Keyword Research

This is one area that can't be overlooked if you want prospects to find your web site. This article will discuss different aspects of keyword research and provide you with 8 tips to follow that will help you to attract the right targeted audience to your business.

1. The first step in this process is to create a list of potential keywords. Brainstorm all the words you think a customer would type into their search box when trying to find you. This includes thinking of phrases that are broad and targeted, buying and research-oriented, and single and multi-word. What is your site hoping to do or promote? Come up with enough words to cover all the services your site offers. Avoid overly generic terms like 'shoes' or 'clothes'. These words are incredibly difficult to rank for and won't drive qualified traffic to your site. Focus on words that are relevant, but not overly used.

2. If you are having difficulty coming up with a list, use keyword research tools to help make the job easier. There are many kinds of different keyword research tools online, such a Good Keywords, Keyword Discover, Google Adwords Keyword Tool, Word Butler and more. Conduct a search for these tools to discover which one best suits your needs.

3. Consider that your prospective customer probably doesn't work in the same industry that you do. If they did, they probably wouldn't need you. So when describing your site or product, break away from the regular industry lingo. Your customers aren't searching that way, and if you center your site on these types of terms, they'll never find you.

4. Check out your competitor's web site to see what keywords they're targeting. See if you can expand on their keyword list to make yours better.

5. Consider using thesaurus.com for synonyms that you might not have thought of, and don't forget that some people misspell keywords when they enter them into a search. Another resources I'd suggest is Bruce Clay's Check Traffic tool, which estimates the number of queries per day for that search term across the major search engines.

6. Utilise keyword search tools to gauge the popularity of the keywords that you have chosen. This will help to whittle the list down into a more manageable size.

7. The first step in narrowing down your list is to go through and highlight the terms that most closely target the subject and theme of your web site. These are the terms you want to hold on to. Kill all words that are not relevant to your site or that you don't have sufficient content to support (unless you're willing to write some). You can't optimize for words that you don't have content for. Create a mix of both broad and targeted keywords. You'll need both to rank well. Targeted terms are often easier to rank for and help bring qualified traffic.

8. Your on-page content isn't the only place where you can insert keywords. Keywords should also be used in several other elements on your site:

. Title Tag
. Meta Description Tags
. Meta Keywords Tag
. Headings
. Alt/title text in graphics and hyperlinks
. Anchor Text/ Navigational Links

You're done! Once you've carried out this process, you will need to monitor and tweak your keywords as your web site changes.

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