Keyword Tools & Implementation

Keyword research is something that every search engine optimization (SEO) campaign utilizes. Finding a program or tool on the Internet that can make your keyword research more effective and provide you with accurate and up to date keywords is extremely beneficial and worth the time it takes to find one that suits your website best. Of these tools, Google’s Adwords Keyword Tool is the most popular and most highly recognized.

Not only is keyword research a technique that can greatly improve visibility to a website, but it will also increase the amount of traffic it receives. Google Adwords is a program developed by Google that does just that; however, it is not as simple as typing in a keyword and putting the results in your website’s content. An understanding of how your website works and what your potential readers will be searching for is needed as well. It is best to answer these questions before you begin to use Adwords for keyword research:

Who is the ideal audience for your website?

Does your website offer basic information to your audience or is it a website aimed towards professionals, intended for in-depth content? Preparing your keyword research with this in mind allows you to tailor your search to better benefit your content and your readers.

Who is your potential audience?

Think of the potential readers who are not sure what they are looking for and make your content more accessible to them. If they are looking for something that is included in the content you provide, they are potential readers and you should be focusing on leading them to your website.

What is it your website offers?

Ask this question, and use your answers to create a list of what needs to be included in your keyword research, covering everything your site offers will ensure the keywords potential for boosting your sites visibility is maximized.

Once these factors are taken into consideration you should have a list of keywords that will get you started on the right path. Your keyword list should include both word combinations and a variety of keyword lengths (long-tail and short-tail keywords). Using Google Adwords Keyword Tool is the next step in maximizing your keyword research results and boosting your websites visibility on the World Wide Web.

Using Google's Keyword Research Tool

Once you get to Google Adwords Keyword Research Tool, click on the external tools tab and navigate to the keyword tool. This is where you will find all of the keywords relevant to your site’s content. Start by putting some of your keywords into the search box; also click the “Only show ideas closely related to my search terms” box to ensure you receive only relevant results. Here is where you can specify which region you want results from. You can choose from a list of countries (the United States is the default), the language you want results for, and also whether you are more interested in local, global or competition results.

You can also enter in a competitor’s website in the website box to see what keywords Google finds them relevant for and utilize these keywords in your content. If you have an existing site this is also a good way to see where Google finds you relevant and if you find these terms agreeable to your product or service.

Once the search is entered a list of keywords or phrases will be displayed that are relevant to the keyword(s) you used. “Global Monthly Searches” are the total amount of searches on Earth over the past year. “Local Monthly Searches”, on the other hand, are results from the location specified (country specific) at the beginning of the search and “competition” gives you a sense of how many advertisers are bidding for a particular keyword.

With the list of results you can begin to decide which of them are useful for your site and which are not. This is easily done by clicking on the download tab and downloading the entire list as a CSV for Excel. Once it is downloaded you can then begin by deleting the words you will not use. This gives you a list of results that you can more easily work with as opposed to leaving the results page open and returning when you need to. This also allows you to save the data, meaning you can shut off your computer without losing all of the results. The list will also allow you to see the word’s search volume and competition rate. Remember you want to use keywords that are both broad and competitive. Some things to keep in mind when looking at your results are:

• Look for words with a high local monthly search value and lower competition as these words will pay off more in the long run.
• Decide which words from this list have a higher Estimated Average Cost per Click (CPC) value.

Now that Google Adwords has helped with generating a beneficial keyword list it is time to narrow the list down to around 20 focused keywords and to implement them into your website’s content, ensuring your website will receive as much traffic as possible and reach out to potential customers that might not have found your website without utilizing these techniques. Keep in mind when using this tool the results (such as competition and estimated cost per click) are based off of the Google Ad campaigns and not the organic search results. They do however provide data that is consistent with the ways people search in relation to both paid search and organic search.