Keyword research is essential to your online marketing strategy. Choosing the right keywords for your website is vital to the success of your SEO and internet marketing efforts.

Wrong choice of keywords can be detrimental to your online brand presence and can be very difficult to recover from. Promoting your business on the internet requires significant time and effort. Incorrect keyword research and selection can result in poor performance and waste of your efforts.

The success of your internet marketing strategy depends on effective keyword research. In this article we take a look at 5 keyword research tips that will help you to identify and choose the right keywords for your website.

1. Always Use Keyword Tool

Guessing the keywords you should target is one of the biggest mistakes in keyword research and  can seal the fate your business from the start. In my 10 years carrer advising businesses on various aspects of online strategy, I have come across many small businesses that make the mistake of choosing keywords that seem to be the most logical without using real search volume data to refine their selection. A quick search using free tools such as Google Keyword Tool can help you to make the right decision by providing data on monthly search volumes, both globally and locally by country.

2. Take Competition into Account

When choosing keywords for your site, it is important to strike a balance between search volumes and competition of keywords.

Many businesses only choose popular keywords for which tens of thousands of sites are competing, making it practically impossible to achieve a good ranking on Google. Instead, it may be more realistic and easier to rank favourably for keywords with less competition as at least to start with.

Fortunately, Google keyword tool also provides information on the competition level for keywords. Take a look at competition(2nd column from left) in the typical results of Google Keyword Tool below.

3. Pay Special Emphasis to Long Tail Keywords

Long tail keyword is an SEO term typically used to describe search terms with three or more words. Most SEO experts highly recommend including long tail keywords when researching keywords for your website. Long tail search terms are often more relevant and less competitive. You stand a better chance of ranking and improving conversion rates.

Let’s say your business specialises in second hand Dell laptops. You will receive better results by targeting long tail search terms such as “Refurbished Dell Laptops” or “Cheap Second Hand Dell Laptops” as opposed to “Laptops” or “Notebooks” even though the latter may have higher search volumes.

4. Don’t Forget Geographic Targeting

Don’t neglect geographical targeting if your business targets a specific area whether is a city, country or region. Consider geographical locations when researching keywords for your website.

If your business delivers flowers in London, it makes sense to target keywords that include London e.g. “Flower delivery London” provided it has sufficient search volumes. Additionally, such keywords are often more relevant and will receive better conversions.

5. Keep a Close Look at Your Stats

The keyword research process does not stop at achieving first page rank on Google. The main purpose of keyword research and optimisation is not simply to generate traffic to your website, but to generate sales and leads for your business. The ultimate objective is to research and choose keywords that result in high conversion rates.

This makes it essential to monitor your website statistics closely and track the effectiveness of your keywords.

You can easily check which keywords are driving traffic and the quality of the traffic. The number of pages users visit, time spent on site, etc tell you about the overall quality of that visit. It is important to take action where necessary e.g. if keywords are resulting in high bounce rates and poor conversion. You can also set up custom goals in Google Analytics to track conversion rates for specific keywords.

Conclusion:

Appropriate keyword research lies at the heart of your online marketing strategy and is vital to its success. The five simple keyword research tips discussed above will help you to choose the right keywords for your website and help avoid some of the most common mistakes that result in poor results.