But to distinguish yourself from your competitors, you really need to take keyword research to the next level. That's where advanced keyword research techniques can help separate you from the search engine marketing pack.

How to Conduct Traditional Keyword Research

Before I discuss advanced keyword research, let's start by looking at some of the basic methods of traditional research.

Basic Methods for Researching Keywords

Some of the most popular methods for performing keyword research are also pretty basic and straightforward:

* Brainstorming – think up keywords that your customers would type into search engines to find your company website

* Keyword suggestion tool – you can get keyword suggestion ideas from a variety of free keyword tools on the Web

* Examining competitor sites – by checking a competitor's on-page and off-page optimization efforts, you get a very good idea which keywords they're targeting

The trouble with these approaches is they're each intrinsically flawed.

First, by brainstorming, you're guessing which keywords users will search on to find your site. There's no actual search data to back you up. Secondly, keyword suggestion tools offer lists of keywords, which are based on estimates (not real searches) and available to everyone, so there's no real competitive edge if everyone is using the same keywords. Finally, just because a competitor's keywords are relevant to their website and business, doesn't mean they're relevant to yours. You can't assume what works for one site will automatically work for another.

The Benefits of Advanced Keyword Researching

To gain the upper hand on the competition, you need to go beyond traditional research for keywords. Advanced research methods involve using keyword data from your own website data history and your own search log files. By conducting keyword research in this manner, you're ensuring that your data is:

* Highly Relevant – the keywords users searched on to find your website are related specifically to the services or product your website offers.

* Totally Unique – unlike keyword tool data, your search log files are distinct to your particular website, they're private and available to nobody else. This offers you a big advantage over your competitors.

* Always Fresh – people find your website through new searches every day. This data is collected in your server logs, and gives you a steady stream of fresh and proven keywords to target.

Putting Advanced Keyword Research into Action

So once you've discovered all these new keywords by mining your log files, what next? As you discover new keywords, the next step in the process is to take action by authoring narrowly-focused content around these proven keywords for your website. By doing this, you're ensuring that the content on your website is fresh and supremely relevant to your audience. The result of combining advanced research with relevant content authoring around proven keywords will lead to better rankings in the search engines and more qualified visitors to your site.