Keyword Research Tutorial

Part One: Introduction to Keyword Research

In the game of marketing, content is king. There is a lot of discussion about search engine optimization and the use of keywords, but in reality the most important thing that you can do when trying to leverage keywords, it to use the RIGHT WORDS.

Your business or website has a particular target audience. When you choose the right words, you will get increases in website traffic, pay per click income, affiliate advertising income, more people opting-in to your subscriber list and more sales of your products and services.

If you choose the wrong words, you are just another struggling internet marketing business.

So, how do you choose the right keywords?

This is something that great copywriters have been doing for years. Some search engine optimization experts will rave about the choice of keywords and stuffing your site. While keywords can certainly drive traffic to your website, the question is, “Are they the right people that you want driven to your website”? Driving the right traffic to your website involves understanding your target audience and the ‘words’ that will attract the right audience to you.

Understanding SEO is not just about keywords, it is really about choosing the right keywords for your business and your website. Understanding the right keywords for your business and your audience will help you to maximize all of your writing efforts, ultimately leading to an increase in revenue and success for your business.

How do Keywords help your business?

The keywords and keyword phrases used in your written content are the same keywords that prospects will type into various search engine programs i.e. Google, Yahoo, MSN, YouTube, etc.

Keywords can be used in blog postings, articles, forum postings, advertisements, titles, meta tags on your website and in your primary website page content.

When you choose the right keywords, it will help your website to receive a higher ranking on the search engines, making it easier for potential customers or leads to find you.

How can you choose keywords for your business?

In the last section of this 4 part course, we will talk about several different keyword tools and concepts. But before you get there, it is vital that you understand the general concept. Without general keyword concepts, the software programs and online tools are utterly useless.

Synonyms

The best place to start when you are brainstorming possible keywords for your business it is to search for synonyms of a given word, industry, or type of business.

For example, if you have a travel business, you might start by listing:

Travel Business
Travel Businesses
Online Travel Businesses
Travel Companies
Travel Services
Travel Agents

Here is an expanded example of what the most basic travel related keywords are for Google. You can also click on the button that says “More Keywords” for a full list.

 
Start by thinking of anything that would be relevant and a likely search by someone in a search engine for your business subject matter. Use as many synonyms of the word or phrase as possible and also consider that keyword phrases can be written in reverse, such as Business Travel Services, instead of Travel Business Services. Use a thesaurus to help you develop synonyms for given keywords.

Next, think of any possible specific subject keywords.

Sticking with the travel example:

• Travel to X, X Travel Options
• Travel Services in City Name

You may have an enormous list of possible keywords and keyword phrases for your business, but this is important for the next phase of the process.

Also think of both singular and plural versions of keywords and keyword phrases. Also consider abbreviations, misspellings and hyphenations when you are creating your list of possible keywords.

For Example:

Travel-Services
Travel Svcs
Biz Travel Service

Now that you understand keywords from a general sense, you are ready to understand how to specifically apply the concept to your particular business.

Part Two: How to Build Websites and Blogs that Get Excellent Results!

One of the things that every website owner considers the first day that they post their content live is “Will anyone visit and read my site”? This is a common thought and a valid fear. With millions and millions of websites and the competition increasing everyday, how do you compete? One of the best answers to this question is- Keywords!

Once  you have developed a game plan for your keywords and your topics, you will need to utilize tools to help you to take it one step further. If you are anxious and want to skip ahead, click here for my Keyword Research Software. Otherwise, I will provide you with all of the needed tools in the last section.

Step 1: Determine what you will be writing

You can include blog postings, forum postings, E-books, E-zines, website page content and articles as your primary written ‘word’ content. You can post blogs, forum content and articles on your own website or on other people’s. Determine your overall frequency of posting content, where you will post it and how you will link people back to your website. After you determine what you will be writing, you will need to develop your content.

Step 2: Develop your content- keyword density

One of the challenges to figuring out how to write the best content to rank higher in the search engines is that the algorithms for each search engine are slightly different and they change regularly. Part of the reason that they change is to avoid people trying to outsmart the system and the other reason is to provide a constantly better search experience for the consumer.

There is some disparity about how dense your keyword content should be and what the best formula or layout should be of your written content to get the highest search ranking. Most experts agree that the density should be somewhere between 2%-5% in your written content.

Now, that does not mean to go stuff your content with a bunch of keywords. Actually, this can penalize your business. The major search engines are striving to provide the best experience for the searcher and a good experience is not being directed to a irrelevant site that was stuffed with a bunch of keywords to get a higher ranking. This has 2 negative effects: a penalization by the major search engines, and clicks immediately off of your website page when the writer realizes what happened.

One of the best ways to write content is:

1. To start by write naturally
2. Then, go back and count the relevant keywords
3. If you are short for the optimal density level, make small modifications or substitutions.
This way you will not end up with an article that sounds awkward for the reader.

It is also best not to have only one keyword used over and over again in the same piece. You will have more relevance and be more search engine friendly when you have a single primary keyword and many other relevant secondary keywords used in each piece.

For example:

Primary Keyword: Travel Business Services
Secondary Keyword: Travel Services
Other Keywords: Travel destinations, travel to Cancun, traveling discounts

Using multiple keywords will give your site relevance with the search engines and will make your readers happier. This is much less awkward that the phrase “travel business services” used 25 times in a 400 word article.

Business credibility is one of your most important assets!! You might gain some additional short term clicks or purchases with stuffing keywords into content, but long term, this is not the best strategy to yield repeat clicks and customers.

Remember, it is much easier to get additional business from an existing customer than to get business from a new customer!

So, what does all of this mean? It means that you need to post as much relevant keyword content as possible onto your site to gain additional website traffic.

But, before you start writing, there is one more step that you should consider.

Step 3:

Now that you know what you need to do, before you start writing new content, go back and edit your current content.

Review your:

• Page Titles
• Website body content
• The first sentence of each page and each paragraph
• Meta tags
• Meta descriptions
• All of your content as a group- look over the amount of keywords used and the total density
• H1 or other tags
• Alt tags
• # different keywords used in your content

Make adjustments where possible to improve your current content.

Now, going forward, you can improve on all of the new content that you post using a specific formula.

Step 4:

Write new keyword dense content that is relevant to your business website and post regularly. You need to fill your site with relevant content of all kinds to attract visitors and attention by the major search engines.

Part 3: How to Put it All Together so that your Succeed Using Keywords

Now that you understand keywords and how to leverage them on your site, how do you make money??

Review Your Competition

First, start by looking into what your competition is doing. An easy way to compete online is to see what your competitors are doing. Who has the top search engine rankings? Find out and go to their sites to review their content, postings and structure.

Mimic as many things as possible for your site. Leveraging what you know is working will help you to propel to the top of the major search engines.

Embedded Links

Next, you need to learn about how to embed links into your content. It is not just about getting people to your site that makes it a winning site, it is about keeping them there and keeping them returning so that you can earn revenue. Embedded text links, article links, affiliate links and links to your URL inside of your written content will help drive website traffic for your business. Interested readers will click on the embedded links, taking them to another part of your website or to a buying opportunity.

Landing Pages

First, the initial landing page that new website visitors see needs to be optimized and attention grabbing. If you are selling a product or service, you need to have a way to capture their information. Most initial website visitors do not click on ads or buy something on their initial visit, especially if they are not familiar with you, your company or what you are offering.

How do you keep them there or how do you capture their information?

• Use an Opt-in page
• Offer a Free E-book, E-zine or report in exchange for their name and email address
• Use a great sales letter as your landing page

Once you capture their information, you need to continue to market to them. Use an email autoresponder service, such as my favorite AWeber, to send out marketing emails to those leads on a regular basis.

Read more about my strategy to increase your income - http://ryanshamus.com/2008/03/04/make-changes-and-boost-your-income/

Different landing pages can and should be used for each separate marketing campaign so that you can track your responses and conversion rates.

Review Products and Services on Your Site-Affiliate Advertising

One of the best ways to make money on your website through the use of keywords is to review relevant products and services on your site. This is a great way to bring website traffic and also to rank higher on the major search engines.

Review available Affiliate Advertising programs to partner with and add them, their ads and product reviews onto your site. Choose partnerships that have keywords that are related to your product. When consumers search using these products or keywords, you have an increased chance of them being linked directly to your website. If the product is purchased through the link on your website, you earn a commission. How great is that?

Use Pay-Per-Click Advertising

If you place ads onto your website through programs like Google Adsense that are relevant to your business, you can generate revenue on your site through clicks from website visitors.

Choose ads that are relevant and interesting to your audience, place them in high visibility areas and if possible, choose ads that have the highest pay-per-click possible.

You can leverage relevant ads ad the cost per click with your keywords and content on your website. There is a feature on Google called “Selection Targeting” that will be able to teach you more on this subject.

Part 4: Keyword Research Tools

Yes, we are finally at the section that talks about what you can use to help you succeed with keywords.

Keyword tools allow you to see what people are searching for on the internet as well as to guess what they might be searching for. There are a number of keyword research tools out there, but how do you determine which ones are best?

Well, there are many tools that charge a lot of money that don’t give you anything that you cannot already find for free.

So, here are some of the top choices:

1. Keyword Spy - This tool allows you to search programs and check ad campaign keywords and phrases against the ones used by top competitors.

2. Keyword Elite - This is a software program aimed at optimizing PPC advertising income by searching for competitive advantage.

3. Word Tracker - This tool is an online tool that focuses on search engine optimization. The goal of the program is to tailor keywords to increase your website traffic without sacrificing the quality of your written content (limits the amount of keyword stuffing).

4. Nichebot - This program is a web based keyword generator that focuses on finding the highest-traffic and lowest cost keywords for you.

5. Spyfu - This is a web-based keyword program that uses screen scraping to spy on your competitors, giving you the valuable information that you need to be able to compete.

Some other choices are Good Keywords, Micro Niche Finder, and Keyword Discovery.

Are these programs worth the fee?

These are some of the best available and the monthly fee is generally small, between $35-$70 per month. If your online business is truly important to you, then this is a small price to pay.

You can also use Google if you already have an established Google Adsense account. Simply log in, choose a keyword, and hit enter. A list of related keywords will come up for you to consider. Leverage all of Google’s available tracking features and tools to help you develop the best keyword campaign possible.

If you would like more detailed information on available tools, read my article Keyword Research Software.