Online Marketing

A few days ago, I discussed why it’s important to analyze visitor behavior. One of the points and advice given is to do proper keyword research for your web site. Easy to say, but how does one exactly go on keyword research? It’s more than just entering random phrases related to your niche on the search engines and waiting to see the results.

Here are some steps to help you choose keywords for your niche.

1. Come up with an initial list. Since you’re entering a niche, it’s a given that you should at least know a considerable amount of information. Based on what you’ve read in competitors’ sites, come up with a rough keyword list.

2. Analyze the keywords. Use your own discernment if you’re very familiar with your niche. Otherwise (or even if you choose to use discernment), use tools to help you analyze your key word rough draft. Many require paid membership or purchase of product after a trial run. If you’re serious into making it big, you should consider the investment since it’s definitely worth it in the long run. Here is a list of some popular keyword research tools.

3. Think like a customer. Forget you’re an expert in that niche, forget you’re trying to build a web site, think like a complete newbie. When you’ve started to see things in another person’s perspective, you can then review your keyword list.

4. If you’re relatively new in a big and popular niche, you could expect to NOT rank in the SERPs for quite some time due to stiff competition. During these cases, needless to say, you may not be able to compete with the keywords your competitors use. The answer to your problems — the long-tail SEO strategy.

These are the basic steps into figuring out your keywords. You would need to constantly change and update your keywords as you go along and your web site gains on the competition.

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