In our opinion, Keyword Research is the most important step in the entire internet marketing process! Your keyword phrases will drive nearly everything in your internet marketing process. So it's critical that a thorough analysis be peformed.
Here are the key steps to keyword research:
Brainstorm keyword ideas
- Determine what your potential customers are typing into the search engines when looking for products and services you offer
- Identify additional keywords semantically related to your core keywords until you have a list that is plentyful and relevant
Determine search volume and market value
- Analyze the search volume for your keywords to see if there is a sufficient business opportunity
- Identify which of your keywords are high volume "core" keywords and which are going to be your "long tail" keywords
Analyze the competiton
- Determine the number of companies competing for rankings on the keywords you've chosen
- Size up the websites already ranking on Page 1 of Google to determine the competitive landscape
Identify internal searches
- Keep track of the keyword phrases that people find your website with. This list will most likely be a list of phrases you never would have thought of but are the very keywords your customers are typing into search engines
- Consider the phrases from this list to use in future blog posts, content on your site and press releases