What is Keyword Research?

Keyword research is finding the most popular words in any given market. This is one of the most important aspects of having a successful website or online business. These words are what potential customers' look-up when they are searching for a particular item, topic, or service. It is the grouping of specific keywords in a particular "niche", which allows "traffic" or people to find you. If the wrong words are used, people will never be able to locate you. The goal is to drive traffic to your target. The higher up you are on the search engine rankings, the greater your chances are of having your website or product seen. The truth is that often people don't go beyond the first one or two pages when they are doing a search, so the goal is to get as high up in the rankings as you possibly can.

You may be asking yourself, how do I do this and what is a ranking? A ranking is what the search engines, Google, Yahoo, MSN, and others determine to be favorite topics?what people are looking for. The more popular your topic, the better your chances are to rank higher and get more traffic. It doesn't matter that you think you have an exceptional topic and you think people will flock to it. The search engines determine what is deemed popular, so it is important to choose your words carefully to increase your chances of being seen.

First, you must select a niche. A niche is simply a topic?cars, real estate, baby food?whatever you plan to market. A niche does not have to be something you are familiar with, but it is important that you do your research. Of course, you can get online and research, but another good idea is to go to a bookstore or a library. See what books are being featured. Look through them and see what's "hot." Take notes of words that catch your eye because these will catch the eyes of others online. You can also review magazines. Look at the covers, search the advertisements and see just what people are interested in. Get the Sunday's paper and review the stories, the ads, and even the sales advertisements. This will give you many ideas on what people are looking for.

Now that you have your topic and you have your keywords, the next step is to see how popular these words are, according to the search engines. It doesn't matter how good you think the words are, what matters is what Google, Yahoo, or MSN and the other search engines think.

There are tons of tools to help you with this. Google AdWords, Word Tracker, and Webmaster Toolkit are just a few. These programs allow you to input your keywords and they will generate additional words for you. Take a few minutes and check one of these sites out. Input a few of your keywords and see what you come up with. Keep in mind that while some of these programs are free, some are not, but it well pay off in the long run to invest a little now.

http://www.webmaster-toolkit.com/keyword-research-tool.shtml

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

http://www.wordtracker.com/

http://www.searchengineguide.com/lisa-barone/five-steps-to-effective-keywor.php

http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/