Methods of Keyword Research: Free tools and tips

No matter what type of site you run, you're going to hear about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and keywords. In fact, you might hear about those two things so much that you'll wonder what the fuss is about. If your site benefits from search engine traffic, you're going to want to learn the basics of keyword research. It will take a little bit of time, but it can make you a lot more money.

The first thing you're going to want to do is take a look at your server stats if you have access to them (and you certainly should). Even the most basic of stats programs should be able to tell you what terms your search engine visitors are coming in from. If you don't have a stats program, most of the time your server default will be either an Awstats package or a Webalizer package. Ask your server admin how to set those up. If you hate them both with a passion, I've found Google Analytics (http://www.google.com/analytics) to be a very robust solution.

You'll probably have a few one or two keyword phrases that bring in big traffic numbers. For example, on my retro blog my top terms are retro porn, classic porn, and retro sex. Although these are the biggest traffic generators on their own, there are thousands upon thousands of three, four, five, etc keyword terms that get a lot of traffic combined. These are referred to as long tail keywords, and knowing both your main and your long tails is important.

Although the shorter terms will bring in a lot of traffic, the more specific terms tend to have a higher overall conversion rate. The problem is that you need plenty of these long tail terms since their traffic is much lower on their own. This is where keyword tools come in.

The first one I've ever used is a freeware software package called Good Keywords. Since it's free, it's not the most robust in the world, but it allows you to get estimated traffic numbers and related keywords to whatever you put in. This will allow you to find long tail keywords that are easy to rank for and have a good amount of traffic - a balance that is hard to find at times. You can download this program at http://www.goodkeywords.com/.

Another great keyword research tool I found is Gtrends. It's a free part of the Wordtracker site and you can find it at http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/gtrends/. One reason why I like this particular software is that you can get adult only results, which help anyone looking at terms that might be littered with mainstream keywords that are of no use to you. However, the real beauty of this service is the fact that it graphs historical search terms for you over a specified period of time, along with estimated Google competition and daily search numbers. This will allow you to check at a glance whether you should even bother with certain keywords. Often times, I have a certain fatalistic drive to go after search terms with millions of results, but that's probably because I'm a wee bit weird. It also has a few helpful links to Google searches such as keyword affiliate, which helps you to find affiliate programs for whatever terms you are looking at.

Once you have your long tails, you need to put them to work! If you have a blog, this could be as simple as making a category or post. Sometimes I have a single blog post that will elevate me to the top of that long tail and start generating sales without me really touching it. Always try to work in the long tails either into your descriptions or your alt tags. A review site has it made since you can just work in relevant long tails into your review itself.

Like many things dealing with SEO, it can take some time to see results. If you can, link dump or social bookmark your site with the long tail keywords, and see if you can't make your rankings soar nice and easy. If you've picked a low enough competition phrase, you are going to see results fairly fast (under 30k). If you're going for a mid range or larger keyword, it can take awhile.

If you are able to, track the results of your long tail keywords. If you have a few that are real money makers, you might want to branch those off into their own sites. Just make sure to pick up a related keyword domain and you'll be good to go. It'll take some time, but soon you'll learn how to spot money making long tail phrases from a mile away.