Keyword Research Strategy 101

Keyword research has now become an essentialquick search for the word "baby" on Google,
part of a web building process for just about anycomes up with 1,000,000,000 results. With so
type of web site. It is no longer enough to justmany competitors what are your chances of
have a fancy looking web site.ranking in the Top 10? You could focus your
In this article, we're going to go through a basicentire site on just "baby shower", for example.
keyword research strategy. If you're new to theTo have a better idea of which keywords to
internet and just about to set up your own webchoose, you could use a keyword research tool
site, this strategy is for you.like WordTracker ( WordTracker provides
What are keywords?information on how many times your keyword
Keywords are simply words or, more often,phrase is being searched for in a day, the number
phrases that you would like your web pages toof competitors and something else called KEI
be found with, in search engines. If you had a(Keyword Effectiveness Index). All else being
web site about babies, for example, you wouldequal, the higher the KEI, the better.
want your web pages to appear when someoneWordTracker has a trial account you can
searches for "baby names" or "baby furniture"experiment with but it brings back just 30 results,
etc. You wouldn't want your web pages to appearwhich is a good start to helping you focus on a
in search results for the keywords "fishing rod" orniche. Typing in "baby shower" in WordTracker
"hunting guide" because a person doing thatbrings back the following top 5 KEI results for the
search will not be interested in your site.following keywords:
Finding keywords152.264, baby shower footprint invitation
The first step in your keyword research strategy73.085, free printable baby shower games
is to find keywords that are relevant to your61.711, free baby shower games
web site theme. A good place to start is to just52.127, baby shower games
brainstorm of words that you yourself might use37.829, free printable baby shower invitations
to find your web pages. A big mistake thatAccording to WordTracker keyword research,
newcomers make is to stop at that. You may beKEI above 15 is a good keyword.
quite surprised that the keyword that you thinkUsing keywords
will be used by others may not be used by themOnce you've chosen a set of "good keywords",
at all.you next step in your keyword research strategy
Fortunately, there are keyword research toolsis to actually use the keywords. You should start
out there that you can use to help you find outoff your site by creating web pages with content
what terms are being searched for. One tool youoptimized for the high KEI keywords. How do you
could use is Good Keywords, which is a freedo this exactly?
keyword generator software that you can use to- Focus one keyword phrase per web page
do a quick keyword research for your terms and- Use the keyword phrase in your web page Title
their demand (i.e. how many times they're beenTag
searched for in a month). You can download a- Use it in your keywords meta tag
free copy of Good Keywords from- Use it in your description meta tag
Typing in the word "baby" in Good Keywords- Have it appear in the first 250 words of your
brings up the following results (first 10 only):babycontent
name 1016116baby gift 760898baby r us- Strive for 5-7% keyword density (5-7
493144baby 474805baby cds 109643baby namekeywords and/or keyword phrases per 100
meaning 103122baby shower 89866baby boywords of text).
music video 88601personalized baby gift-Use your keyword phrase in your H1 tag.
87855baby shower game 78860-Use keywords and/or keyword phrases in your
Choosing keywordsimage ALT tags.
The second step in your keyword research- Use it as the text to any outgoing links on the
strategy is to choose "good keywords". As youpage.
can see, the "baby" theme is quite popular. Should- Have the keyword appear once at the end of
you use all terms as your keywords? You could ifyour content.
you wanted to. Depending on the number ofThere's a lot more to keyword research then I
competitors you have (i.e. other webmasters whohave time to explain in this article. But this basic
are targeting your chosen keyword), you'd morekeyword research strategy should be enough to
likely be better off focusing on a tighter theme. Aget you started in the right direction.