What is Keyword Research?

Keyword Research and analysis is the most important part of any internet marketing campaign. It is the process of identifying the terms that users are typing to find a product or service within a particular industry. Targeting these phrases will lead to the highest traffic and conversions.

How to select the right keyword
The right keyword is the one which is most relevant to the concept of the page, ad, landing page, etc and not necessarily the one with the highest search count. Selecting appropriate keywords will result in targeted traffic. Targeted traffic results in better Return on Investment (ROI).

Where should the selected keywords be used?
For Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), the selected keywords should be used in the metadata (title tag, meta description tag and meta keywords tag), body text, anchor text, header tags, file and folder names, image alt tags etc. according to relevance. Keywords should be regionalised by adding location or region where possible.

For Pay-Per-Click (PPC), the selected keywords should be used in the title and description of the ad. They should also be used on the landing page linked to from the ad.

Why is the right selection of keywords important?
Selecting the right keywords is critical to the amount of traffic directed to a website as well as the type of traffic. Pages and ads optimised with more targeted keywords will be ranked higher in the search engines results pages. Therefore relevant and focussed keywords will result in better quality traffic along with quantity of traffic.

An example
As an example, ‘blue badges sydney’ is better than ‘badges’ if the page is about selling blue badges in Sydney. Firstly, the competition for ‘badges’ and ‘blue badges’ will be high. Secondly, if someone is looking for blue badges in Sydney, they are more likely to convert for a page or ad optimised for the exact term rather than just ‘badges’ or ‘blue badges’.

Final Note
Don’t underestimate the importance of keyword research. It will enable you to compile a list of relevant and popular phrases to target for your internet marketing campaigns that will maximise your ROI.

Written by Bill Vasiliadis