Steps To Do Keyword Research
Keyword Research precedes Website creation and, of course, the start of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) job for a site. Understanding of how to do keyword research or how to start keyword research job is primary necessity for one who intends to brainstorm the complex process. Here are 5 steps that can deliver effective solutions to the process.
Step One:
Identify Your Landing Pages:
Landing pages are usually your Home Page or Doorway Page, and can be some specific internal pages too. They can even be the types of internal pages like general categories, sub-categories, and product pages.
Step Two:
Do Rough Keyword Research:
Once the landing pages and their specific subjects or topics are identified, distinguished and fixed, the next step will be brainstorming. Come up with a short-list of keywords for each page or page type. Just rely on your common sense, and try to imagine how a real customer might look for your products. Try to prepare a list accordingly.
Step Three:
Check Keyword Popularity:
Copy and paste the keywords from your Keyword List in the Google Keyword Tool (GKT). GKT is the most powerful, reliable and important tool in the whole process of keyword research.
(i) It will help estimate the average number of searches for all keywords from the first list and help to find out new keywords.
(ii) Once you have measured the search volume, low-volume keywords have to be cast out.
(iii) Add all keywords hinted by GKT to the list.
(iv) Prepare second list of keywords, and move on.
Step Four:
Do Competitor Analysis:
However, it is the most difficult step. Now you need to expand the list by adding other good keywords and removing the most competitive ones. The main tasks during competitive research and analysis involve as follows:
(i) Discover strong sites and your direct competitors. The first task, namely discovering strong sites and strong direct competitors, is simple. Just "Google" or browse the web to short-list the best keywords from the Second Keyword List and distinguish 3 to 5 (rarely more) strong competitors using data provided by SEO Quake Firefox extension.
(ii) Evaluate your competition for the specific keywords and throw out the most competitive ones, which might not be effective not in terms of ROI (return on investment). This second issue is solved by scanning Google SERPs for particular keywords. Set aside a keyword when old and powerful sites wield influence over them in Top-20 pages.
(iii) Discover good keywords that you have not included in the keyword list yet. The third task is the simplest one. Look for new keywords by following the below-stated ways:
(a) Look through the Meta-Titles and Landing pages of most powerful competitors. There must always be something useful there.
(b) Download the lists of organic and AdWords keywords of your competitors from SEM Rush site.
(c) Scan the anchors of links obtained by Yahoo or program CS Yazzie.
(iv) Prepare the third Keyword List.
Important: SEO Quake summarizes the information from the following services: Compete site (lets you know the amount of traffic), Alexa site (lets you know the amount of traffic), Google site (lets you know the number of pages in the index), Yahoo site (lets you know the number of links to a site), and Domain Tools site (lets you know domain information), etc.
Step Five:
Finalize The List:
Check out the third keyword list once again with Google Keyword Tool (GKT) to cast out the keywords with Low Search Volume (LSV), and again check out them in Google SERPs with turning SEO Quake extension on to see the level of competition; Scan and evaluate their quantity to ensure they are not too numerous. And now start preparing the fourth and final keyword list.
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Category Article Keyword, Research, Steps
