Getting Started: Keyword Research
By Vernon Sandel
Before beginning a business online, there are a number
of things you need to do before you even think about putting up a web
site. Most people find the products they want to buy online using
a search engine. Therefore, you will want your web site (when you
get one) to be listed as near the top of the search engine's list of web
sites as possible when searching for your products or services.
People rarely look at more than the first couple of search engine pages
to find a product. Competition for those first 20 listings on the
search engines is fierce. A web site has to be optimized to appear
near the top of the search engine listings, and that optimization should
start even before you consider putting up a web site. The process
of optimizing a web site for search engines is called "search engine
optimization" (SEO). SEO starts with keyword research.
If you already have one or more products to sell, you
need to consider what keywords people are going to use to find your
product or service. Choosing the proper keywords can greatly
increase the chances of success at selling online. Having the
proper keywords in your domain name and web site title will help you
attain a higher a position in the search engines, so you should do
keyword research before you choose a domain name or consider web site
title and content.
The goal in keyword research is to find key phrases that
describe your products, that are searched at least a few thousand times
each month, and that have as little competition for top positions as
possible. You will need a keyword program to help you accomplish
this. Good Keywords by Softnick Technologies (http://www.goodkeywords.com/)
is a freeware program that gives the number of monthly searches from
Overture.com for any given phrase as well as a number of other useful
functions. To approximate the total searches per month across the
major search engines the Overture numbers should be multiplied by eight
or nine.. Word Whacker (http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/)
is a much better keyword program on the internet that gives estimated
daily searches, which is also free, although they have a fee based
version that gives much more information including a "keyword index"
that gives an indication of keywords with many searches but low
competition. A free trial is available. Their website is a
good resource for further information concerning keyword research.
Enter the most general keyword or phrase that describes
your products into the keyword program and it will show the number of
searches on that keyword and also list search numbers of related
keywords that may be appropriate. The most general terms
describing your products or services will undoubtedly be too
competitive, so look at the more specific phrases with less search
volume. In order to evaluate the potential competition for top
spots on Google, do a search on that keyword surrounded by quotes, and
note the number of web sites that are listed. That is the number
of sites that are competing for top positions with that keyword or
phrase. The smaller that number, the less the competition will be.
Look for an appropriate key phrase that has a monthly search volume of a
few thousand and fewer than 1,000,000 web sites.
Another way to gauge the competition for a given keyword
or phrase is to check the Google page rank of the top ten web sites.
For this you will need a Google tool bar which can be downloaded at
http://toolbar.google.com/T4/index_pack.html. Go to the top 10
web sites on a Google search of a given key phrase and note the page
rank of each site. If all 10 have a page rank 4 or greater, there
is very little chance that you will be able to get your web site on the
first page of Google for that key phrase on a national basis.
If your business serves a local area do a local search
under the key phrase to gauge your competition. It is much easier
to get first page listing using a local search. To search locally,
add a locale to your search term, for example: criminal lawyers in
Detroit Michigan or furniture in DeMoine Iowa.
Once you choose your keywords, the next step is to
choose your domain name.
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