Keyword research is the process of finding the right words to target. Done properly, this can make all the difference to a successful search engine optimization campaign.

Research needs to be done to find out a few critical pieces of information.

• What keywords are people actually searching for?


• Why would you go to the trouble of optimizing your website for a phrase that people aren't searching for?

Using keyword research tools, you should aim for the popular phrases that will bring in visitors.

Wordtracker, at wordtracker.com is an excellent tool to start with as is the digital point keyword suggestion tool at digitalpoint.com

Research the Competition

If competetion is too strong for a particular phrase, then you should consider starting with a less popular phrase. Before comitting to a particular phrase, have a look at the quality of the competition and decide if you are likely to be able to beat them or not.

• How good is their SEO?


• How relevant is their content to this query?


• How many incoming links do they have to their site?

If you have better incoming links than the competition, then getting a top position is quite achievable with some clever on-site SEO.

Shopping List

At the end of your keyword research, you should have a shopping list of phrases to use on your website. Take one phrase per page and optimize the page by including the phrase in the title, url, h1 tag and body content as many times as you can without looking spammy.

By repeating this process across a good number of pages, you are able to target a range of key phrases.

About The Author

Harvey Kane is a PHP web developer based in Auckland, New Zealand. Harvey maintains several websites, including harveykane.com ragepank.com and gardyneholt.co.nz.

Return to Index