as well as provide insight into your market overall (if demand has been dropping steadily over the last few years, you might want to target some different terms, or even shift product focus). Two sources of data are solid on this front:
Google Trends for Keywords

MSN AdCenter Labs: Keyword Forecast Tool

In order to get a full understanding of the competitive landscape, it's essential to know who's ranking for the terms you're targeting. A basic query is a great start, but I like to append those with a bit of extra data, as I've visualized below:

Those three are my favorite pieces of link data to append, not because they alone are predictive of rankings, but because the range so perfectly illustrates what's necessary, on both the URL and domain level to be competitive. Nick's been pushing hard to get this functionality automatically included with the SEOmoz Toolbar, so hopefully we can make that happen in the next few months.
The fresh web (aka social media sphere) can help to show how often keywords are appearing in content and conversation in blogs, forums, feeds and more. It's particularly valuable for identifying emerging trends which may not yet have search volume (but will if the conversational content acceleration continues). There's a few tools I like on this front:
Facebook Lexicon

There appears to be some correlation between "party tonight" on Friday and "hangover" on Saturday
Twist: See Trends in Twitter

Blogscape

Google News Trends

I'd love to see some of those 19th century SEO tools!
The real value (and reason for spending time in these sectors) is to:
A) Identify patterns or trends indicating a keyword/product/concept is on the rise/fallB) Find content that in the past has attracted large amounts of attention around these keywords (an excellent starting point for viral content development)C) Locate portals on the web or in social communities where your topic may be hot, and opportunities for promotion or links exist
They're not universally valuable for every part of keyword research, and you shouldn't trust the volumes to predict keyword demand (some things get written about more than they get searched), but a good SEO leaves no opportunity un-investigated.
It's wise to be aware of where and how your keywords can cross over into vertical search results. The best way to do this currently is, unfortunately, manually. You'll want to:
Search for your target terms at the major search enginesIdentify any vertical results that appears in the top 10-20 listingsEmploy strategies to reach into the applicable verticals
The most common and highest value are typically:
LocalProductNewsImagesBlogVideo
What are the goals of the individuals searching for your targeted keywords? What phase of the decision process are they in? Answering these questions can give you an excellent idea of the potential ROI from drawing in traffic on a given term/phrase. Many times the highest volume keywords are not bringing in the best traffic.
Some good resources on this front include:

Your goal should be to narrow down the potential tasks a visitor who has just performed the query wants to accomplish. This can dramatically boost your site's performance when coupled with delivery of those paths upon arrival.
The best way to determine the relevance between a keyword and the content/service/product you offer is to test. Run a PPC campaign or dig into your analytics and choose only those visitors that have come via the search query. Pull out data like browse rate, time spent on site, conversions, etc.

The majority of visits who come into SEOmoz for the keyword "SEO Blog" stick around to read at least a couple of pages
Relevance is highly actionable data because it does such a good job predicting which keywords are going to bring valuable traffic. While branded terms often perform highly (and are typically easy to rank well on), longer tail and more specific queries also have this tendency to be more relevant (and, again, are easier to achieve).
Even if you're not planning on bidding for keywords through paid search campaigns, it's wise to know what the competition is doing and how much value they're getting from it (and what they're willing to pay). A few good resources for this information include:
MSN AdCenter's Keyword Estimate

I really like what AdCenter does with this spiffy graph - showing the cost and estimated clicks in an easy-to-read graphic. Just remember that MSN is the engine with the fewest advertisers, which often means pricing is less aggressive than on Google or Yahoo!
Google AdWords Traffic Estimator
I'm a bit less fond of Google's standard take on the data, but their pricing is the gold standard, as AdWords has the highest number of advertisers and the most traffic by far.

SEMRush
A solid tool with a lot of uses, particularly for competitive keyword analysis, SEMRush shows some decent numbers around the average CPC and competition levels for most keywords at the head of the demand curve.

Take the cost-per-click data and competition levels into account when you're considering things like relevance, potential conversion rates and visitor value. Most companies aren't dumb - if they're bidding high dollar values for potential visits, they're converting those visits into dollars and that means you can both learn from them and find strategies to outperform.
Related queries is an easy metric to understand - you want to know what other terms searchers who used these keywords also employed. It's a no-brainer to then add these to your list of potential keyword targets. Many good sources for this data exist:
Google shows related searches in both their AdWords Tool and through web search (you'll want to click the "show options" link at the top followed by the "related searches" link in the sidebar)Bing, Microsoft's new engine, shows related searches by default in their web search interfaceYahoo! Search has their "also try" list and clicking "more" will give you an interface just below the search box that finds lots of great, relevant keywordsThe aforementioned SEMRush shows great data on this (though you'll need to sift through as there can be a lot of junk) if you're a paying memberCompete.com's Search Analytics has good information by query and website, though you'll need to subscribe to their service to get the full value
Get the related queries, dig into the data about them and target those that have enough volume and relevance to help you get increase valuable traffic from SEO.
Last, and probably least in most cases, it's wise to do some research into the legalities surrounding the keywords you'd like to target. Using trademarked terms and phrases on your site can cause attorney trouble, and no one likes that. The place to start, at least in the United States, is here - USPTO Trademark Electronic Search System.
Whew... That's a lot of work for keyword research - now you can see why some firms charge hundreds of dollars per hour for this type of deep dive. Put these recommendations to good use, though, and you'll have an impressive set of terms to target - and that can be a serious competitive advantage.
I've undoubtedly left out a few metrics and, as always, appreciate any ideas or suggestions you've got on this topic.
VisitsPageviewsAvg. Time on PageDirect TrafficSearch TrafficReferral TrafficYikes, looks like something went wrong. Please try again later.
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An Introduction to Using Free Tools

I often find that keyword research is an overlooked part of the SEO process. Many SEOs will tend to stick with using Google’s Adwords Keyword Tool and as a result, they will most likely be targeting the exact same keywords as the competition. The ultimate goal with keyword research is to find those juicy, low-hanging fruit - the long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords are sometimes defined as keyword phrases containing multiple words of four or more. However, this is not how I like to define them. For me, the long-tail keywords are those that have lower volumes of traffic and are less competitive to rank for. In other words, they may contain multiple words or they could contain as few as two words.
Anyway, I wanted to share my method of conducting keyword research in order to hopefully give some insights into the process. For this example, I am going to use the ‘greetings card’ industry in the UK. All the tools I will be using are freely available to everyone. So let’s get started!
I always like to start my research with a basic Google search using my most obvious industry keyword. This will give an idea of who my competitors are and who the big players in the industry are. So, a basic search for [greetings cards] in Google.co.uk produces the following results:

Two of the top four results (funkypigeon.com and moonpig.com) are well known brands that advertise regularly on television. However, the top 2 results are perhaps lesser-known competitors.
Now that you have an idea of who the big players are, it's time to see if we can find out what keywords they are targeting. Let’s take a look at greetingscards.co.uk. When we look at the home page, there doesn’t seem to be an awful lot of text, so let’s turn to using a keyword density tool. SEOBook has a pretty good keyword density tool but I’m going to use the tool from David Naylor Search Marketing. The reason I prefer to use this tool is because it has more options to customize your results and can provide phrases of four or more words in length. When we use the keyword density tool we are provided with the following list:

As you can see, it is a pretty comprehensive list of keyword ideas that we can also use. However, where did all these words come from, considering there was very little text on the homepage? A quick look at the source code reveals the answer. They are still using the Keyword Meta Tag and have stuffed it with around 30 keywords. This is exactly why you shouldn’t still be using the redundant tag as it just gives your competitor insights into the keywords you are targeting.
Übersuggest is a great tool that extracts all the Google autocomplete words for a base keyword. It is really simple to use. All you have to do is put your base keyword in the search box, select a language and country then hit suggest. For [greetings cards] we are presented with the following list of 352 suggestions:

The tool also makes it really easy to select all the keywords so that you can easily copy and paste them into Google’s Adwords Keyword Tool later.
For this next stage, I like to use a tool called mergewords (mergewords.com) to further advance our list. Before you use this tool you will need to think carefully about how to arrange the words in the three columns to get the right combination of words. Once you have done this, you can start filling the boxes with words. For greetings cards, I used the following combination:

This resulted in 468 keyword possibilities.
Having followed these steps, we now have a list of over 800 keywords. However, some of these may be duplicates and some may be unsuitable for other reasons. This is how I start the filtering process. First I input all of the keywords into an excel spreadsheet, then I use the ‘remove duplicates’ tool. I'm using Excel 2011 for Mac, which has a 'remove duplicates' function in the Ribbon's Data tab:

If you are using Excel 2007 or later then you should also be able to easily find this function. However, if you are using an earlier version of Excel, there are still ways to easily remove duplicates. MrExcel.com lists a variety of methods you can use to remove duplicates in both Excel 2003 and 2007.
Twenty-nine duplicates were removed, leaving me with a list of 851 keywords. The next step is to manually go through the list and remove any unsuitable keywords such as those containing brand terms. Unfortunately, there is no suitable way to automate this (that I know of) and you will have to go through the list manually.
After going through the list manually and removing unsuitable keywords, we are now left with 741 keywords.
Now we have a list of 741 keywords, it’s time to use Google’s keyword tool to start refining the list and find out information such as search volumes, competition and local search trends. When using the tool, remember to have all the parameters set correctly. So, make sure you set the tool to [Exact] match types in the correct location (UK in this case) and tick the box to only show ideas closely related to your search. To set the tool to show [Exact] match, just navigate to the left sidebar and select the check-box next to [Exact]. You may have to unselect the check-box for Broad match if it is selected:

After inputting the 741 keywords into the keyword tool, we further refine the list by removing any unsuitable words we may have missed from the previous manual check and remove any keywords with local search volumes of less than 10. This leaves us with a more manageable list of 126 keywords, which we can download as a CSV file. However, we are not quite done with Google’s keyword tool just yet.
We are now going to start adding some more keywords to the list by inserting our refined list of 126 keywords into the keyword tool. Once we have done this you should get around 800 keyword suggestions from Google:

The first thing we should do is to save all the keywords from our original list of 126, to our new list. Next, we can arrange the list of suggestions by competition from lowest to highest. Once this is done, we can now start adding all the keywords with low to medium competition and local monthly search volumes greater than 10. These are our 'juicy' low-hanging fruit keywords.
The final stage is to add all the important keywords from the suggestions that we may have missed previously. Depending on how many keywords you have added from this final stage, you should have a final list of around 280 keywords. To see the list I have created you can visit the blog at my site Crimson Penguin and download it for free!
Two of my favorite tools for keyword research that often get overlooked are Google Trends and Google Insights. However, Google has recently combined the two into a new look Google Trends. This is a great tool for finding valuable insights into your niche keywords and can often help you to make decisions about which specific keywords you should target. Let’s take a look at our example of the greetings card industry:

As you can see from the graph in the top, very slight changes in the keywords can produce drastically different results. Pluralising [birthday card] to [birthday cards] results in twice as much interest over the past 12 months.
Hopefully, I’ve shown you some useful tools and techniques that you can start to use in your own keyword research projects. Armed with this knowledge, I hope you can start to find more valuable long-tail keywords for your clients.
Adam is a professional SEO and owner/founder of Crimson Penguin SEO Services based in Essex. He also works for a leading SEO agency in London. You can connect with Adam on Twitter or Google+



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An Introduction to Using Free Tools

I often find that keyword research is an overlooked part of the SEO process. Many SEOs will tend to stick with using Google’s Adwords Keyword Tool and as a result, they will most likely be targeting the exact same keywords as the competition. The ultimate goal with keyword research is to find those juicy, low-hanging fruit - the long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords are sometimes defined as keyword phrases containing multiple words of four or more. However, this is not how I like to define them. For me, the long-tail keywords are those that have lower volumes of traffic and are less competitive to rank for. In other words, they may contain multiple words or they could contain as few as two words.
Anyway, I wanted to share my method of conducting keyword research in order to hopefully give some insights into the process. For this example, I am going to use the ‘greetings card’ industry in the UK. All the tools I will be using are freely available to everyone. So let’s get started!
I always like to start my research with a basic Google search using my most obvious industry keyword. This will give an idea of who my competitors are and who the big players in the industry are. So, a basic search for [greetings cards] in Google.co.uk produces the following results:

Two of the top four results (funkypigeon.com and moonpig.com) are well known brands that advertise regularly on television. However, the top 2 results are perhaps lesser-known competitors.
Now that you have an idea of who the big players are, it's time to see if we can find out what keywords they are targeting. Let’s take a look at greetingscards.co.uk. When we look at the home page, there doesn’t seem to be an awful lot of text, so let’s turn to using a keyword density tool. SEOBook has a pretty good keyword density tool but I’m going to use the tool from David Naylor Search Marketing. The reason I prefer to use this tool is because it has more options to customize your results and can provide phrases of four or more words in length. When we use the keyword density tool we are provided with the following list:

As you can see, it is a pretty comprehensive list of keyword ideas that we can also use. However, where did all these words come from, considering there was very little text on the homepage? A quick look at the source code reveals the answer. They are still using the Keyword Meta Tag and have stuffed it with around 30 keywords. This is exactly why you shouldn’t still be using the redundant tag as it just gives your competitor insights into the keywords you are targeting.
Übersuggest is a great tool that extracts all the Google autocomplete words for a base keyword. It is really simple to use. All you have to do is put your base keyword in the search box, select a language and country then hit suggest. For [greetings cards] we are presented with the following list of 352 suggestions:

The tool also makes it really easy to select all the keywords so that you can easily copy and paste them into Google’s Adwords Keyword Tool later.
For this next stage, I like to use a tool called mergewords (mergewords.com) to further advance our list. Before you use this tool you will need to think carefully about how to arrange the words in the three columns to get the right combination of words. Once you have done this, you can start filling the boxes with words. For greetings cards, I used the following combination:

This resulted in 468 keyword possibilities.
Having followed these steps, we now have a list of over 800 keywords. However, some of these may be duplicates and some may be unsuitable for other reasons. This is how I start the filtering process. First I input all of the keywords into an excel spreadsheet, then I use the ‘remove duplicates’ tool. I'm using Excel 2011 for Mac, which has a 'remove duplicates' function in the Ribbon's Data tab:

If you are using Excel 2007 or later then you should also be able to easily find this function. However, if you are using an earlier version of Excel, there are still ways to easily remove duplicates. MrExcel.com lists a variety of methods you can use to remove duplicates in both Excel 2003 and 2007.
Twenty-nine duplicates were removed, leaving me with a list of 851 keywords. The next step is to manually go through the list and remove any unsuitable keywords such as those containing brand terms. Unfortunately, there is no suitable way to automate this (that I know of) and you will have to go through the list manually.
After going through the list manually and removing unsuitable keywords, we are now left with 741 keywords.
Now we have a list of 741 keywords, it’s time to use Google’s keyword tool to start refining the list and find out information such as search volumes, competition and local search trends. When using the tool, remember to have all the parameters set correctly. So, make sure you set the tool to [Exact] match types in the correct location (UK in this case) and tick the box to only show ideas closely related to your search. To set the tool to show [Exact] match, just navigate to the left sidebar and select the check-box next to [Exact]. You may have to unselect the check-box for Broad match if it is selected:

After inputting the 741 keywords into the keyword tool, we further refine the list by removing any unsuitable words we may have missed from the previous manual check and remove any keywords with local search volumes of less than 10. This leaves us with a more manageable list of 126 keywords, which we can download as a CSV file. However, we are not quite done with Google’s keyword tool just yet.
We are now going to start adding some more keywords to the list by inserting our refined list of 126 keywords into the keyword tool. Once we have done this you should get around 800 keyword suggestions from Google:

The first thing we should do is to save all the keywords from our original list of 126, to our new list. Next, we can arrange the list of suggestions by competition from lowest to highest. Once this is done, we can now start adding all the keywords with low to medium competition and local monthly search volumes greater than 10. These are our 'juicy' low-hanging fruit keywords.
The final stage is to add all the important keywords from the suggestions that we may have missed previously. Depending on how many keywords you have added from this final stage, you should have a final list of around 280 keywords. To see the list I have created you can visit the blog at my site Crimson Penguin and download it for free!
Two of my favorite tools for keyword research that often get overlooked are Google Trends and Google Insights. However, Google has recently combined the two into a new look Google Trends. This is a great tool for finding valuable insights into your niche keywords and can often help you to make decisions about which specific keywords you should target. Let’s take a look at our example of the greetings card industry:

As you can see from the graph in the top, very slight changes in the keywords can produce drastically different results. Pluralising [birthday card] to [birthday cards] results in twice as much interest over the past 12 months.
Hopefully, I’ve shown you some useful tools and techniques that you can start to use in your own keyword research projects. Armed with this knowledge, I hope you can start to find more valuable long-tail keywords for your clients.
Adam is a professional SEO and owner/founder of Crimson Penguin SEO Services based in Essex. He also works for a leading SEO agency in London. You can connect with Adam on Twitter or Google+

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How to Improve Your Rankings with Semantic Keyword Research

From Google’s Panda, Search Plus Your World and Venice updates, in the last year alone the SEO landscape has changed. And while that means your SEO strategy will change, too, there is one thing that remains the same…keywords
.
Keywords remain important to your content and link strategies.
But there is one change coming down the Google pipeline that will change keywords…semantic search technology and the human element.
Basically, semantic search is technology that tries to determine what users mean when they type in a certain keyword.
They explore the semantics
of those words…or the meaning behind them.
For example, if someone typed in “laptop” do they mean:
That they want to buy a laptop?Have one repaired?Upgraded?Are they even talking about a computer, but something entirely different?
In the real world most people don’t search with one keyword…additional keywords give additional clues
.
Even then search engines aren’t always right. Google guesses because all it has to go on are the keywords you enter into their engine.
Semantic search will look at how those words relate to each other and look for clues on how you entered them…location being crucial
.
Say you used Google search on your smart phone to find “laptop repair.” Semantic search will recognize your location via your GPS on your phone and deliver you “laptop repair” results based on location
.
In other words, results related to “laptop repair + [your city].”
In your SEO campaigns semantic search means you will have to identify the right keywords based upon user intent in the real world…and then create content around those terms
.
This is where the semantic keyword research comes in.
In the world of keyword research you simply sought out the keywords with the highest search volume. The meaning between your list of keywords and the content you created was equal. There was a one to one relationship.
“SEO strategy tools” meant “SEO strategy tools.”
In the semantic keyword world, you build a database of keywords that are full of meaning...”SEO strategy tools” could be used in four different contexts.
Your job is to figure out how.                                                  
Having a database of semantic keywords to create high-converting blog posts is one advantage…but there are other benefits, like improved CTR and PPC optimization as Wordstream explained:
Higher click-through rate – Whether it’s in your emails, landing pages, text ads or blog posts, highly-targeted semantic keywords will improve your CTR. When all these elements of the conversion funnel are aligned semantically…your results will go through the roof.Lower minimum bids – Higher relevance and targeted action with your content due to semantic keyword enhancements will lead to lower minimum bids on your PPC campaigns.Higher quality score – When you achieve high relevance around your semantic keywords…the search engines will reward your content with a high quality score that leads to better rankings.
Employing a semantic keyword plan is crucial. But how do you come up with those keywords? Here are five approaches to use…including
recommended tools.
Google’s advanced search results provide a quick way to generate some semantic keywords. Just type in a query like “laptop discount codes” and click “Show search tools”:

Then click “related searches”…

…and then you’ll see all of the semantic terms for “laptop discount codes”:

As you can see from the results above, when searchers think of “laptop discount codes” they are thinking in specific terms of a brand for the most part.
In other words, the term “laptop” was changed into a brand…giving you semantic options
.
And don’t forget to use Google Instant for further ideas on keywords:

By the way, all those keywords are completely different than what you got in the “related search.”
Now let’s look at a reverse case of semantic keyword use. In this case we’ll look up the term “laptop repair”:

“Laptop repair” is synonymous to screen repair, brand laptop repair and even different ways of looking at repair like “troubleshooting.”
And this is where it gets interesting. Look at the Google Instant version of “laptop repair” and you see this:

You get all the options related to location.
Keep in mind that your job isn’t simply to scoop up all of these up. You have to decide what people are thinking when they search with these terms. In some cases it will be obvious…in others it won’t be so obvious
.
That’s what semantic keyword research is all about.
You can refine your results with Google Insights for Search where you can narrow keywords down via categories, for instance.

If you want to find out how some searchers think about keywords, examine how tags are used at social bookmarking sites like Delicious.
Here’s a search on their database for my blog QuickSprout:

As you can see, there are a total of 578 posts that have been bookmarked in Delicious.
To examine the tags that people use to bookmark that content…in a sense, seeing how people are viewing the content and giving you an inside track to their mind…look at how people created “Stacks,” “Links” and “Related Tags.”
You can perform the same process on new social bookmarking sites like Diigo, Pinterest and Licorize.
Again, it’s important to think through how to use these keywords and not just scoop them up.
Using social media monitoring tools to track the mentions of your brand is pretty common and an effective way to stay on top of the competition and
conversation.
Using these same tools for semantic keyword research is just as effective to build a cloud of keywords around a particular sentiment.
For example, in Social Mention search a keyword you type in. Here I used “Virgin Atlantic.”

Then you can get a quick look at the top keywords being used around the brand.
Other social mention tools you can use to help you build a cloud of semantic keywords are TweetDeck, Raven Tool’s Social Monitor and Technorati.
A great strategy to keep in front of the public and at the top of search engines is to optimize your semantic keywords around a trending topic.
This means you have to keep your eyes on high-volume topics. Here are the tools to do that:
Google Trends – This is the obvious place you should check first.Ice Rocket – Search the latest buzz on blogs through this search engine dedicated to blogs. While you will see what’s hot on the blogosphere…one thing you won’t see is any older posts.Trendrr TV – And if you want to keep on top of what’s hot on TV, then Trendrr is the place you need to look.TweetVolume – While it’s offline for the moment, sign up to be the first to use this powerful tool to see popular keywords and trends on Twitter.
When it comes to researching on the social web, the first place I always look for keyword ideas is TwitterSearch.
The way to use it is to look up a keyword like “SEO strategies.” Then look at what people are tweeting about that keyword phrase:

What you want to find is how people are using that term. So look at the words surrounding
the keyword…and then decide how to use it to build your own semantic keywords.
OpenBook – This site will let you see what people are sharing on Facebook. And just like Twitter Search, look at the context on how the keyword is used to determine query intent:

There are dozens of tools out there you can use to build a semantic keyword cloud. Hopefully you understand the approach that I’m recommending so that you can then apply these principles to other tools.
Keep in mind that as much as semantic keyword research is about finding actual
keywords you can use in your SEO campaigns…it’s just as much about building a complete profile of your target customer. And the better you can understand your target customer the better your campaign results will be!

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