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. [youtube:Ah2zaYU9HCI;[link:An Introduction to Internet Marketing];http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ah2zaYU9HCI&feature=related]
To keep yourself organized, you will want to use a spreadsheet program to record your keywords. Good old fashion pen and paper will work just as well. Saving your keywords lets you use them again for other projects for the same subject. You can even add to the list if you come across more keywords that work for you.
Begin your research by brainstorming all of the keywords related to your project that you customers might use to find information about it. For instance, say your website was about training dogs. Some possible keywords that searchers would use are ‘train a dog’ or ‘dog potty training’.
When your brainstorming session is over, it’s time to do some research on the internet. Go to your favorite search engine and type in one of the keywords on your list. Select websites that are similar to your topic. Copy down keywords they appear to be trying to rank for.
If their website is properly search engine optimized then chances are they will have their keywords listed in the keyword meta tag located in the header of the website. To view the meta tag, you will need to check out the sites source code. To do that, Firefox users click ‘View’ and then ‘Page Source’. Internet Explorer users, select ‘Page’ and then pick ‘View Source’ to get at the information you want.
Next, go to a keyword research tool such as WordTracker or Google’s Keyword Tool. These programs will list derivatives of keywords based on what you put in the search box. They will also tell how many searches are done on the keyword per day. This is helpful in determining if a particular keyword is worth using.
Once you have your keywords, you need to analyze them to determine if they will work well for your project. Google Keyword Tool will tell how competitive a keyword is. Don’t automatically assume you want keywords with the lowest competition. Sometimes low competition is because of low search volume for that particular keyword. Use keywords that have a good balance of competition and search volume.
To determine how profitable the keywords will be, look at the Estimated Average CPC. You will earn about 30-50% of the amount in that column. To calculate your possible earnings, multiply that amount by the total number of visits by 30 days. You can estimate that you’ll earn about 25% of that amount each month if you rank high enough for that keyword.
Proper SEO keyword research is necessary if you want to attract the right traffic from the search engines. Put the effort in to get it right and you’ll give you project a much better chance for success.
Are you putting together an internet marketing strategy for your business? If that’s the case, make sure to check out the 26-Week Internet Marketing Plan Newsletter. Filled with strategic, easy-to-follow internet marketing advice it’s available free-of-charge from http://www.26WeekPlanNewsletter.com


