Why keyword research is a vital part of the SEO process

Most websites fail to achieve high search engine rankings because of badly chosen keywords. Identifying and qualifying the correct website keywords are absolutely crucial to the success of any website.

There is no point selecting keywords that have low search volumes as they will attract very few visitors to a website. Equally choosing general site keywords where there is already a high number of websites competing for those keywords is not a smart move. This will result in a website struggling to achieve a high placement on the search engines, simply because the site is competing with thousands of other websites for the selected keywords.

General site keywords which are most commonly searched for will be used by thousands of different websites and competing with these already established websites may not improve your search engine ranking at all The ideal solution therefore is to identify keywords with reasonable search volumes but with a much lower number of websites competing for those keywords.

Keyword Research is a vitally important aspect of a search engine optimisation campaign and is one of the most important parts of online marketing. Extensive keyword research will help to identify the most relevant search terms used by potential customers and should be the first step of any search engine optimisation project.

Although the initial idea of keyword research can be daunting there are various online keyword research tools available that will help to identify the strongest performing website keywords, such as Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery. It is worth test driving a number of different keyword research tools, as many of them work differently and provide different data.

It is not a good idea to use the keyword research tools available on Google and Yahoo Search as these will only provide limited information and can create a false impression. The data provided is only based on the previous months search activity. Therefore, as an example, keyword research for 'winter sports' is unlikely to produce huge volume of searches if the research is conducted in the middle of summer!

Most customers are likely to use search terms containing 2 or 3 keywords when searching for a particular product or service. Therefore websites containing mainly single keywords are unlikely to produce high levels of search traffic. The use of single generic keywords are also more likely to produce a lot of non relevant traffic to a site. For example, if a customer uses the keyword "computer" they may be looking for a new desk top machine, the latest laptop or even a computer repair engineer.

The more targeted website keyword phrases that can be identified the better, as this will enable the easy creation of keyword rich content which will not only improve search engine rankings but will also increase the number of visitors to the site. The use of general site keywords needs to reviewed and refreshed as a website develops. For example, new website keywords will need to be identified to promote a new product or service.

Keyword research should play a significant role in the development of a website and if used correctly will make a significant difference in any online business.