keyword research

I personally spend a lot of time doing my keyword research. I first determine which niche I would like to get into then look for seed keywords and do my research based on that. I typically use Market Samurai and Traffic Travis as my KW research tools. They are both quite good tools.

However, the time spent is not the important issue here. The quality of the results (in terms of figures) is the important factor here in determining if to proceed or not. Hope this helps.

I spend about 1 hour a week on keyword research. I used ravens seo tools, semrush and spyfu to help see what the competitors are doing and what keywords might be potentially lucrative.

quick note: Traffic Travis uses adwords.

Adwords has become less trusthworthy after the removal of exact match keywords according to the SEO expert Rand Fishkin

I loved this article with some keyword research techniques I never heard about before

Spend all the time you need, it's going to save you time and money in the long term!

Keyword research is the foundation of any SEO efforts, so spend as much time as you need on it. Google keyword planner will always be a good tool to start with in order to find high volume keywords with commercial value. You will need to use other tools and metrics to determine competition level though.

There are a ton of options as you can use DA, PR (a bit outdated), or trust flow and so on to determine how tough it will be to beat out URLs on page 1 of the serps. There are some other tools like secockpit that can automate the process for you, but you will likely still need to do some manual research to supplement them.

Keyword research are very effective techniques of SEO . I usually spend 3 to 4 hours for keyword research and also learn new techniques from online guides.

basically I use Market Samurai or Google Adword keyword planner for effective research of Keywords .

Once you know how to do keyword research its rather simple. find keyword..check competition, check top 10's backlinks, go the extra mile looking for trends and what not, not sure how someone can spend months on a simple thing.

I agree with Dr los3, I tend not to spend loads of time within keyword research unless it's a highly competitive space. Otherwise it's very easy to get sucked in and begin debating multiple keywords as often times there are many good ones.

I've used many tools over the years but I find myself using Market Samurai 99% of the time and going from there.

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Hey marks2424

When doing keyword research, it always works best for me to do it BEFORE I start publishing content. I'd use the Jaaxy keyword tool, which is free to sign up with, and then I'd have a keyword research session where I'd find 5 - 10 good keywords, then I'd start writing content for them.

Or you can just do the keyword research as you progress in your business and build more content.

Hope this is helpful!

Josh

Even If the competition isn't realistic you still need to be targeting those keywords because If you don't tell Google what your site is about you'll never get traffic from those keywords. Keyword relevancy is helpful.

Example, If I optimized for the keyword car insurance like I was trying to rank for that exact keyword it would help me out later (relevant internal links) when I target real longtail variations of the original keywords:

• car insurance
  • low cost auto insurance chicago
  • best auto insurance rate tampa
  • what is a good car insurance rate
  • etc...

Keyword research should be thorough and extensive. You want to make sue you're targeting keywords that will convert into sales. As for time, that's not important in my book.

Time allocation will depend on the niche and goals of the business.

Typically, I'll spend anywhere from 5-10 hours conducting KW research.

GKP is a good place to find seed keywords. However, you need to keep in mind that EVERYONE is looking at this tool. Also, data is based off AdWords data. For example, type in a keyword and you'll notice that the suggestions are really close variations. This is all by design. Google shows everyone the same keywords so they become more competitive, thereby raising the average CPC.

A work around is to enter the landing page URL of your top ranking competitors, this will give you uncovered KWs. Also, think outside the box a little, head over to pinterest and enter your KW. Now, enter the URL of the pinterest page into GKP. You'll get some results that none of your competitors are finding.

I like to use SEMrush to identify KWs competitors are bidding on.

Then, enter my KWs into tools such as Promediacorp Suggester, Ubersuggest, Google Suggest, Related Search, Search Terms plugin, AdWords Search Terms report, Google Analytics keywords (when linked with WMT), site search data (if enabled).

BIG ONE, leverage the Bing Keyword Tool. Unlike GKP, this data is based on organic search, and uncover some out of the box seed KWs.

The goal is to find high commercial long-tail KWs.

Once you have a list, enter them back into GKP and check the competition level and average CPC. This will give you a good indication of commercial intent.

Think outside the box.

Let's say your promoting a "weight loss" program.

Sure you could go after the keywords "how to loose weight" and "weight loss".

But that's an uphill battle.

How about getting inside your prospect's mind?

That very same person could be searching for "salad recipes" or "healthy pizza recipes" or "best pedometer" .

All these keywords have the same "prospect" in mind. But the keywords above are way less competitive.

So try to think like they would.

Cheers

I spend a lot of time researching as its the most important step before launching any type of site.

A good strategy yo find good keywords is searching in Q&A Sites, Forums and also you can try SEMRush to spy on what the competition is doing with Ads.

You need to find what your audience wants or need from you and your work is providing that to them.

Then to check competitiveness I would try Long Tail Pro Platinum or Moz rank, alternatively you can try Traffic Travis.

Regards.