There are a few different ways to can work towards doing your own keyword research and analysis.  The first is to look through the biggest search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN you can type in what you know your keywords to be, or the words you think people might use to find you and then analyze the results you receive. What you are looking to discover is how many people are searching for what you are offering based on your keywords.

I will just stress here that this type of keyword research should take place before you have your website up and definitely before you create a product based on your idea but if you are finding that your product isn’t selling carrying out keyword research can definitely help to change that.  The trick to keyword research is finding the right words that your potential customer uses to find you and this is an art in itself.

Once you have the search results in front of you another way to discover how popular your keyword is, is to look at the paid advertising on the right hand side of the search results.  If there are no adverts on that side then you have either tapped a new market with potential or an area you shouldn’t touch with a 10-feet pole because nobody else has!

Of course if there are a number of advertisers then you can assume that there is definitely potential in your idea and now all you need to do is carry out keyword analysis to determine the keywords you will use in your internet marketing business.

Not too surprisingly, a number of companies have popped up to supply specific keyword services for a fee. The best of these is WordTracker.com. They’re not bargain basement, but you get what you pay for. They’ll give you all the keywords you need and in my experience, they’re a sound investment. There are free services available when carrying out keyword analysis and paid services. Your budget will determine which one you use but if you are serious about building your internet based business then a paid service is really your only option.

As you make up your list of keywords, bear in mind that it’s also worth looking at key phrases. It’s quite possible that a user looking to buy flowers online might search for ‘red roses’ or ‘cheap bouquets’ as well as just ‘flowers.’ Key phrases are often overlooked by competitors, so you’ve got a pretty good chance of getting a high placement with the right combination.

Don’t worry too much about the competition though. Some people will tell you that you’re better off trying to find keywords that no one else has thought of—as if there were any!  In my experience, what I’ve found is if your competitors are using certain keywords, it’s because they know they work so rather than try to reinvent the wheel just try to figure out the most popular keywords and the best key phrases to put on your site.

Keyword research and analysis in internet marketing is as important as having a BUY NOW button on your website and you are missing out on sales if you do not pay attention to this area. If you are not confident about how to carry out keyword research then think about outsourcing it to someone who is already experienced in this field.

Too many people join internet marketing and make the mistake of trying to do everything alone when they are not really qualified to do that. If you think you do not have the money to pay for this service think again because the outcome of not doing your keyword research right is zero sales.  Also keyword research will take you days, possibly weeks to complete yourself and you will never really be sure whether you have truly gained the right words to use in your business. An expert will be able to look at your business and instantly recognize the keywords that will work for your internet marketing business.

Whether you do it yourself or pay to outsource make keyword research and analysis an important part of your product creation system and you will enjoy the success that comes from people finding your internet marketing business and buying your product.

Resource Box:

Diane Corriette runs the Women Internet Marketers social network at http://www.womeninternetmarketers.net.  She helps people build and profit from using blogs, podcasts, free ecourses and membership sites and shares her expertise and personal experience in internet marketing to help people avoid the same mistakes that she made. Read her eBook at http://www.myinternetmarketingmistakes.com

I asked him to put together a video for anyone who needs to research their potential topic. Keyword research and also making sure your potential market is being searched for is really important and this is a great video about how to search. This is video 1 of 3

Enjoy and leave a comment about what you think.

You can connect with John at Twitter http://www.twitter.com/JohnHutson

Look out for his video on “On page optimization” – how to optimize your blog posts for high SEO results and “Off page optimization”

This is video 1 of 3

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here are the links John mentions in the video

Firefox Browser: http://www.mozilla.com/firefox

Google Keyword Tool: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Google Suggest: http://www.google.com

If you are in the UK and are automatically taken to www.google.co.uk make sure you click on the Go To Google.com link on the hompage to be able to see the numerical results

Google Insights: http://www.google.com/insights/search

MSN http://adlab.microsoft.com/

PPC Webspy: http://www.ppcwebspy.com/downloads/?free-for-you

Domain Names by Fred Gleeck

I now have over 400 domain names. Some of them
are active, some are not. I have reserved a number
of names after having come up with some “brilliant”
idea that is yet to be put into a tangible form.

I have most of my domains set to renew at the very
end of each calendar year. That time is just about
here. Since the price tag is pretty hefty, even using
http://www.UltraCheapDomains.com, I still look at
each one of the names to see if makes sense to
renew them.

I want to review with you some of the ways I use
domain names that YOU can too. This is why I
own so many of them.

1. To host a site of some sort. (Most of mine)

2. A misspelling to grab some traffic from bad spellers
http://www.Speeking.com
I’m interested in people who want to learn how to
SPEAK. I don’t care if they aren’t great SPELLERS!

3. To capture people looking for a specific thing
http://www.SelfStorageAssociation.com
People are expecting the find the Self Storage
Association website here. That’s one of my niches
and I have a PDF book I sell that people find when
they go there.

4. Affiliate links. If you are an affiliate for anything
you should be using this system. Take a look at:
http://www.CoolSpyTool dot com.

Type in that url, and you’ll get redirected to a site
where when you buy, I get paid. YOU should do
exactly what I’m doing with ANY affiliate relationship
you have set up.

5. Tracking urls. I have a number of sites I have
reserved that are strictly used for tracking any and
everything I might do. if I were to do a radio interview
I would use one to send the listeners to. If I did an
article, I might use one. If I did some advertising I
might use one.

An example of one I use is:
www.2Fred.com. I also own five or six more of
those with a number in front of my first name.
(3Fred, 5Fred, etc.)
I can REUSE these over and over again in cases
like radio interviews or ADs that I’m testing. If I give
out that url, people aren’t going to go to it even
weeks later, so I can use it for another purpose.

6. Specific Aspects of Business.
I have a large collection of my affiliate relationships
sitting at: http://www.FredSentMe.com. This allows me
to put any and all affiliate links in one place. Again, I
encourage you to do the same. Whatever you do, make
them EASY to spell!

7. Random Ideas.
When I get a “great idea” for a project of any sort, I ask
myself what the ideal domain name for that project might
be. If it’s available, I reserve the domain name. I’ve got
plenty of these for ideas I have not yet launched.

8. Joint Ventures.
The most recent example of this is:
http://www.DoYourOwnTVShow dot com. Or:
http://InfoProductCentral.com.

Notice how Ican’t actually put the .com in there for
one of them? You know why?

Because the stupid Spam Filters won’t let me do it.
If I do it the way I’d like to, many people won’t get my
email. Why? Since the domain name is less than 90
days old, the Spam filters assume I’m a Spammer.
This may be a good GENERAL concept, but it hurts
ethical marketers like you and me!

BLATANT PLUG: Make sure to reserve any and all
domain names you like at:
www.UltraCheapDomains.com

Having trouble finding great domain names? Go to
http://www.JustDropped.com. When you find one
available, THEN go to UltraCheapDomains.com
to reserve them!!

Fred Gleeck is a 20+ year information marketer. He is the author of
close to 20 books on marketing and related topics. To get 5 of his
best selling and most popular ebooks, go to www.FredGleeck.com/ebooks.
(Forward this link to anyone you know).

I wanted to ask the experts about reciprocal linking between blogs and whether that was still an activity worth taking part in if you are linking to relevant/similar blogs and I left three people a comment who I have listed below. I choose them because I thought they were great link building and link training sites worth subscribing to and learning from :

The Link Spiel – At this blog you will find link building tips, tools,techniques and the occasional opinion from Debra Mastaler.  I enjoy her writing style although I couldn’t see a place to subscribe to her RSS feed and had to go to the end of the blog to find it (I knew that because my daughter started a blogger blog and that’s where I found hers!)

Search Engine Journal - I read some great articles here and two in particular about using how to articles/videos and ebooks as a way of building links and also Lists too. There is a lot to learn on this site and I subscribed to their RSS feed by email so am looking forward to reading that.

Link building techniques with linkers blog was the first of the three that I visited and there is some great information (in list format) on this blog like “7 effective ways to increase your Technorati Authority” “Top 10 link building blogs of 2008″ and other similar things. This was the only blog giving away some free information in the form of a report called “Link building for beginners”

The one thing I have learnt about link building from reading these blogs is that you have to focus on providing valuable content first and the one way inbound links will naturally follow – which I guess is absolutely true because here I am linking to them because of the great content they provide.

The Google Adwords Keyword Tool provides information on the number of searches for a keyword during the month (in July its providing information for June)

It also provides you with the approximate average search volume for a keyword and information about the number of advertisers bidding on a particular keyword across the Google Adwords network.

Of course their aim is that you will use that information to add your keywords to your adwords campaign – which of course if you use adwords is an excellent idea!

Below is a list of results based on the keyword “internet marketing”

 To use the Google Adwords keyword tool visit https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

2. Look for words to add to your keywords to make them more specific. The more relevant your keywords, the better. If you are using keywords that are generic and common, the search engines will be unable to give your site appropriate consideration. Whenever possible, try to clarify your keywords with additional words in order to make your site stand out to the search engines. For example, if you sell widgets maybe it makes sense to create pages optimized for “blue widgets”, “red widgets” and “green widgets”.

3. Work on ranking for longer keyword phrases that contain shorter phrases. Using a multi word phrase is much more effective than using single keywords, because when you use several words, the search engines will look at each individual word and each possible combination of words. For example, when you use the phrase “website copywriting techniques”, the search engines will look at each word and your page will be considered for “website copywriting” and “copywriting techniques” in addition to the full keyword phrase “website copywriting techniques”.

4. Look for keyword phrases without a lot of competition. The best keywords to optimize for are those that have a reasonable number of searches without a lot of competition. Finding these keywords can be a challenge, but luckily there are a few tools available to help you. A great way to research using Google is with “allinanchor” and “allintitle”. For example, if you wanted to know the number of sites that have anchor text pointing to them containing the keywords “baby gift baskets”, you could enter in Google “allinanchor:baby gifts baskets” (without the quotes). If you wanted to know how many used “baby gift baskets in the title” search for “allintitle:baby gift baskets” (without the quotes). This gives you an idea of how many sites are optimizing for this particular keyword phrase. Another option is to subscribe to a service such as http://www.wordtracker.com, which helps you identify good keywords and gives you approximations on the amount of competition.

5. Look in your log files for potential keywords. A great source of keywords is your site’s log files. You’ll find keywords that people have used to find your site. You may be surprised what some of them are! These are good terms to improve your optimization for.

6. Find out what keywords your competitors are optimizing for. Find out what keywords your competitors are using on their pages with the Keyword Density Checker (http://www.webconfs.com/keyword-density-checker.php). It will tell you what keywords they consider most important and could tip you off to some good ones that you hadn’t thought of.

7. Use keywords people are actually searching for. It’s easy to rank well for keywords that no one is searching for. But how much traffic do you think that will bring? Be sure to do your research to find terms that potential customers are actually searching for. The best way to do this is to use a tool such as Good Keywords (http://www.goodkeywords.com), Keyword Discovery (http://www.keyworddiscovery.com) or WordTracker (http://www.wordtracker.com).

8. Use no more than 2-3 keyword phrases per page. It’s nearly impossible to successfully optimize one web page for more than 2-3 keyword phrases. Instead, focus each page on a narrowly defined set of related keywords. This will make them more useful to your visitors and more easily understood by the search engines. Any more and it looks like you are simply stuffing your pages with keywords – a practice which the search engines may ban you for.

9. Don’t limit the number of keyword phrases you optimize for. The more keyword phrases you use on your site, the more likely you will be to rank well for many different terms. Diversifying this way will ensure that your site will not see a dramatic decrease in traffic if your rankings fluctuate. However, be sure to keep it to a maximum of 2-3 keyword phrases per page or else you risk looking irrelevant to both the search engines and your visitors.

10. Be sure to use keywords with alternate spellings. This technique is known as keyword variation, and is particularly important for sites that have an international presence. This is not the same as misspelling, which is frowned upon. Instead, it may mean interchanging the keyword catalog for catalogue, or web site for website. By having these alternate spellings you’ll expand the keywords used on your site and increase the number of phrases you rank well for.

11. Understand that there is a duplicate content filter, not a penalty. There is a lot of talk about Google’s fabled duplicate content penalty. But most SEO experts agree that if anything exists it is a filter, not a penalty. So you will not be banned if you use content that is also published on other sites, but rather your site may not show in the search engine rankings pages for the page that contains the duplicated content. To ensure that you have enough pages that the search engines view as original, make sure you publish your own content that is unique to your site.

12. Use your keyword phrases naturally throughout the page. Chances are you’ve read a page that was stuffed with keywords to the point of not making sense to human readers. A good rule of thumb when creating a page is to write it so that it makes sense to your visitors. Don’t even think about the search engines and simply insert your keywords when and how it makes sense. If you’re really good at writing, people won’t even know what keyword phrases you’re optimizing for!

13. Learn how to interpret competitive research. Have you researched your competition but you’re not sure whether your results show a good keyword to optimize for or not? A good rule of thumb is that if there are less than 1,000 sites actively optimizing for a specific keyword phrase, you should be able to rank for it with some good on-page SEO. Of course you may start out at number 512, but you can always tweak your page to improve that ranking. If there are more than 1,000 sites actively working on optimizing for that keyword phrase it will take time, patience and probably a lot of back links to rank well. Get started with the easier keywords and as your site gains popularity you can add the more competitive terms.

14. Don’t link to “bad neighborhoods”. Links farms can be spotted from a mile away. They are sites that exist solely as a place where webmasters can put up links in an attempt to inflate the number of inbound links to their site. Whatever you do, NEVER post a link on your site to any sites that are considered link farms. And even if a site looks good when you link to it, be sure to check your link partners periodically to ensure that you’re not inadvertently linking to a site that is considered bad.

15. Don’t get too many links too fast. Thinking they could trick the search engines, some services popped up that offered hundreds or even thousands of links to members. But the search engines are not stupid. They look at sites that suddenly get hundreds of links at once as unnatural. A natural linking campaign would include a trickle of links – some reciprocal and some one way – all with different link text. So don’t waste your time or money on these services. Instead focus on getting good quality links through reciprocal link exchanges, publishing articles, submitting to directories and encouraging other webmasters who enjoy your content to tell their visitors about your site.

16. Find phrases that are bringing in a little traffic, but for which you aren’t ranking very well. Look through your site logs and find words that you’re getting a little traffic for, but that you’re not ranked in the top 20 results for. If the keyword phrase is important enough that people will look past the first or second page of results, then it presents a real opportunity. And if you’ve already made some progress ranking well for the term you should be able to get into the top 10 with some on-page optimization and appropriate links.

Keyword creation is an important part of your business. If not THE most important part. If you don’t know how your potential customers find you or which words to use to ensure they find you then your business will suffer.

One of the easiest tools to use for keyword creation is <a href=”http://dianecorri.bryxen4.hop.clickbank.net/” target=”_top”>Brad Callen’s Keyword Elite</a>