Keyword Research Mistakes To Avoid

It would be nice if keyword research was an exact science, but it's not. Contrary to what marketing firms selling the latest, greatest and most expensive selection tools will tell you, this type of research is more of a form of art.

Science or not, keyword selection can be absolutely vital for a site's success. Considering this, it is important to choose good ones. There are some very common pitfalls webmasters run into when selecting words. Understanding what they are can help you avoid making them, too.

The biggest keyword related mistake, hands down, is failing to see how important they are. It's a simple fact that keywords are very powerful marketing tools. They help sites earn traffic, ranking and even revenue. They can even help focus the entire theme of a site. Although hiring an expensive firm isn't required to see results, selecting goods keywords is important.

Improper use of keyword research tools is another hurdle that needs to be overcome. Firstly, keywords counts should be viewed only as estimates. Search count data, such as that returned by Overture, can be a month or more behind. And the numbers do not take into account all searches being done online. With this in mind, do not get hung up on just this data alone. If possible, run the same keywords through Ad Word Analyzer software and Wordtracker.com. The results are usually different, so you can actually find more keyword combinations.

Another issue that crops up a lot is the use of only a single keyword or phrase on a site or page. The truth is it is simply much smarter to select a theme and then choose multiple words and phrases to support it. This works to boost latent semantic indexing, too. Picking niche phrases can be done with a little help from WordNet and other similar tools.

The Keyword Effectiveness Index or KEI ratio tends to be over relied on by many. This ratio is the number of times a keyword searched in relation to the number of sites that happen to rank for that word. This can help publishers get a handle on the competition. This is important, but not nearly as much as the SEO strength of the top contenders for the particular keyword. Checking SEO strength can really better reveal the competition. SeoQuake and SEO for Firefox can help here.

Failure to use keyword management tools can also be a rather big mistake. Those who are really into keyword research can rapidly come up with thousands of keywords. A tool like Ad Word Analyzer can very much help with sorting, filtering, and analyzing the results.

Poorly timed research is also a real killer for optimization. Wordtracker, for example, stores stats for the previous 90 days. This means those trying to research seasonal keywords, for example, won't get very valid results during off times.

Two other big hurdles that a lot of webmasters fumble on include selecting keywords by big price alone and even failing to implement new keywords after conducting research. Greed often comes into play when selecting keywords for a site. The fact is the lower paying keywords can pay out more over the long run since these niche and long-tail keywords don't have as much competition. They can even generate more traffic over the long haul, too.

Keyword selection is an evolving art form or should be considered as one. Finding the right keywords doesn't necessarily require a degree in rocket science. It does require patience, a little time and some willingness to research as you go.

Article Source: http://www.a1-articledirectory.com

About the author: Jeff Alderson specializes in boosting traffic and sales. He is also the developer of numerous PPC and SEO tools. Jeff suggests using a keyword generator like Ad Word Analyzer to find keywords for your website.
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