Keyword research is critical to the process of SEO. Without this component, your efforts to rank well in the major search engines may be misdirected to the wrong terms and phrases, resulting in rankings that no one will ever see. The process of keyword research involves several phases: 1.Thinking of what your customers/potential visitors would be likely to type in to search engines in an attempt to find the information/services your site offers (including alternate spellings, wordings, synonyms, etc). 2.Surveying past or potential customers is a great way to expand your keyword list to include as many terms and phrases as possible. It can also give you a good idea of what's likely to be the biggest traffic drivers and produce the highest conversion rates. 3.Several tools are available online that offer information about the number of times users perform specific searches. Using these tools can offer concrete data about trends in keyword selection. 4.Term Selection:-The next step is to create a matrix or chart that analyzes the terms you believe are valuable and compares traffic, relevancy and the likelihood of conversions for each. This will allow you to make the best informed decisions about which terms to target. SEOmoz keyword Difficulty tool can also aid in choosing terms that will be achievable for the site. After keyword selection and implementation of targeting, analytics programs that measure web traffic, activity and conversions can be used to further refine keyword selection any more factors,Please suggest Thanks
good recap ! the number 4 can be more specific : - number of searches (daily - monthly ) - number of search result (broad - exact) - number of competition (intitle, inanchor, inurl keyword count) - is it the keywords worthy ? (did the keyword phrase represents the mood of buying or just finding an information) ex: "weight loss" not represents a buying mood but, "buy diet pill online" specifically a buying keywords. only a small add though
I agree that keyword research is very vital in SEO process. It is the first thing to do if you want to try your luck in internet marketing. But keep in mind that it is also important to have an ample knowledge in the market that you are targeting.
you can research the most popular keywords from the famous paid site wordtracker.com or free site freekeywords.wordtracker.com and get the valuable keywords for your artical or your site.
Good ideas in the original post. For the keyword research the most popular tool is Market samurai. You have talked about building a 'matrix'. the matrix is built in feature of market samurai, it gives seo competition levels, competing pages levels, page rank, etc. and the most pertinent details.
Use free tools such as google keyword tool. To generate ideas use google insights. Google wonder wheel will help expand your current list but a more robust tool such as Market Samurai is the best I have used in 11 years. They have a free trial and it can be a little tough at first but the data it returns is great. The videos on their blog are very helpfull even if you do not use thier software.
Unfortunately, Google's keyword tools are severely limited. Check out the video for my keyword discovery script that proves it. http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=1745247
big tool to make some difference technicalstatus.com/2010/03/finding-the-best-seo-tools-on-the-internet/
big tool to make some difference technicalstatus.com/2010/03/finding-the-best-seo-tools-on-the-internet/
If you are doing SEO spend a lot of time researching your keywords that one of the most important parts of building your site so don't be in to big of a hurry and take your time to find the right keywords.