Thursday, November 4, 2010

Let’s Do Some Keyword Research

If you’ve read my previous article, What are Market, Niche, and a Micro Niche?, I’ve identified the different market niches that I want to engage in.  I’ve also considered various factors for me to come up with my final decision.  It was either to create a website about a topic that I am passionate about such as the asp.net web applications niche, or to create a site based on something I want to learn, like photography.


My final decision is to create a website about photography.  The main factor that made me come up with this decision is that I want to document all the things that I will learn with regards to this and hopefully, readers will find my articles helpful especially if they are new to this field.


Going to back to SEO, now that I’ve identified my market niche, the next step is to do keyword research.  This is like what most businessmen do before engaging in a business. They do market research first. They analyze different factors and come up with a strategy in order for them to penetrate their market.  That’s what keyword research is all about. We research first on the best keywords to use in order for us to penetrate our chosen market niche.  In my case, it’s the photography market.


To begin with, let’s start with the most basic of all questions: What are keywords?


A keyword is any term or phrase that users enter in the search field of the search engines.  It may be a single word, a phrase or an entire sentence.  What makes keywords important is that they serve as keys to unlock specific doors that provide access to market niches.  


When we do keyword research, our main goal is to find the “perfect keyword” in our market niche.  The “perfect keyword” has the following criteria:

  • Has a high search volume – People are trying to search for that term every single day.
  • Is on an upward trend or is consistently searched for – We want a keyword that people will still be searching months and years from now.
  • Has low competition – Websites which are badly optimized with that keyword and can be easily outranked by our website.
  • Is very specific – A keyword that is very clear and is exactly what the searchers are looking for.
  • Is a buying keyword – People searching for it are ready to buy and willing to pay money.

Now that we’ve defined what a “perfect keyword” is, the next question is how are we going to find our “perfect keyword”?  That’s where the keyword research kicks in.  In order for us to have an organized discussion of the topic, I’ve divided the keyword research into different parts (keyword evaluation, competition, and exploration) so make sure to watch out for those articles.

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