Know How To Do Keyword Research

Learning how to do keyword research starts with brainstorming.  Come up with as many different words/phrases people might use when searching online about your niche topic.  A quality keyword tool will prove invaluable.  

And check out what your competition is using – type your keyword into Google’s search box and study the websites that come up on page one of Google’s results page.  Open each website in turn, go to the View menu, choose Source, and look for the line:

“<meta name="keywords" content=".

Use the Ctrl + F function to help you find it - just type it into the "Find" field and click "Find Next".

Following this will be a list showing you what keywords that website is using:

<meta name="keywords" content="gardening, plants, plant names, garden, herbs, rose, tropical, gardening, vegetable, botanical, landscaping, home improvement,">

Keyword research freebies

Start your own list – use it as a wide base from which to do further in-depth keyword research.  Following are some free online resources to help you develop your list:

• http://www.technobloggie.com/keyword-tool/keyword-report.php
  
  
• http://www.nichebotclassic.com
  
  
• http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword/ - this site bases its information on data provided by the Overture keywrod suggestion tool.  If you prefer, you can godirectly to the Overture search term suggestion tool at http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/.
  
  
• Other resources include an online thesaurus at http://thesaurus.reference.com/ and the online dictionary at http://dictionary.reference.com/.
  
  
• There is also a free online tool available at http://www.apogee-web-consulting.com/tools/keyword_tool.php that enables you to view your competitor's keywords.

Keyword  research - gardening website

To help you learn how to do keyword research we’ll create an example gardening niche website.  Before creating its content, use keyword research to find out which aspects of gardening are popular - with both searchers and competitors.  Visit Overture’s free keyword tool at http://inventory.overture.com/searchinventory/suggestion/, and type in a general keyword that relates to our topic - gardening.

At the time of writing, Overture showed that “gardening” was searched 127,084 times during the month (see below).  This can only be a rough estimate because different search engines give varying results and furthermore, Google will have had far more searches for the same keyword.

This shows it was a very popular search term – meaning, you can expect that your competition is equally large.

Without losing your Overture search results page on the keyword “gardening,” open a separate browser and type in “gardening” into Google’s search box.  You’ll find that you have 64,000,000 competitors – too many for a beginner to beat.

Find your niche

So go back to your Overture search result and look through the niche listings underneath the main keyword “gardening” for a related keyword that's less competitive.  Basically you’ll want anywhere from 300 to 5,000 searches per month.  You can always use more than one set of keywords so that the searches for all of them combined total more than 300.  Begin by opening an Excel spreadsheet:

• Column A - list the keywords that you’d like to further analyze.  Look for those that have anywhere between 300 - 5,000 search per month - the more the better.
  
  
• Column B – enter the number of competitors Google recorded for each of the keyword phrases you've listed in Column A.  To find these out, type each phrase into Google search – see above illustration.
  
  
• Column C - next to each of the keywords enter the number of Overture searches.
  
  
• Column D – work out the R/S ratio (results/searches) for each keyword.  Simply divide Google’s competition results by Overture search figure.  If you're not accustomed to Excel, go to each keyword's Column D cell and use the numeric keypad to type the formula:
  
  =B2/D2
  
  (where 2 represents line 2, B & D represents Columns B and D).  Press Enter.  Then simply copy and paste this formula into all the cells underneath in column D - Excel will not only change the formulas to match their correct line number, but will also divide them for you.
  

NB Since writing the above, Overture has taken their tool down and it's not known if it will return.  Although still online, no results are returned.  Use some of the other free keyword resources instead (see Keyword research freebies).

Collecting this data completes stage one in learning how to do keyword research - you now need to progress to keyword analysis.