Is it possible that keyword research could be just a tad bit overrated?

One of the main purposes of KW research; (and most research, general); is to get a gauge on the market/industry... so you can learn how to "talk to" that market and use the "jargon" OF that market; as each market consumer base will use their own jargon to search the SEs for information on that topic.

So, if you're that confident in your ability to accomplish this without doing any KW research.. go for it. Mo' power to ya!

PLP,
tecHead

There is definitely a chance that you will get ranked in search engines without the research, but your chance to get ranked increases ten fold with the research.

For one, you will know that there is actually a market available to buy what you're selling. Secondly, you will know what words to focus backlinks and such on. It takes more then just putting up content.

So yes it is possible, but unlikely you will get great results without it. My first fitness blog was done before I knew anything about proper keyword research. I would just write about whatever sprung in my head. After 6 months of writing an article at least every 3 days, I got only 30-40 viewers a day.

My second blog was done with proper keyword research and I saw 40 visitors a day within 30 days. So, I sped up my traffic process 6 times by doing a couple hours of keyword research.

Travis

Basically, if you're in a niche where there is any significant competition (meaning there's money to be made) you will be up against people who know how to get a site to rank. If you don't know how to emphasize keywords and they do, both internally and externally, they are likely to beat your naturally written quality content down to page 3 or 4 of search results.

Hop over to Google and do some searches. You're likely to find the really good content like you're talking about buried while thin, uninformative, content, either in the form of thin affiliate sites or ecommerce sites, rules page #1.

One might be a pro in regards to "weight loss" or "insurance"...but i would never attempt making a site about it without at least digging in some sub-niche/sub keyword where i know i have SOME chance to rank.

If you know the niche as well as you say you'll probably do fine after you get some content built up. Keyword research can help you do fine faster, though.

Why?

Because it doesn't matter how well you know your niche, what counts is knowing how people search within that niche. Guaran-gosh-darn-tee you that there will be some surprises for you.

Which term is better to use: cheap hosting or low cost hosting?

I'm going off the top of my head here, but the last time I checked, cheap hosting gets over 10 times as many searches. So which keyword do you want to write content around? How would you know that without doing the research?

From slim to none. Do you think you are going to beat wikipedia for any topic by writing unique, naturally written quality content? I can tell you right now for a lot of terms you are not going to beat out Wikipedia ( on some you could). How are you going to know which ones to avoid without doing some research? Why are you assuming that no one else is writing quality content and if you aren't assuming that how would you determine who is and who isn't without doing research?

Keyword research should be tied closely with competitive research. First you have to bring up a serp for a keyword and then you have to analyze the pages that come up for it.

IF you aren't doing that then your entire business model is based on luck and wishful thinking. Pure gamble and its a gamble that most people end up losing.

Frankly among thsoe relying on any SEO for traffic I think the number one reason for their failure and burn out is because they didn't pay attention to good keyword research.

great keywod research is like making plates to print money. ts the single most important part of SEO. You find a low competition keyword and you can be number one and have a constant stream of traffic.

For the most part I knew that I would get these types of answers but the reason I'm thinking on this level is the fact that I've had blogs rank for plenty of keywords that were relevant to my topics but I didn't necessarily target those particular phrases. This type of behavior just makes me think of the possibilities when focusing on writing more content and less keyword research, more so if you know your audience.

I consider myself a newbie, and this is definitely a newbie question.

If you know an industry well, then you probably know the terms used in the industry. But, the Power of Keyword Research comes to play when you find the terms that are most often used to find the information you are offering.

Since a sentence can be written many ways to say the same thing, then how hard would it be to first do a little keyword research? Then, when you start writing, add a few of the phrases being used to find documents like you are writing.

If you don't use terms people are looking for, then they will not find you when they search. If your income depends on the site, keyword research could make the difference in what you have for dinner, where you have it, and who you have it with.

you may know your industry backwards however is that the way your potential visitors see it.

For example I recently did some keyword research for a real Estate client who knew his market well however online it was a different matter.

He was wanting to reach people wanting to buy property and told me to use the keyword Property Investment as this is what Yellow Pages, newspapers and his adverting did.

Doing the research on keywords however it was investment properties that provided almost 3 to 4 times as many searches.

This is why we do keyword research not just to find keywords but look at customer trends.

Quentin