In doing your keyword research, here are some basic guidelines you can follow to ensure that you’re
conducting the most thorough research while being highly efficient: Search from the point of view of your potential customers.
Select as many relevant keywords or phrases as possible.
Monitor your keywords to see which attract your target audience. Keep those that perform
and replace those that do not.
Select keywords and phrases that aren’t the most competitive but also not the least com-
petitive. These medium competitive words should yield good results without eating a
ridiculous amount of your budget.Choosing Effective Keywords
When you’re using keyword marketing to optimize your site, you can run into a lot of frustrating
situations. Despite your best efforts, it’s possible that the keywords you select are just not generat-
ing the traffic that you need. On the other hand, sometimes keywords that work well in the begin-
ning will just stop working. You can tell when this happens because the numbers associated with
your keywords (assuming you’re using a metrics program to track them) drop without warning or
explanation.Many things can happen to make your keywords quit being as effective as they were in the past. And
many times you didn’t do anything at all to make this happen. That’s why it’s essential to regularly
develop concepts, test, and implement new keywords for your PPC programs and for your web site.Creating your first keyword list
The initial idea of keyword research can be daunting. Trying to come up with the perfect combination
of words to drive customers to your site, improve your conversion rate, and make yourself visible to
search engines could easily give you a serious tension headache. Even using some of the techniques
that have been discussed in this chapter to find the right keywords and perfect your methods of
research take time. It’s not something that you can just jump into today and be successful at before
the sun sets. It’s far more successful if you start slowly and build your way to greater success.You already know that you must first create a list of potential keywords. Brainstorming and asking
customers are two ways to build that list. You can also include all of the keywords that are sug-
gested by keyword suggestion tools, and you might even consider pulling out a thesaurus to find
additional words and phrases that you haven’t considered. Come up with enough words to cover
all the services your site offers and avoid broad or generic terms that are so all-encompassing they
apply to every site that’s even remotely related to yours. These words are incredibly difficult to rank
high with and won’t drive quality traffic to your site. Instead, focus on words that are relevant but
not overly used, and always keep your eyes open for those words that are very specific but highly
targeted to your site or offerings.88
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