What are keywords? The words that users use when they’re trying to find something. For example, when users are trying to find tips on optimizing for search engines they might use phrases like -
- how to optimize for google?
- how to get a top google ranking?
- seo tips
- seo advice for beginners
and so forth. Its really important to understand that if you get keyword research wrong you’re setting youself up for failure.
So the very first step (as soon as you have an idea of what market you want to target) is to figure out the actual words that users use when they search. Here are a few basic things to keep in mind -
- The highest number of search phrases have 3 or 4 words.
- Most really short search phrases are users who are doing research of peripherally interested. people with the intent to buy or vest themselves usually use long specific keywords. What i mean is that someone searching for digital camera is usually doing research and someone searching for Canon XS200 digital camera is more likely to be someone looking to buy a camera.
- Websites should be targeted at users - However, seo should be targeted at keywords and keyword phrases since as far as a search engine is concerned the user is represented as the user’s search query. Google does not see John Doe searching for a camera, they only see ‘cheap good compact 3mp camera’.
- Search Engines rank websites for the keywords they target first, and then for related terms. So if you’re targetting ‘digital camera sale’ you will only show up for ‘cheap digital cameras’ after google has begun to trust your site.
Pretty much everything about your site ought to be focused on users and the words users search for. The categories you pick, the titles for articles, the words you use, the url, and so forth - so keyword research predates every other aspect of building a website and seo and continues to be ugely important at every stage of a website’s life.