Keyword research is one of the most important aspects of internet marketing yet it is often overlooked by many people. Many people know what the term keyword means but they do not do the detailed research necessary to find the best keywords and often they do not know how to use the results most effectively.
Keyword Search Tools
There are many keyword search tools available to help you with this task. When you put your keyword into a keyword research tool, you can quickly learn how many users are conducting searches for that keyword term or phrase and other important statistical data. Each keyword research tool provides different keyword data possibilities in addition to how many people are searching for that term. Many of the search tools will also suggest other possible keywords and phrases that you would not have otherwise thought of.
There are several keyword research tools available some are free and some charge a fee. Google keyword tool, Wordtracker, and Overture Keyword Selector are a few suggested tools. Each tool provides slightly different information and features so check each one out and use the one that works best for you.
Narrow the Field and Make Your Choices
Now that you have a large keyword list it is time to narrow the field and find the keywords that will be most effective for your site. To begin the process of analysis I suggest that you create a spreadsheet to evaluate the search volume, conversion rate, and competition for each keyword term. All of these figures will be provided by the keyword tools mentioned earlier.
Begin by going through the long list of keywords and highlight the words that most closely describe your site, services, and products. These will be some of the terms you will want to hang onto. Get rid of the words that do not fit your site or that you do not have content that is relevant to the keyword term.
Be sure you are using both broad and narrow keyword terms that are relevant to your site. For example if you are a coach that helps women in transition from divorce then you may want to use the term "relationship coach" but you will also want to use a more specific term like "women's relationship coach" or "divorce coach for women".
The closer the relevance of your specific keywords to the actual content on your site the more Google will like it and they will see the relevance resulting in a lower advertising rate. Google wants search terms to be as relevant as possible to the actual content on the site. The more relevant the sites content the less Google charges advertisers. Conversely the less relevant the content the more Google charges advertisers. So it actually pays you to do a good job of matching your keywords to the content on your website.
Narrow you list of keywords down to about 10 to 15 keywords that best fit your site content and have adequate search volume. Check these keywords against those you find in the source content of you strongest competitors and make sure you have higher ranking keywords whenever possible.
By doing your keyword research and being diligent in utilizing the results, you will rank far higher than your competitors with the search engines and your site will be found by more potential coaching clients.