Keyword Research

Basic keyword research is really pretty easy, and there isn’t too much about it that even a beginner can’t come to grips with. To start off with, the keyword research tool of choice is Google Adwords Keyword Tool.

Seeing as Google is the most popular search engine around, getting data from it seems to be a logical place to begin.

When conducting keyword research, there are three considerations in particular that play an important role:

1. Number of Searches
Quite literally, this is just the number of searches per month. If a term has a high number of searches, it means lots of people are looking for it, which definitely makes it a better choice.

2. Competition
Once you have a keyword that has a decent amount of searches, plug it into Google and search for it. When you get the results, take note of how many there are. For instance, if there are 11,800,000 results, then that means a lot of people are competing for that keyword.

On the other hand, if you end up with something like 1,800 results, then there are very few competing websites.

Needless to say, with less competition, you stand a much better chance of appearing on the first page of the search results, which is really what you should be aiming for. Once you’re there, you will no doubt see a dramatic increase in your views.

3. Profitability
Not all traffic is as profitable, and sometimes, for certain keywords, the traffic that is obtained just refuses to be converted. While there are a lot of factors that can affect this, it isn’t too relevant as far as keyword research is concerned.

Instead, it is better to know just one simple test of the ‘profitability’ of a keyword.

When you perform a search for the keyword to scope out the competition, take notice as to whether or not any adverts appear. If they do, then that means someone out there feels that it is worth spending money on that keyword.

Admittedly, this isn’t a 100% accurate test, but it should suffice to give you a general idea.

By looking at these three areas of keyword research, you should end up with a list of keywords which you can use to position your articles well. Remember: The idea is to get profitable keywords that have a decent number of searches per month, and low competition.