Keyword Research Skills That Help Pay The Bills

Posted at September 8, 2010

KeywordsIf I had to pick one skill that I acquired over the years that helps pay the bills in more than anything else it is getting good at doing keyword research.

Developing Good Keyword Research Skills

Getting good at keyword research really isn’t all that hard. I know it seems like a daunting task at first, that involves a lot of number crunching and market analysis, but the good news is that it really. There are plenty of tools out there that will make your life easier and using them is just a matter of jumping in and giving it a try.

Here’s my step-by-step approach to keyword research. Copy it, then modify it until you find your own style. Then just get into the habit of doing keyword research before you write just about any new piece of content.

Step One – The Idea

I usually start with an idea of what topic I want to write about. It doesn’t matter if I’m writing a blog post or article, creating a squidoo lens or even sending a tweet, it all starts with the idea of what this new piece of content is going to be about.

Step Two – What Are People Searching For

Once I have the idea, it’s time to find out exactly how people are searching for this type of information or product. We find these keywords by using one of the many keyword tools out there. I happen to like wordtracker, but you can certainly use any other keyword research tool as well.

Take a look at my “What Is Keyword Research ” post to learn more about it and to find a quick review of several of the more popular keyword research tools out there.

Step Three – How Hard Will It Be To Rank

My next step is to take a look at how hard it will be to rank for a particular keyword. It’s good to strike a balance between lots of traffic and how many links you will have to build to rank. For most of the new content I’m adding I choose keywords that only have a few serious competitors. These keywords usually include three or more words and are considered long tail keywords.

Take a look at this post to learn more about Long Tail vs. Short Tail Keywords.

How tdo you find out how hard it will be to rank? There are several different ways to do it. The hard  way is to simply type the keyword into Google. Then look at how well optimized the pages that show up on the first page off Google. Do they have the keyword in the title? Does it appear in the content as well? Then plug the page url into yahoo site explorer and take a look at the backlinks for each of these pages. The more links that are pointing to the page and the greater the authority of the site the page is on is, the harder it will be to rank.

The easy way to do this type of research is to use the paid version of wordtracker. This is what I use and it saves me quite a bit of time each day.

Step Four – Choose The Actual Keyword

Once you have your data, it’s time to pick a keyword. Again you want to balance the amount of traffic you can get with how hard it will be to rank. For most of my content pages (individual blog posts and articles for article directories), I aim for a competition of under 25 people who are really trying to rank for the keyword. I get this data out of the keyword report generated by wordtracker.

Step Five – Incorporate It Into Your Content

Next it’s time to use the keyword within the content. I make sure I include it in the title as well as once or twice throughout the content.

Step Six – Build Some Links

Last but not least, it’s time to build some links to the new page that include the keyword as part of the anchor text. I usually start with some internal links (links from my own site that point to the new page), and then move on to building external links through social bookmarking, article marketing, guest blog posts etc.

To learn more about building links, sign up for my link building program. Over the course of 13 weeks I teach you various link building strategies that will help you ensure that you are ranking for your keywords.

Just follow these steps a few times as you write new blog posts, articles etc. and before you know it this process will become a habit.  Keep in mind that each time you create a new optimized page, you will get a little (or sometimes a lot) more free search engine traffic. That traffic can then be turned into subscribers, customers and loyal fans. That’s how keyword research skills help pay the bills and allow you to grow your online business.

Susanne Myers

P.S. Here’s some “further reading” for you. I wrote a guest blog post about keyword optimization in article marketing yesterday for NicoleOnTheNet.com that will give you some further insight into how I use my keyword research skills in article marketing.

You should also take a look at a post by my friend Trish Lindemood about Keyword Research Tips and Tools. While you’re there make sure you are signed up for her 90 day content challenge. I’m going through it right now and it’s a big help in not only creating more content for this blog but also making sure I market along the way.

You may also like to read:

  1. What Is Keyword Research And Why Bother?
  2. Keyword Strategy – A Keyword Research Crash Course in 90 Minutes
  3. Wordtracker Free and Paid Keyword Tool Review
  4. Using Google Suggest To Expand Your Keyword List
  5. Google Adwords Keyword Tool Review

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