Keyword research should be a part of the most online marketing activities such as: website optimization, article writing, blogging, video marketing or pay per click marketing.



But first of all what actually are keywords?

Simply the keywords are one word or long tail phrases that searchers type into search engines to find the information they need.

By doing keyword optimization you are able to drive free targeted traffic to your website, article, video, blog etc. as you will get visitors who were looking for information provided by you using particular keywords for this purpose.

So what has keyword research to do with effective online marketing?

Well the answer is: A LOT.

Maybe you have noticed that search engines like Google, Yahoo or MSN have been occupied for years by paid and free advertising. Online marketers have been always battling for the top positions on those search engines for particular search phrases. The most successful ones who achieved top listings and generate massive income from targeted traffic, done this by effective SEO (search engines optimization) process that begins right from keyword research.

What is keyword research and why is it so important?

The keyword research is all about finding the right keywords that are most relevant to your business, products or services you want to promote.

Finding the perfect keywords suitable for your business is the first and the most important stage of your SEO optimization process because it's determines all your further way to go.

The thing is that if you target wrong keywords for you business you will never make it to the top of search engines or even if you do, the amount of traffic you will receive from the keyword will be miserable.

The problem is that many popular keywords are too competitive which means that too many people search engine optimize for the keyword what will make it really difficult to get through your competition to the top.

The second scenario is when the keyword is less competitive which means you can get much easier with it to the top of search engines, however the popularity of this keyword is very small and the volume of daily or monthly searches so low that you won't get much traffic from it.

So basically what you are looking for are the keywords that have less competition and decent volume of daily searches, so you can make it easier with them to the top and get some nice targeted traffic to your website in result.

How to find them?

The best way to find keywords for your business is to use keyword research tools. There are many free and paid ones available online. You can simply go to GOOGLE and type in “keyword research tool” to find the one you need. Using the tool like that you can type in the keyword related to your business and the program will generate the list of related keywords together with the volume of daily or monthly searches for each one. Then you can copy the keyword from the list and paste to search engine like Google to check how many results it generates. The more results the harder for you marketing your business for this keyword will be.

So from my own experience the good keyword for which you could easily get to the top of search engines, if you SEO your business properly is the one that produces less than 1 million results with the volume of daily searches at least of 50. From the keyword like that you can get quite decent traffic to your business.

Another thing to remember about keywords is to use long tail keywords that are composed from at least two words. The one word search phrases are too general, less descriptive and too competitive to bother with them.

So basically if you are serious about getting your website to the top, you should always do keyword research, because your search engine success depends on it. It takes time and some effort to do it however it's worth it as you can enjoy massive free traffic to your business later on and more sales in result.