Keyword Research is a practice commonly used by search engine optimization companies to allow them to derive a set of terms that people are actually entering into various search engines when conducting a search. The process of keyword research, often called keyword analysis, usually involves the SEO researching using various tools to extend the list of client provided keywords to form an improved list of keywords, both for expanded traffic as well as more focused relevancy.

Many professional SEO companies use Wordtracker or Keyword Discovery, which are both very popular and accurate keyword research programs. The cost of Keyword Discovery by Trillian is about $600 USD per year, while Wordtracker costs approximately $300 for one year. Keyword Discovery include more robusts feature for the advanced SEO / SEM including keyword trending and market share by search engine. further resources include the Overture keyword tool and Google adwords data.

The main goal in keyword research is to find niche keywords that are common but rarely used by competing websites. This can be a very daunting task. Most keyword research is done by a search engine optimization professional. The key element in search engine promotion and optimization is having quality keywords sprinkled into your website Titles, tags and inbound links, making the website rank higher for those given terms. Therefore, the proper keywords and further application can make a huge difference in the ranking and visibility of your site. Keyword research is a method that can help you develop a core base of terms with which to target your products or services. Without developing a core list, the website owner is essentially guessing at numbers – not a solid marketing plan for any business in the hyper-competitive realm of the Internet. Keyword research involves selecting the keywords or keyword phrases that meet up to the standards of the best search volume, lowest competition, and relevancy. All three of these elements are vital to find the niche keywords that help will put a website above the rest in terms of rankings and targeting sales.

Search volume is the first section examined. The SEO professional uses one of the keywords from the client seed list and does an active search using tools for users looking for a specific product or service. Search volume changes based on industry as well, resulting in data that reveals only a few searches daily or possibly thousands.

The next portion of research the search engine optimizer tackles is search competition. The search competition is number of pages that are currently competing for the same specific keyword from the client provided list and compared to in relation with the search volume of that keyword. This step helps the optimizer determine if the keyword is worth pursuing still. Knowing how the competition is using the keyword and how many competitors there really is can be of great assistance. This metric is known as KEI, otherwise known as Keyword Effectiveness Index to filter against when judging potential competition. However, the wise SEO Company uses that metric only as a general indicator of competition, as it is the result of the number of searches daily for any given term, divided by the total number of pages found in any given index, which only produces a quantity score. Further assessment of difficulty must involve analysis of the competition currently ranking for any given term – metrics such as age of the domain, number and quality of inbound links, authority paid submissions, age of links in place, as well as many other factors.

The third step in keyword research or keyword analysis is search relevancy. Search relevancy is determining if the keyword or keyword phrases correctly describe products or services offered by a particular website. The main purpose of this step is to make sure the keyword is accurate. If not, a change needs to be made, sometimes to semantics (the structure in which a given phrase is laid out along with inherent meaning). Once any given keyword passes through the search relevancy process, analysis then it is added to the new list, to later be applied to an SEI site plan, targeting a given page on the website.

For more detailed information on Keyword Research and other SEO topics, please visit www.seovisions.com

Todd Mumford is an SEO guru with over 8 years experience as a professional SEO and SEM. More information about Todd and his services can be found at SEO Visions