Keyword research is an incredibly important part of search engine optimization as it will determine what keywords the website is to rank for. Keyword research will provide the keywords for a whole website, pages within the website will inherit keywords based upon the content within the page.
Keyword research provides an insight into a keywords performance, looking at how many visitors, the value of each click, the competition levels, how the keyword has performed historically and more.
Keywords are nothing more than words, the data behind them is incredibly important, optimizing for a keyword with no search data is a frequent mistake as the results are not as visible, and the performance remains low. Keywords carry with them search data, how many people use the selected keyword on a daily, monthly and annual basis? Is the keyword seasonal? What do the trend statistics say about the keyword?
There are loads of questions, but let's cut it down to basics.
Keyword Research Aims to find out:
" What keywords people are searching for
" How many people are searching for the keywords
" What is the value for each keyword per click
" How the keyword traffic levels change based on season
" Month of highest search queries
" How many competitors the keyword has
Why is this important?
It is important to verify that selected keywords are of value. When researching keyword data, you can identify keywords with lots of potential, at the same time you can separate keywords that offer no short or long term benefits.
Keyword research is all about the filtering of selective keywords to end up with a refined keyword list that can be used within an SEO project.
Choosing the wrong keywords, or keywords of the top of your head is a dangerous and risky choice, without evidence to back up the traffic levels, you could be walking into the unknown.
Lets get started with keyword research, for this you will need to have an active internet connection and a Google Adwords account. If you do not have an Google Adwords account then signup for one here https://adwords.google.co.uk
Signing Up is quick and easy, once you have an account then you are ready to continue.
On the following page we will run through the keyword research process. This will typically be the first part of any SEO project.
