How to Perform a Proper Keyword Research

Keyword research is the most important part of your SEO. You can optimize every on-page aspect and perform a great link building campaign, yet you won’t be much successful. This can happen because of bad keyword research. Therefore, I can’t stress enough how much is keyword research important aspect. Here I will share with you a few tips based on my own experience while I was performing keyword research for my website before I even started to promote it.

How to select the right keywords :

First of all don’t rely only on search volume. Just because some keyword phrases have a high search volume, doesn’t mean you should choose them as your primary keywords. I suggest to rather go after long tail keywords and write them all down (that’s right- write them down, don’t do just copy paste) in your notebook. You need to narrow your ideas down. Lower search volume means less competition. If you are just starting to optimize your website, start with long tails, because you will slowly build trust in your niche with this strategy. When you rank for the proper long phrases, then you can start to think about adding more high volume keywords in your campaign.

Start with Broad matches in your keyword tool :

You don’t have to have an expensive keyword tool. Google Adwords Keyword Tool is a pretty good software for keyword search. Head on GAKT and enter several related phrases. Choose a “broad” and hit “search”. This is not an accurate method , but it will help you to get more ideas about your long tail phrases.

For keyword ideas you can also use Ubbersuggest. It is a great free online tool for brainstorming the keywords.

Spy on your competitors :

Pick one day in a week to perform a thorough keyword research for your competitors. Google for your keyword phrases and examine first few results for each phrase. Read those articles carefully, it might give you an idea about how to improve your own content and cover more sub topics.

You can also head over to a backlinkwatch.org and see your competitors anchor texts. You will have a deeper understanding about their keywords if you search carefully.

Using keywords in your articles :

Bear in mind that you need to have at least five keywords when you write the article. Your main keyword should be in the title. Your subtitles should consist of a related keywords. That way you will add an extra link juice to your content.

These would be just a few tips about how to perform an essential keyword research. There is no exact definition about how to do that in a proper way. You need to learn on your trials and errors and gain a routine, but I must say these tips helped me a lot in my keyword research. You can’t predict what would be the search trends in your niche, neither you can read the minds of your visitors. Stick with the plan and remember – target long tail phrases first. When you rank for less competitive keywords and earn a trust from your visitors, then you can go for a high volume keywords.

Dennis Kay is an SEO expert and internet marketing consultant. If you want to know more about keyword research, you should read keyword research guide which Dennis wrote as a part of  ”coaching for free” tutorial on his website.Here he shared his tips about keyword research based on his own experience while he was performing a keyword research for Money Making Ideas website