Keyword research focuses on finding appropriate search terms for your business, which visitors will be actually looking for on Search Engines to get to your product or service. This is the first & foremost step in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This process identifies the keywords which you want to optimize your website for and their respective Landing Pages.

Why should someone do keyword research?

As a business owner, you would like:

• Your website to be visible in front of those people who are likely to buy product/services provided by you.

• To have relevant content on your website that makes users stick to your website when they come from Search Engines.

To achieve above goals, you need to have a clear idea on what people are searching and what are their expectations.

Keyword Research helps in identifying product related keywords which users are searching on a regular basis. This will give you a clear picture on which keywords you should use for content building and also for optimizing your website.

Getting your website positioned as high as possible in SERP (Search Engine Result Pages) is not enough. Your aim should be towards getting quality traffic which has the maximum potential of conversion.

How should you be doing this?

• Historic Data: Pull out the historical analytics data of your website (applies to old websites only). Find the keywords that bought you traffic and how many of them got converted. List them in a spreadsheet.

• Brainstorm: Think from your potential customers' point of view; what all they would search for in order to get your service or product? What would you search if you are looking for same service or product? Ask your employees or colleagues to suggest some keywords for your business. You can even ask your friends or family members. List them all, and then do the final analysis later.

• Competitors: Its time to research your competitor. What keywords they use which gives them the ability to compete you ;-) NO kidding, use their success strategy to your advantage! Research all the keywords and phrases they are targeting. Again, list them!

• Keyword Research Tools: There are several Keyword research tools available online - use them. As a business owner you know what your visitors will search but you don't know which one is the most searched and which ones are not. There may be some more variations available which may have been missed in your thinking process. So it is always recommended to also use keyword Research tools to get data.

Few good ones are listed below,

• Wordtracker - Paid but has a free trial

• Keyword Discovery - Paid

• Good Keywords - Free downloadable program

• Google Keyword Tool - Free

• Thesaurus: Old traditional but always effective. Look for the dictionary and thesaurus, and don't be surprised to get some amazing results. This will expand your options.

• Analysis: By this time, you will be ready with a long list of keywords. Now, this is the right time to use some analytical tools like-

• Microsoft Intelligence

• Google Keyword Tool

• Google Keyword Estimator

Find out the keywords which have sufficient search volume. You may want to abandon the keywords with low search numbers.

Try to find the market value and relevancy of the keywords with your business.

Now, your spreadsheet is left with the keywords which you should target for traffic and conversions.

We at AfterTheNet - The Web Strategy Company follow the above mentioned keyword strategy to supplement our clients with the most basic to the most advanced techniques for any goal they decide to reach with their website. Our step wise approach gives them the complete visibility of their website - which they are deprived of very often, in absence of a trustworthy resource.