Articles
The Importance Of Keyword research
by Mark Hodgetts Professional writer and SEO service When electing to promote any program or product, it is important to spend some time doing some basic Keyword research to start with.If for example, I found a "hot" affiliate based program about guitar tuition, it would suit me to promote - because I play guitar and am knowledgeable about the subject.
It should naturally follow that I should be able to construct a blog about learning the guitar and recommend this hot affiliate based product.
I should be rolling in money right?
Wrong!
Guitar tuition, learning guitar and hundreds of other related phrases are highly competitive search phrases that have literally millions of competitors jostling for a piece of the action.
To compete directly for a search term like "learn guitar", "learn electric guitar" or even "learn rock guitar" is a complete waste of time.
However, by using free tools like Wordtracker or Google's free keyword tool, it is possible to drill down for search related phrases that aren't quite as competitive and yet can be potentially more lucrative.
Here is how I go about doing some basic keyword research.
I use Google's Free Keyword tool to search for a broad based search term - something like guitar lessons.
The tool will present me with a list of related phrases together with the number of times these phrases or words have been searched int he past month.
Armed with this list I can then do some research on words that have a broad based monthly search rate of say 5000 per month.
Lets say I find four phrases on the list
They could be guitar lessons
blues guitar
learn blues guitar
guitar virtuoso
If I then Google those phrases I can find how many competing websites are around for each phrase.
If I find a phrase that has less than 1 million competitors and ideally has some instances of web 2.0 content (Youtube, wordpress, forum activity etcetera) its a fair bet that with a little work and effort I can construct a blog that will feature reasonably within the search engines.
Without this research, any marketing efforts in a search engine capacity are wasted
Mark Hodgetts
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About Mark Hodgetts 
Professional writer and SEO service
294 connections, 6 recommendations, 743 honor points.Joined APSense since, September 25th, 2007, From Ararat, Australia.
Created on Dec 31st 1969 18:00. Viewed 0 times.
A very good article Mark. I already knew this but do not always practise it due to lack of time. It is on my todo list to review and evaluate all tags on my sites and blogs, especcialy the Dutch ones i have been neglecting sice I went global.
I did not know you play guitar, Mark. I play the saxophone and play inseveral amateur bands. I posted some in the musician group on that other site you joined today.
Jan 25th 2011 06:44