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Why Proper Keyword Research is Key

If you’re simply publishing pages to your website or posts to your blog and not going any further than that, the chances are good that you’re not getting huge amounts of traffic to that content. Until now. Because after reading this post, you’ll realize the importance of using the proper keywords to help not only bring in traffic, but to bring in the right kind of traffic that will be noticed by even more visitors. So how do you perform proper keyword research? You have two main choices: you can either do it for free, or you can purchase a Google AdWords campaign that will do it for you.

The Google AdWords Way
If you don’t mind spending a few bucks on finding the best keywords for your website or your blog, then Google AdWords is the best way to do it. To start you have to set up a Google AdWords account, which involves using a Google or Gmail email address. Once your account is set up you can then log into your account and use the Keyword Tool you’ll find located in there. Within this tool you can type in any keywords that you’d like to know more about. For example, if you’re running an e-commerce site that sells baby products, you might want to learn more about the keywords “baby products,” “baby diapers,” “baby toys,” and “baby sleepers,” along with the many others you’re undoubtedly thinking about.

Once you’ve submitted these, Google will almost always suggest a better term, and you should use their suggestions. They are after all, the biggest search engine you’re trying to get results from, so it doesn’t hurt to see what they have to offer. Look over the suggestions and think about which keywords would most easily fit within your blog posts, remembering that you want the flow of keywords to be natural so they don’t seem like they’ve just been stuffed in there. You will be penalized for that by the search engines if they think that’s what’s happening. For those that you think would be a good fit, then check those off so Google AdWords can give you further results on them. Those results will tell you how often people search for them (both globally and locally) and if many people have purchased those keywords (which is actually more relevant for writing ads than it is for writing content.)

Remember that the keywords that are most often used or most often purchased aren’t necessarily the best keywords for you. Those keywords will also have the most competition, for both ads and search engine rankings, and so higher results could mean that you have to work even harder to get your site noticed. To ensure that you’re using the best ones, set up a test ad that will cost a few dollars, but will also tell you just how effective those keywords are. You can then use these for online ads, as well as your content.

The Free Way
This way is much simpler and it’s free, but it might not give you the detailed results you’re looking for. Simply type different keywords into Google and hit “Enter” after typing each one. Once the results have generated, look along the sides and the top of the page. Are there a lot of ads located here? If so, the chances are good that you’ve hit on a keyword that a lot of people search for and are using, which means there’s a good chance it will give you those good conversion rates you’re looking for.

The way you research your keywords is up to you. But remember that you have to be doing at least some kind of research on these highly important words if you want your blog to be able to compete among the rest.