Keyword Research for SEO

Use Google Adwords Keyword Tool for this. It is a very powerful tool.

EDIT: As of  October 2010, it has come to my attention that Google has lowered the capabilities of its Keyword Tool so that you only find terms it wants people to promote using Google Adwords. I am not sure how accurate these claims are, but Google Keyword Tool seems to be still fine working for me. For full article here.

While Google Keyword may be more limited, it will still likely be a feasible option for your niche. Some good alternatives are Microsoft AdLabs, WordStream, Trellian, and WordTracker.

You will need to tweak certain settings in order to get an accurate view of what people are searching for. See below:

Step 1: Change Match Types in left hand column from “Global” to “Exact”

Match Types Google Keyword Tool
Change Match Types

Step 2: Press the Columns button in the right hand of the screen and from the list select only “Competition”, “Global Monthly Searches”, and “Estimated Avg. CPC” (More info on this in step 3).

Customizing Columns Google Keyword Tool
Customizing Columns

Step 3: Download the CSV Excel Spreadsheet of all the data Google generated for you… you will plug it into Niche Refinery later. Repeat this step with every topic your website will cover, or any type of keyword you would like to rank for.

SEO Optimization CSV
How to download CSV file from Google Keyword Tool

Remember that if you are a Brick-and-Mortar business, or operate in a certain geographical area, you will want to add your city name to your keywords.

For example: “San Diego Personal Trainer”.

If your a personal trainer in San Diego, you don’t really care if people in Arkansas are not finding your site. So you will want to focus on keywords such as “San Diego Personal Trainer” instead of “Personal Trainer”.

SEO Tip: Recently Google has been changing its algorithms so that brick-and-mortar businesses will come up in listings usually before an actual website will show up in the search… That is the physical business listings will come up “in the fold”… and to view the highest ranking websites you will have to scroll down. Nonetheless, it is still worthwhile for brick-and-mortar businesses to put effort into their SEO.

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