Keyword research is the stepping-stone for proper SEO, as it helps webmasters pinpoint highly relevant search terms to target in their optimization strategies. Despite its importance in the overall economy of the search engine optimization effort, many site owners make the mistake of researching keywords by ear, without following a set of clear guidelines. Especially if you are new to SEO, keyword research can seem overwhelming and onerous, which means you should probably consider leaving this task to the experts.
Proper keyword research not only reveals suitable keywords and key phrases, but also narrows down the option list to only a few business-specific terms that are best adapted to your commercial profile. This is great for bringing in more targeted traffic and can sometimes reduce competition for the same popular keyword.
Keyword research builds upon two crucial aspects. The first one consists in quantifying search term popularity, which can be difficult at times since major search engine like Google, Yahoo, or MSN don't specify the actual number of searches for a given keyword. Therefore, you should look for dedicated online tools designed to provide approximations of your site's keyword popularity. As common sense would suggest, using prominent keyword research tools - such as the ones offered by Google for instance - will also ensure a higher accuracy of results.
The second aspect of keyword research involves performing a research of existing competitors in your niche. Sometimes referred to as 'page strength', competition research should kick in with an evaluation of your site's overall ranking potential for both generic and specific keywords. Despite appearances, generic strength research is equally important to specific strength research, and therefore you should aim for a balanced combination of the two for best results.
The next phase in your keyword research plan is referred to as 'keyword difficulty', and involves doing a close examination of the keywords themselves so that you can verify their actual competitiveness. One good way of approaching keyword difficulty is to evaluate the level of competitiveness for the pages that already have good rankings for a particular keyword, although there are also other possible alternatives to this. Yet, irrespective of the method you favor, going through the process of keyword difficulty is challenging for two reasons:
1. Many of the algorithms that search engines use in establishing the level of competitiveness of sites and web pages are a well-kept secret of the trade. Unless you know the mechanics of a particular search engine inside out, your search engine optimization strategy can never be complete and you won't be able to optimize your keywords according to the search engine's exact requirements.
2. Each search engine uses a different system for quantifying site or web page competitiveness. Therefore, even if you were able to figure out the best keyword optimization formula for one search engine, the same pattern would not be guaranteed to also work with other search engines.
To sum it all up, proper keyword research is crucial for an effective and sustainable search engine optimization campaign. Although it has some drawbacks and doesn't always provide you with the best keywords and key phrases, never make the mistake to exclude keyword research from your site optimization priority list.
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