Keyword Research for Search Engine Marketing

in Forum: Search Engine Optimization & Advertising
Source of this discusssion: /articles/1511/1/keyword-research-sem.asp Page description: Keyword research may be one of the most important activities you undertake as you promote your website and business online. Learn some of the basics before diving into this vital marketing task.
Oct. 03 2006 at 10:05 AM
Joel Posted by: Joel StartupNation Team
"Keyword Research Never Ends"

I LOVE this aspect of Search Engine Marketing. It means that the aggressive entrepreneur always has an opportunity to outshine the competition.

Edited by: Brian - Oct. 03 2006 at 12:47 PM
Joel Welsh
chief community officer
StartupNation
Oct. 03 2006 at 2:50 PM
CraigL Posted by: CraigL
The only caveat is that everyone who ever discusses SEM (search engine marketing) and SEO (search engine optimization) for a site, uses the same phrase: "Research and use the most important key phrases."

It's like a To Do list for an entrepreneur who's just starting out a business idea. They read and so forth, learn they need a To Do list, and everywhere, the advice they get is, "First: Make lot of money."

In order to get the right key phrases, someone (you or a professional) must examine your site and business. What exactly is it you're selling? Then, with a *definition* of your business in mind, the abstract next step is to figure out what will people search for that I want my business to show up in their results?

Suppose you sell wooden wall plates for light switches. SEM isn't about searching key phrases for "wood wall plates." Anyone who's looking for what they already know will put that into a search engine. Presumably, your site already has plenty of instances of "wood wall plates" in the content.

The trick is to think about what someone who does NOT know what they're looking for will enter into the SE (search engine) query box! That's where imagination comes into play. What would someone search for if they had only the most vague idea of what they're looking for?

So for example, SEO would begin along the lines of "bathroom redecorate," "interior design," "new light switches," "wooden light switches" and things like that.

SEM is a fascating and unique concept, only applicable to the idea of an Internet database of indexing. The whole thing has never-before been seen in history, but it's at least somewhat related to the public library's card catalog. Remember learning how to use one of those, back when it was done on 3x5 index cards?

I believe the big problem for younger generations is they grew up with computer-based indexing systems. I wonder then; do kids today have a course in writing queries? Without knowing what's a query and how to generate one, keyphrase research isn't going to accomplish all that much.


Edited by: CraigL - Oct. 03 2006 at 2:54 PM
Craig Landes
---
Defining the undefinable. "There are 10 kinds of people in the world---those who understand binary numbers and those who don't." - Unknown

International Society of Curmudgeons
Aug. 29 2007 at 5:35 AM
No Photo Posted by: keywordspy
Can also give KeywordSpy.com a try for a keyword research tool, with results actually reflecting what advertisers are using at the current time.
Sep. 24 2007 at 2:48 PM
No Photo Posted by: susa1234

KeywordSpy.com a try for a keyword research tool, with results actually reflecting what advertisers are using at the current time.



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