How to Research Keywords

Member

By Misti Sandefur
User-Submitted Article

Article Rating:

(5 Ratings)

In order to rank higher in the search engines, you have to pick popular keywords and place them throughout your website content as well as in your META tags. Keep reading to find out how to research keywords using Nichebot, a free keyword research tool. Then, after you've discovered the most popular keywords related to your website, edit your website so you can make it more search engine friendly.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

Internet access
Website
Keyword research tool

Step 1

Think of words related to your website that people might enter into the search engines to find you. For example, let's assume you sell writing services. People may search for you using writing services as the keyword phrase. And there you have it, a keyword phrase to help get you started.
Step 2

Enter your keyword pharase to search for related words

Go to Nichebot (see the resources below for other free tools to help you research keywords). Once you've arrived at the Nichebot website (see resources), type writing services in the keyword research tool's box, select Overture from the drop down menu and then click on "Search" to begin your keyword research (refer to the screenshot on your left).
Step 3

The results

Browse the results and write down the keyword phrase or phrases with the most number of searches. Using Nichebot, we can see that the top four keyword phrases for writing services include resume writing services, writing services, document services writing and professional writing services. If resume writing is a part of the writing services you offer, then by all means, add resume writing services to your list of keyword phrases. If resume writing is not a part of the writing services you offer, don't add it to your list. Instead, keep browsing for phrases related to the kind of writing services you offer. For instance, professional writing services are popular with 569 searches in the last 30 days, and that would fit no matter what writing services you offer. As for document services writing, well, it may be popular as well, but it wouldn't sound good typing it into your website's content. However, you could try typing document writing services into Nichebot to see what results it yields.
Step 4

Researching your competition

Surf to Google and enter the following into the search box: inanchor:"your keyword phrase" inurl:"your keyword phrase." Replace "your keyword phrase" with one of the keyword phrases you just wrote down. This process lets you study how much competition exists for that keyword phrase; the lower the number the better.
Step 5

If the number is under one million, circle it. If the number is over one million, draw a line through that keyword phrase, because you don't want it. In our sample screenshot above, when checking the competition for writing services, we see the number is 582 … well below one million. Therefore, we definitely want to circle this keyword phrase!
Step 6

Continue to research keywords by checking the competition numbers for each keyword phrase you wrote down from your keyword research at Nichebot. Remember, circle all the keyword phrases that return a number under one million, because these will be the keywords you want to use on your website and in your META tags.