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SEO Without Keyword Research Is Not SEO At All

It has been a while since I last posted something here, but that is because I have been busy working with a new client on their search engine marketing. This client, and their SEO blunders have prompted me to write this post because it brings up an important fact about search engine optimization and keyword research that beginner and intermediate affiliates, e-commerce companies, and anyone else trying to rank well on Google, Yahoo, and MSN.

You Must Optimize Pages For What People Are Searching For

Not what you think they are searching for…

This is why keyword research is so important. You can spend all the time in world creating a perfectly structured and optimized page for the search phrase “brown work boots” which ranks #1 in Google for the search phrase “brown work boots”, but what if no one is using that search phrase within the search engines or what if there is only 500 searches per month for that term, while some other closely related term is getting 1,500 searches per month?

This is the mistake my client was making. Over and over and over again. They assumed they knew which keyword search phrases their potential customers were using to find their products and services. They never did any keyword research in order find out exactly which keyword phrases their potential customers were using to search for the product and services they sold and which keyword search phrases were more popular than another keyword search phrase.

How to Do Keyword Research For SEO

Completing keyword search phrase research for SEO is fairly simple.

1. Pick a Keyword Research Tool - There are numerous keyword research tools out there. My personal favorites are Keyword Discovery and WordTracker. You can also use some of the free keyword research tools like the SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool and those provided by Google and Yahoo!, but I have had better results with paid keyword research tools due to their greater depth.
2. Decide on Which Page Your Want to Optimize - I would NOT start with your home page, but with one of your sub pages. Most of the time, your home page does not sell anything, and most search engine users will land on one of your product of service pages first.
3. Pick a Keyword Phrase That Describes Your Page - If you are selling a pair of brown work boots, I would use “brown work boots” as a start. Note, if you are selling some else’s product or service, I would include the brand name of the product and service. For example, instead of “brown work boots”, you might be selling “Catepillar brown work boots.”
4. Enter Your Starting Keyword Phrase Into Keyword Research Tool - This is will give you the different keyword search phrases that search engine users are using to find things related to the starting keyword phrase as well as the corresponding traffic.
5. Pick 2-3 Keyword Phrases - Pick 2-3 keyword phrases that have the most traffic and relevance to your product/services starting keyword phrase. For example, the starting keyword phrase of “brown work boots” returned similar keyword phrases such as “brown leather boots”, “tall brown boots”, and “construction work boots” among others. Of the three, “brown leather boots” had the highest number of searches, followed by tall brown boots, and construction work boots. Using this data, you might decided to optimize your page for “brown leather construction boots” or optimize the page for “brown leather boots” “brown work boots” and “brow construction boots”.

Now that you have done proper keyword research, you can now proceed with building content and completing SEO best practices for your page.