Granted reading one article will not you an expert make. But I can at least begin to bring you up to speed when it comes to finding visitor laden top search terms. To do so I will reveal four of my sacred keyword research rules of thumb.

My first rule of thumb is simple. Do not settle for the obvious keyword phrases. I know. Sounds obvious. But apparently isn't.

For example the term "easter baskets" gets 120 searches/day. While going up against 420,00 other pages.

Not insurmountable. But I like less of a challenge. Especially when "personalized easter baskets" gets 109 searches/day and only has 615 competitors.

See the difference one word makes? Similar to the difference between lightning and a lightning bug, no? Since you get nearly the same number of searches with no where near the same number of competing pages.

The next secret rule of thumb is to compare the plural verses singular forms to see which is better. Since when it comes to this most webmasters tend to pile onto the wrong choice.

Take the term "gold earrings" It gets 168 daily searches in all engines, and has 1,540,000 competing pages in Google. While "gold earring" gets 84 daily searches and faces 440,000 competitors. In other words it has less than a third of the competition for half the searches. So we're on the right track. Best of all "italian gold earrings" is used by 52 searchers daily. And only has to fend off 514 pesky competitors. Or what you might call a slam dunk.

Your third keyword research tactic involves grabbing the low hanging fruit. Or what I call "orphan keywords".

Ideally you're looking search terms with less than 1000 competing pages in Google when searching for the EXACT phrase. 500 or less is better still.

Of course the closer to 10 competing pages you get for a search term, the more likely it is your page will be to stumble into the top 10. These are true "orphan keywords". So named due to neglect by your competitors.

Then don't forget to think outside the box. Just like your potential customers do.

Say you had a law practice in California. One term you might consider is "criminal defense attorney". That gets 131 searches but faces 1,450,000 competing pages. I'm not wild about those odds. Plus the term really isn't very targeted.

Digging deeper I found that "criminal defense attorney LA" gets 85 daily searches. And only has 11,1100 pages to beat out. Not bad.

Digging deeper still "criminal defense attorney la county" gets 84 daily searches. But only has 575 competing pages. Paydirt!

Once again I turned up a search term with total searches at least in the same ball park as the generic term I started with. Yet with just a handful of competing pages to deal with. Rarely do I fail to do this. In fact you'll discover dozens of such gems by thoroughly researching your keyword universe.

Never forget that keyword marketing research is THE factor that determines the success or failure of your niche site. Applying rules of thumb like these can help you do smarter optimised keyword marketing. Which in turn will help you attract more traffic from search engines more easily. And traffic is something we could all use more of, right?