In my last post in this series, we talked about the power of links. By now you should be starting to realize that SEO is not rocket science or black magic - it's a simple set of guidelines that Google and Bing ask webmasters to follow so they can figure out what web pages are about. You're probably eager to start revising your content and building links that contain your keywords. But what are your keywords? And how do you know which keywords to use?
This post will provide a brief introduction to the concept of keyword research, and show you a couple of tools for getting the job done.
"SEO is not rocket science or black magic - it's a simple set of guidelines that Google and Bing ask webmasters to follow so they can figure out what our web pages are about"
While Google and Bing are getting very good at semantic analysis, the fact remains that using the right keywords can make the difference between getting lots of traffic and new business, or having a beautiful website that no no ever sees. The key to using the right keywords is knowing what people actually search for on Google and Bing. And this information is not as top secret as you might think!
I'm going to let you in on a little secret many SEO companies don't want you to know - Google (which you'll recall from my first post in this series has a 70% market share in the U.S.) gives away this information for free! Just follow these easy steps:
- Enter some keywords or phrases you think people may search for.
- Have fun playing around with Google's keyword tool and exploring the many phrases people actually search for on Google. The tool is actually pretty intuituve and user friendly.
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| Google's Keyword Tool |
According to Google:
You can search for keyword ideas by entering a keyword related to your business or service or a URL to a page containing content related to your business or service. Or, you can go straight to filtering keyword categories next to the statistics table. You can use one or the other or both together; the tool is completely flexible depending on how you'd like to use it. Things to try:
- Open Advanced Options to further refine your search by: Country, Language, and Mobile search.
- Relevant Categories will be highlighted in bold to the left. However, you can still select and explore non-highlighted categories.
- Check or uncheck the Keyword Match Types boxes beneath the available categories to further refine your search in the main browser pane.
- Click "Filters and Views" above the results table to customize the columns you see within your results data.
- Add -keyword to exclude the keyword from your search results. (For example, add -classes to a search for tango.)
- Broad Match - Includes traffic estimates for all similar phrases and relevant variations
- Phrase match - Includes traffic for searches that contain the exact phrase
- Exact Match - Includes traffic for searches that match the exact phrase exclusively
And another word of caution about the Google Keyword tool in general - This tool was designed for use by Google Adwords advertisers, and opinions vary on how accurate the tool is. Obviously, the numbers will be slightly inflated due to the fact that webmasters and business owners frequenlty search for their own keywords to see where their sites are ranked in the search results.
"Using the right keywords can make the difference between getting lots of traffic and new business, or having a beautiful website that no no ever sees."
If nothing else, the Google Keyword tool is great for comparing different keyword combinations and checking their relative traffic. For example, if the tool says the phrase "Tampa Auto Repair" generates 250 searches per month, and the phrase "Tampa Mechanic" generates 25, you can safely assume you'll get a lot more traffic if you rank well for the first phrase. But your actual mileage will vary.
My two favorite things about the Google Keyword tool are 1) it's absolutely free, and 2) it's from Google, so this is about as close to the horse's mouth as you're going to get.
But while this free tool from Google is certainly a good place to start, if you're serious about your SEO and you're looking for something more sophisticated, then I recommend Wordtracker (affiliate link). They have several tools available to help you with keyword research and linkbuilding, and most of them come with a free trial and a moneyback guarantee.
And that's it in a nutshell*. If you do your homework as you begin the SEO process, you'll get a lot more bang for your buck!
So now that you know what your keywords are and you've got them in the right place on your website, you're ready to start building links, right? But how the heck do you do that?
Stay tuned for my next post in this series - Link Building Strategies (or better yet, subscribe to my blog to get it delivered to your inbox).
*I fully realize that this was a very brief introduction to keyword research. The truth is it's a complex subject that is difficult to cover in a single blog post. I just wanted to introduce you to the idea and show you a couple of tools to get you started. I am planning an in-depth e-book on the subject in the future - please subscribe to my blog and I'll send you a discount code when it comes out!
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