In order to be successful in your search engine marketing campaign, you need to do SEO keyword research. Knowing the best keywords to use in your internet marketing campaigns is crucial if you want to rank well for search terms that will drive traffic to your website. Fortunately, learning how to research keywords is not difficult at all.

Take out a piece of paper or open a spreadsheet program so you can keep track of the keywords you come up with. It’s advisable that you use one page per project so you can keep everything organized. This will also allow you to add more keywords at a later date or use them again for a different project.

Start by thinking about the topic of your project. Write down all the keywords you think your customers will use to find the information or product you are offering on your website. For example, if you are running a dog training site, some keywords you may come up with would be, ‘How to train a dog’ or ‘dog training tips’.

After you have written down all the phrases you can think of, head on over to your favorite search engine. Pop in a keyword and search through the results list for websites that focus on the same or similar topic as your project. Analyze their site for keywords they are using and add them to your list.

You may have to do a little digging to get at their keywords. A good place to look is at the keyword meta tag which is usually located in the site’s header. You will have to look at the site’s source code in order to see them. If you are using Firefox, click ‘View’ and select ‘Page Source’. For Internet Explorer users, click ‘Page’ and then ‘View Source’.

The next step is to tap into the power of a tool like Google’s Keyword Tool or WordTracker. These keyword generators will give you a list of search terms people have used to find information. To help you figure out if a keyword is worth pursuing, they will list the number of times the keyword was used per day.

At this point, you will probably have a number of words and phrases you can use for your project. To trim the list so you only have the ones that will truly benefit you, it is time to analyze them. The Google Keyword Tool can help with this step. It will tell you how competitive the keyword is. A word that has a lot of competition may be difficult to rank for. However a word with very little competition may not provide the search volume you need to be profitable. Try to find words with a good balance of competition and search volume.

The Estimated Average CPC will tell you how much advertisers are paying per click. If you are using Google Adsense to monetize your content, you can estimate that you will earn about 30-50% of that amount. If you multiply that by the number of visits and then divide that total by four, you’ll get an estimate of how much income you can expect to generate using that keyword.

Proper SEO keyword research cannot be ignored if you want your project to do well in the search engines. Take the time to find the right words and phrases and you enjoy the success you deserve.

Have to find out a bit more? Download your Comp copy of the 199-page “13 Pillars of New Media Marketing” book from http://www.thirteenpillars.com

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