Finding the right keywords for your web pages

Choosing the right keywords

Now that you're familiar with the basics of SEO (check out SEO 101 if you're not!), it's time to start building content and raising traffic to your pages.  In order to do this most effectively, you should target content that is most searched for, and that is not too competitive, at least in the beginning.  Why?  If you try to target "seo," which plenty of people search for as you can probably imagine, you will have slim chances of breaking into the top 10, much less get the #1 spot.  It's best to start with more specific, less competitive phrases such as "guru of search" to begin building your traffic base, and then work your way up from there.  You'll notice that with time, your more specific pages about, in this example, "guru of search," will contribute to your overall ranking for more general phrases such as "seo."  Also keep in mind the content hierarchy that was discussed in SEO 101.  You can use the pyramid hierarchy discussed in SEO 101 to help support your content internally and thereby raise your search rankings simply by organizing your content better.

How do I know what people are searching for?

In order to find out what people are searching for, you'll need to sign up for one of several keyword research services.  These services gather keyword data from various sources and offer an overall impression of what is being searched for.  Note that none of these sources are as accurate as they claim, as often data is skewed by external factors that don't necessarily reflect real human searches.  But for the most part, on a relative basis you should be able to get a good idea of which keyphrases are searched for more than others.

Which keyword research services should I use?

We've done the research, and out of all the keyword services out there here's the top two: 

Word Tracker (get one month free by visiting them through this link) - The top keyword research service. Word Tracker taps into different databases, providing slightly different results.  Combined with Keyword Discovery, you'll be able to optimize and target your keyword research campaigns to a high degree.

Keyword Discovery -- Trellian's Keyword Discovery compiles keyword search statistics from over 180 search engines world wide, giving you access to one of the most extensive keyword databases out there.  From industry keywords, seasonal search trends, keyword density analysis and more, Keyword Discovery proves to be one of the most comprehensive and reliable keyword research tools.

Analyzing your keyword research results

Once you've gotten lists of keywords to use in your search campaign, you'll need a tool to analyze them.  

Both Word Tracker and Keyword Discovery let you see not only how many times a keyphrase is being searched for, but also how strong your competition is for these keywords.  In other words, how difficult will it be to rank highly for that keyphrase. The SEO analysis looks at fundamental elements (see SEO 101) of competitor's keyphrase pages and lets you know how well optimized they are.  This, in combination with the overall number of results in search engines, will give you a good idea of how competitive your keyphrase is.

Brainstorming Keywords

Both services also allow you to brainstorm on keywords, coming up with new, effective low-competition combinations that may not have occured to you. Google's free Keyword Tool finds you some synonyms, but Word Tracker and Keyword Discovery go in-depth and help you find related phrases that may have never occurred to you otherwise.

Next up: effective link building

Now that you've got your site code optimized (it's ready to be sourced and indexed by spiders), and you have a good idea of what people in your industry are searching for and what keyphrases (groupings of keywords) you might optimize your content for, it's time to start writing the content and raising your rankings.  Read our article on effective link building to get started.