Keywords research is the foundation of any website optimization plan. Without this research, there will be no focus to your rankings. Rankings take a concentrated effort to achieve or they will never materialize. Knowing which words and phrases need to be optimized for is the first step in ranking any website for the visitors we all want.

A quick scan of almost every SEO company online will give you the impression that 10 keywords are all it takes to increase your website traffic. I say this because almost every SEO company on the Internet sells it’s services based on the number of keywords you want optimized. The more keywords you need to rank for, the higher the cost.

Honestly, 10 keywords are not enough for almost every business I work with. I do not base my service rates on the number of keywords your website needs. I rank every business website I work with for as many keywords as makes sense for your business. For some, there are hundreds of keywords being optimized for.

Your business website may very well need to be optimized for many dozens and possibly hundreds of keywords to create a significant increase in your website traffic. SEO is, after all, the process of doing what is needed to increase your website’s traffic. That being said, lets take a walk through a keywords research example.

Keywords Research 101

There are many keywords research tools available online. However, there is only one that tells you what people are searching for in Google, where practically everyone searches for everything. That tool is the Google Adwords Keyword Tool and it is available here…

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

There are other keywords tools available but you are optimizing your website for Google so you might as well see what Googlers are looking for since the majority of all website traffic will come from Google.

I will use a local business example for this post.

Let’s see how people looking for plumbers in Los Angeles. Click here to open the screen shot.

By entering los angeles plumber into the search field and hitting the Get keyword ideas button, Google will return a long list of actual searched for and bid on keywords that appear in Google. The top list will show those keywords that most relate to your query, the bottom list will be search phrases that relate to your search. Generally the top list is what you want to focus on, the bottom list could provide you with additional possible search phrases that relate to your business.

This report will show you the average monthly search volume for specific keywords for your website. This is a good gauge of potential traffic numbers but keep in mind, these numbers are only approximate, actual search volumes will change daily and monthly.

In this example, a plumber in Los Angeles will want to target several of these keywords for his business website.

This list only includes 8 keywords but generally local businesses require fewer keywords. Adding additional geographic modifiers such as the state,  “california plumbers” or communities within Los Angeles such as Hollywood, Brentwood or Studio City will help your site’s rankings for plumber searches within those locations.

The -1 means there is not enough search volume to report, however, that does not mean that you would not want to use those keywords. Remember, you want to optimize for as many keywords as make sense for your business.

Hopefully, this has provided you with a basic understanding of keywords research. This is the process I use on every website I work with.Once you have a good long list of keywords that you would like your website to rank for, next comes the linking. Google loves to find targeted, one way, contextual links pointing to your website, it just so happens that my SEO services are centered toward these highly coveted links. So, if you need help with your keywords or your search engine optimization, please contact me today.