Keyword Research And How It Can Help Your Business

By Author: DANA BATES
Total Articles: 19
Comment this article

If you ask several dozen individuals involved in internet marketing or optimization of a website, what 'keyword research' is, you could probably get several dozen answers back. So what exactly is keyword research? It is part of the process of having a business website that makes money for its owners versus a website that doesn't.

The Goal of a Website

The major goal of any business website is to attract people to the site and convert them into paying customers. But before they become customers they have to know that you exist and in order for that to occur, your website needs to be ranked in the search engines so people looking for the product or service you sell are able to find you. Keywords are vital in this process. By using the appropriate keywords, the more traffic your website will attract, and to know what keywords are appropriate involves research.

Keyword Research

Keyword research is the most valuable and important activity in the search marketing arena. When done correctly, it is also the activity with the highest rate of ...
... return. Having the correct keywords for ranking your website with the various search engines will make or break your website.

If you haven't noticed yet, there is still no definitive answer to the question, what is keyword research, and that is because the answer is very hard to define in terms that are simple. Keyword research is one of the activities used by search engine optimization (SEO) experts to find the actual search terms people enter search engines when they are searching for the product or service that you sell. SEO professionals research the keywords to attain better rankings for these keywords or phrases. The more relevant these keywords or phrases are ranked with search engines, the more traffic will be attracted to your website and the more business you will do. At least, in a perfect world this is the way it needs to happen.

Profile of a Client

Research into keywords is not just for SEO campaign for any keywords that are chosen will also be included into the content of your website, your PPC campaigns and any promotional campaigns for your website. Keyword research is also linked to customer research since by studying what keywords are being used you will also be able to profile potential clients.

Type of Keywords

When beginning any keyword research, you need to pick the main keywords to base the research on. These should be the words you, your clients, as well as your competitors mainly use when speaking about your product or service. You also need to use a variety of resources for your keyword research.

Beside single words, there are also three and four keyword phrases that are referred to as 'long tail keywords' and are specific to whatever your product or service is. This is because some customers who know specifically what they want tend to use specific keyword phrases. So you also want your site to rank well for lots of long-tail keywords that are relevant.

Google does have a keyword suggestion tool that can help you with finding keywords that are on your website and offers you a varied choice of phrases that real people have typed in.

But this is only a start as keyword research as well as SEO work is a continuing operation that should never end. Most organizations today have SEO experts with major duties including search engine optimization as well as keyword research.

This is an attempt to try to explain exactly what keyword research is and why it is important to a person's business website.