Professional Keyword Research Strategies - page 2

by Jason Lam, 3/26/2007

3. Know your competition

Sure, ranking number one for "cars" would drive up your web traffic exponentially. But what are your chances of obtaining that ranking? Typically, one word keywords are extremely difficult to optimize for because millions of pages on the web are already well optimized for it without even knowing it (unless you want to optimize for kukukabo).

If you are in a very competitive industry (in the internet world) such as gaming, gambling, insurance and such, you may find it helpful to pin down your keywords to a more niche and targeted level. For example, if you are selling cars in Toronto, you may want to combine "Toronto" with "cars", or if you are targeting a specific demographic, you may want to include that it in keyword. You may find that the competition for that term drops significantly, thereby, increasing your chances of success.
By increasing your presence for these targeted key terms, you are in a better position to optimize for more ambitious keywords in the future.

4. Using the right tools

By no means are the following the only tools you should use, but they are some popular free keyword research tools that are simple, straightforward and ideal to help you get started in keyword researching.

Overture Keyword Selector Tool

Type in your keyword and it will show you some popular related searches and its search volume during a one month period - Be cautioned however that the words within each keyphrase are rearranged in alphabetical order. For example, if you search for New York Horse Racing, it would show up as Horse New Racing York

Google AdWords Keywords Tool

Type in your keyword and it will show you the search volume, competition levels, synonyms and display some useful data for budgeting when setting up your PPC campaign in Google

NLC Keyword Competition Index

While this is currently in development, we are providing a tool that shows you the competition you face for each keyword. This index will help you determine your chances of success at optimizing for each term. The NLC folks here are using it internally and its one of the best things for Search Engine Marketers since sliced cheese. We will provide more details to this tool in our blog in the future, so stay tuned!

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Finding Your Niche Using Keywords

Using keywords to help find your niche in a competitive market is a "must". Make certain the keywords you identify really tell your potential customers what it is that you are offering. If you are selling a certain kind of widget having a particular characteristic, look for keywords that describe this characteristics that people might be interested in. The more precise you can be, the better your chances are of finding the angle for you to enter the market place. Read 'Finding Your Niche Using Keywords'.

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