Keyword Research For SEM
September 26, 2009 by
Filed under Keyword Research
In order to build the most effective marketing campaigns possible, choosing appropriate keywords is a vital component in being able to penetrate your market, and reach out to your target audience.
By identifying what keywords are being used by your target audience, you can ensure that your content is focused on implementing these keywords and keyword phrases, so that your website appears within search engines or directories whenever a potential prospect enters in similar keywords, searching for information in your niche.
There are two types of keyword phrases or terms, known as “head terms” and “tail terms”.
Head keyword terms are shorter keywords and phrases, while tail terms (otherwise called long-tail) are longer keywords consisting of three or more words in length, or that have less competition than directly competitive keyword phrases.
Head keywords tend to have a higher search volume but are more competitive, while long-tail keywords have a lower search volume but are often far easier to rank for. The best SEO campaigns will always include both long tail keywords and head (shorter) keywords and phrases.
When it comes to general keywords ( broad keyword phrases), competition is stiff and as previously mentioned, it would cost you a great deal of time and money to compete for these keywords, however choosing long tail keyword phrases, you can still reach out to your market and drive in targeted traffic, while minimizing the time and costs involved in circulating your message and maximizing your exposure.
Here are a handful of useful keyword tools to help you get started:
Compete provides information including keywords and rank used by competitors in your market. They can be used to tell which keywords your competitors are targeting, and which ones they are ranking for. This can help you compete on a new level with them.
Enterprise Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Software Agencies and AdvertisersWordTracker is one of the most well-known and popular keyword tools. Its results aren’t the most accurate in terms of traffic numbers, but it does give you a wide variety of keywords.
It is said that you should multiply the numbers it gives you by around 3-10 to get an accurate reflection of the total number of searches on Google, or on all major search engines.
The paid version will allow you to get unlimited keywords at a time, but they also have a free version available at http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com that will give you 100 keywords at a time.
Google Adwords Keyword Tool:
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
The Adwords Google Keyword suggestion tool allows you to enter in a keyword or phrase from a possible niche that you are considering so that you can evaluate existing competition, active keywords based on popularity and overall use.
When you enter keywords into the Google Keyword tool, you will be able to generate extended listings that feature various keywords associated to the main keyword that you entered into the search box.
The first column of your results will provide you with alternative keyword phrases that you could use within your content as well as with search engine optimization or promoting your product within PPC marketplaces.
The second column indicates the level of competition, and in our example above, nearly all of the featured keyword phrases are being heavily targeted by competitors.
The third column indicates the estimated number of searches for each particular keyword, based on monthly volume.
Other Resources:
Nichebot Classic
http://www.nichebotclassic.com
Google Trends
http://www.google.com/trends
Ebay Pulse
http://pulse.ebay.com
Yahoo Answers
http://answers.yahoo.com
