ALL of SEO begins with a keyword. Keyword Research is the critical first step that will make or break your entire SEO campaign.
[UPDATED VERSION]
Around 90% of all traffic on the internet begins with a keyword and a search engine, and this is why your keyword research is so important. It is the foundation for all of your on-page and off-page SEO. Without further ado, let’s learn how to do keyword research and find some killer keywords.
Finding the Right “Type” of Keyword – Buying Keywords
One of the reasons why organic traffic from the search engines can be so effective is because it is often very targeted. Why does this matter?
Let’s say you have an Amazon review site and you are trying to get people to click-through your links to buy HD TVs. Would you rather have 1,000 visitors who get to your site with the keyword “hd tvs”, or “buy an hd tv”? Clearly, the second keyword is going to produce much better results because it is a buying keyword.
If you’re trying to sell, you need people looking to buy!
Now, you aren't always going to be selling something, you might just be sharing information. The goal is to be very specific. Provide exactly what people searching for your keyword are looking for.
Be relevant to the INTENT of the searcher.
A really targeted, buying keyword will produce great results and tons of sales even if the search volume isn’t that high. So how do we find these buying keywords? With the simplest, and best keyword tool available – Google’s own keyword tool: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
Target Long-tail Keywords
A long-tail keyword is a keyword that is 3 words or longer and is typically much easier to rank for.
Short keywords are typically very hard to rank for so you'll want to spend most of your time on longer keyword phrases. You’ll discover the importance of having 3 or more words in your keyword phrase as you read this guide.
How to Find True Search Volume
Let’s figure out how we can establish an understanding of how much monthly search volume a keyword receives. The first thing you want to do is enter your keyword into the keyword tool. My example is going to be “buy an hd tv”. These are the results we get:
Right now, the results are sorted by relevancy. This is one way to find your related keywords, but that’s not what we want for our keyword research, so we reorder our results by Global Searches. If you are promoting something that isn’t available internationally then sort it by Local Monthly Searches.
Local Monthly Searches does NOT mean your city – it is the United States.
These are our new results:
We sort the results by Global Monthly Searches because we want to make sure that we don’t want to skip over a keyword with a higher amount of searches that we can compete for. That being said, the goal is to try and rank for a keyword that we can actually rank for in a relatively short period of time.
You could spend years trying to get ranked for a really competitive keyword and spend a LONG time and a LOT of effort without getting any traffic. Or, you could target a keyword with a lower search volume and much lower level of competition and rank in a MUCH quicker period of time and start getting some traffic to your site.
For example, you could target a keyword that gets 100 searches a day and be number one in two or three months. Or, you could target a keyword that gets 1,000 searches a day and be on page 30 after two or three months of work.
TIP: You will only get 100 results if you search without signing in to a Google Account first. Once you sign in you will get up to 800 results -> much better.
Now before we move any further I have something SUPER IMPORTANT YOU NEED TO READ: You need to select “Exact” under Match Types (left-sidebar). If you do not do this, you will an inflated number of projected searches for your keyword. By default, “Broad” is selected so you need to change this.
What is Broad Match?
Broad means that the words in your keyword phrase can be in any order, have different plurality, and there can be other words used in the search. In other words, people not searching for your keyword lol.
What is Phrase Match?
Phrase Match Types refers to searches made with your exact keyword EXCEPT there can be other words in front of or after your keyword phrase.
And Finally…
Exact match means that we are looking at the search volume for literally that exact keyword.
You’d be astounded how many people neglect this, not to mention how many keyword research guides leave this entirely out! I admittedly have built niche sites in the past around keywords that get 40 searches a month because I had forgotten to use exact match types. Don’t let this happen to you!
Fun Fact: Because we look at exact match, we ignore some of the random searches that will naturally lead people to our site. People can use whatever terms they want for a search so only a few keywords will have such a uniform search pattern. It’s important to know that only 30-70% of your organic SEO traffic will come from your ranking for your targeted keyword. Finally, some good news!
So now that we know what kind of keywords to look for and how to find them, let’s see how we can gauge our competition!
Gauging the Competition
Gauging your competition can be difficult and there is no golden rule for judging how competitive a keyword is. It really depends on your SEO competency and also what kind of web property you are trying to rank.
There are a lot of factors to consider when analyzing your competition. I did a guest post on Basic Blog Tips that served as a short competitive keyword research guide you can check out. However, I thought that my process might be better illustrated through video.
This is basically the way I do competitive research before doing in-depth backlink analysis and decide to target a keyword. (Sometimes this the extent of my research if I'm just optimizing another blog post).
(Woops: the 9th result had the exact match…)
Some Closing Tips and Pointers
The more words the better
Having a long-tail keyword with 4 or more words is very helpful for ranking. As a rule of thumb, the longer your keyword the easier it is to rank. This is simply because there will be less pages optimized specifically for your keyword.
Google’s “Competition” Bar
From my experience, the “competition” bar in Google’s keyword tool is about as reliable as [insert witty joke here]. I don’t know where they come up with it, but it seems to mean absolutely nothing, so cover it up, ignore it, do whatever just don’t worry about it. If someone here knows the formula to it or to what aspect of competition it equates, let me know and I’ll rewrite this. But, until then I’m going to say its garbage.
Don’t Target Misspellings
A surefire way to waste your time is to go after a misspelling. Yes, people do misspell things, but Google has a correction to the spelling right underneath every misspelled search. I always click on the proper spelling suggestion because I know I’ll get better results this way, and I’m sure this is what the majority of people do as well. So don’t go after a misspelled keyword!
Year-round Traffic
Before you choose a keyword you should at the “Local Search Trends” on the right-hand side of the Google Keywords Tool. This will give a quick insight into if your keyword is searched equally year round or not. Unless you’re well aware that you are targeting a holiday or seasonal keyword and you’re okay with it, you’ll want to target a keyword that gets searches year round.
Cookies and Diets: Google’s Keyword Tool is sometimes fun just to examine and view the seasonal trends of searchers. After all, we are the proponents of its results which are an aggregate of human search behavior 
I was searching for recipe keywords during the holiday season and I couldn’t help but notice some funny trends. Every “cookie” related keyword had WAY more searches in December, and every “low fat” or “diet” search term was WAY down on searches. It goes to show that you can observe many trends that take place offline, in the online world especially in how we search.
Conclusion
I hope you found this free keyword research guide helpful, and maybe learned a thing or two 
Keyword Research is a topic where practice truly makes perfect. You will learn much through your own experimenting. And you don’t have to build a new niche site every time either. If you want some practice without spending any $$ first, you can make a free blog or other web 2.0 property such as a squidoo lense. Pick out a keyword that is really uncompetitive and has a few hundred monthly searches, it will help give you a feel for how things go, and you will also come to respect the options that you have when making a full-fledged website.
A very well written and detailed article, with useful step by step information on how to locate good keywords.
To think that I’ve actually paid money to purchase 15 page e-books that did not provide any better information on keyword research and you have it here for free!
I look forward to reading your other articles. Thanks!
Jerry
Hey Jerry,
Glad you enjoyed the guide! That’s exactly why I put this site together, there are too many people getting by just selling the basics. SEO and IM knowledge should be more accessible so people have a better chance to enter the game, so to speak, without digging through all the garbage first.
There’s lots more to come!
Thank you very much, I must say the light bulb went on for me reading this article.
Now I have a better understanding about Keyword Research and am more confident about handling this task.
Thank You Ben,
I have recently become a webmaster and have delved into the confusing world of keyword research.
This article has helped to clear up some questions in my head and give me a clear path to go in my keyword research.
Thank you for bringing value into the marketplace.
Kevin
I have Market Samurai and have joined two paid sites to learn IM that I like a lot. But I’m printing our this article and pasting it on my computer! Many thanks.
Hey i just visited your site for the first time and i really liked it, i bookmarked it and will be back
new to your website and found it very nicely design and keywords are also great. your this site really impressed me with the tips and suggestions you shared.
Thanks Reeha, glad you like the site
this site deserves to love it its design and everything is amazing.
Hey Ben,
Very detailed and well-written article. It amazes me how many people do not know how to do proper keyword research. Keyword research is the foundation of any internet business.
Finding a good, buying keyword can mean the difference between making enough money to quit your day job or making none at all.
Be creative, laser target your market. You need to figure out who you are marketing too, before you can try and sell anything to them.
Thanks for sharing Ben and have a good one!
Hey thanks for your comment and additional tips Ian. I think we’ve all been guilty of going after not-so-targeted keywords in the past and seen the poor results it yields. Understanding the qualitative as well as the quantitative aspects of a keyword is very important.
I am trying to master keyword research for almost 1 year but still I am not getting good result. I will try to follow your instructions and lets see what happens.
What parts of the keyword research are you struggling with?
I mean that whenever I choose a keyword after spending some time I found that either that keyword is getting poor search or it is not converting well.
Okay I’ve had similar issues before. It’s important to show the user you have exactly what they were looking for so they stay and you can also increase your CTR in the SERPs by switching up your meta description and making it more appealing or targeted.
Keyword search is one I’m not really quite sure how to do but now I think I can figure it out just well. Thanks for sharing. More power!
Hey great guide, I am doing some part of keyword research but this is good complete guide. I will give it a try.
Hi, Great guide very useful guide, thanks for sharing this info.
George Anderson recently posted..Toshiba NB505-N508TQ 10.1-Inch Netbook (Turquoise)
You got a really useful blog I have been here reading for about an hour. I am a newbie and your success is very much an inspiration for me.
rumah kiat recently posted..Menjadi seorang blogger berpendapatan tinggi
Hey Rumah, thanks for commenting, I really appreciate the feedback. It always makes me happy to see someone new to IM finding value in my blog and learning SEO without paying for over priced guides from “gurus”.
Hi Ben, this is really the best and most useful guide article that I’ve ever read about keyword research. I’m quite familiar with internet marketing but I want to learn more of it thoroughly and I’m really glad I found this article and your site. I will give it a try and I’ll surely read more of your articles. Thank you very much!
I have paid version of both MS and MNF software. What are the other powerful keyword tool that I can use to do keyword research?
Frank @ solar power for the home
Hey Frank,
Honestly I think you’ve got all the tools you need for keyword research at this point. If you’re looking for a light tool to do some quick and easy research then I recommend niche finder – I’ve got a review on the site. Besides that I think the Google Adwords tool and the software you have should be more than enough.
Ben Jackson recently posted..SEO Writing: 6 Step Content Copywriting for the Search Engines
This is definitely one of the most complete and detailed articles on keywords that I have ever seen. You really pulled out all the stops, Ben. Nice work! It’s kind of a trial and error method, some keywords will work and some won’t, it takes time and money to find and get the right ones.
Thank you for the article!
you are wonderful…what a great helpful blog, i was about to pay for a 15 page e-book on keyword research and stumbled on this blog, thankyou soooo much, i look foreward to future blogs from you.
Hi Ben, I really enjoyed the video and I finally got a chance to see how people use the SEO Quake extension. Do you have a post that goes into more detail about using that tool?
Ileane recently posted..How To Record a Podcast Using Spreaker
Hey Ileane, I don’t have a post on how to use it yet, but that’s a great idea. I’ll make a comprehensive tutorial on it and let you know when I publish it
Hi Ben, useful post once again
Well, the good thing about this post is that anyone can follow the steps as Google Keyword tool is free for everyone. Though most of the techniques is old yet the two most important, atleat to me, is the not to traget misspellings and year round traffic trends.
Anok recently posted..Discover How to Whiten Your Teeth at Home with Home Remedies
OK, I was about to abandon this post because I’ve used all these methods before. However, the broad search thing was new to me. You may have just answered a question which has been bugging me for a while. I had great long tail keywords that should have, given the amount of results on Adwords, performed well for me. I’m glad I continued reading now, thank you.
Frank recently posted..Simply Whispers Review
Thanks Frank, yes the broad search VS exact search is certainly important and easily overlooked.
Another great post Ben! Honestly even though I’ve spent almost 4 months being an SEO, I was really able to do Keyword research. Well, I was taught by my mentor yer I wasn’t really did it on my own. This blog post would help and guide me through. Thanks. Maybe I’ll try doing keyword research to the blog I am working on right now! Thanks again Ben!
That’s great to hear, thanks Juphet!
Hi Ben
This is my first time to your blog and I really enjoy your post on keyword research its the foundation of Internet Marketing the information you provided will on your post and video was very helpful. I would like to know what is your opinion on Brad Callens Niche finder do you think its a good product to look into.
Anthony
Anthony Johnson recently posted..Keyword Magnet – SEO Keyword Tool
Thanks Anthony, and welcome to the site! I like Niche Finder, I’ve got a full review of it on the site, but to sum it up quickly -> it’s a light and simple KWD research tool that makes initial research easier. For quick research it’s all I use, for more serious research it’s a starting point.
Keyword research is vital for a website. The process I did first is asked my client the keywords they wish to rank then I used a tool and after that I used some kind of formula to get the KEI. Useful tips are also found on your blog posts Ben! Thanks.
brilliant post, thanks for your insight about Keyword Research i appreciate your help
nice post, brilliant information on keyword research, and its free, thanku for sharing, you will help a lot of people with this
julie recently posted..Tagua Nut Vegetable Ivory Crafts
Awesome site, i got good knowledge through this site, thanks for uploading this site
what a brilliant post,ive done some research on keywords articles and this is definately the best ive come across, you really pulled out all the stops, Ben. Nice work!
julie recently posted..Billions for the Bankers 6: A Debt-Free America
Hey Ben,
Its a really good and important point about making sure you search with exact match. I couldn’t understand why my first site once it reached the top spot was only getting a trickle of traffic – it was because all my research was based on broad.
I was devastated! It was a lesson learned the hard way!
Thanks – Jay
Jay recently posted..Cookie Clearing Help
Lol yup been there done that. At least we know now, and gained a little optimizing experience along the way
I’m pretty new to SEO and selecting the correct keywords is a nightmare! I use Market Samurai and it’s very good with keywords, it takes a while to figure out all the information though. It also takes a long time to see any results of any optimisation that you do. Still chin up and I’ll persist..!
Thanks for the article, very useful
Graham
Graham recently posted..Tablet PC Reviews from Which Tablet Computer
Thanks for your comment Graham. I’m glad the article helped you, and yea SEO requires a lot of patience – persistence is definitely key!
I must say you have put some real relevant facts related to keyword research. Keyword research is one of the key SEO techniques and most fail to deliver because they do not focus on these basic tips. There are times when I have found relevant searches on the second or third page but I wonder how many would have the patience to browse till then. Your tips may help some good content to show up where they should.
Anita Richard recently posted..Watch Thunder Soul Movie Online | Free Download
With this tips, many newbies will help them how they can find keywords that has a good traffic and less competition. Keywords are very important regarding on your blog name or blog articles. Sometimes I used google adwords for keywords research but now I am using market samurai for fetching me some good keywords that has a low competition. Thanks for a great read!
Thanks for the video Ben, I’m about to proceed with Micro niche websites. And that’s really nice and transparent keyword research tutorial I’ve found. Any other information which I use to create Micro niche websites better, please suggest.
Subscribed to your updates and will surely going to read the book you shared with your subscribers.
Thanks
Amit Sharma recently posted..Smartphone Camera – No More Just A Point Shoot Device
Thanks Amit, I just wish YSE hadn’t shut down so soon after I made this video – made the backlink analysis a bit irrelevant
Hi Ben,
Specially for me it’s really very hard to identify the exact keyword but your tips are really very transparent and easy to understand. Thanks for sharing.
Sanjan Bikram recently posted..How To: Use Twitter Hash Tag (#) for Corporate?
Awesome tutorial, i must say you are the good at SEO Research…
Master Mind recently posted..MyHosting Coupon Codes
Hi Ben. I’ve been on this page before. I read it again today and I think I missed that Google Keyword Tool competition bar before! I’ve been really taking account of it whenever I do keyword research. And I can remember good keywords that I ignored because of high competition! I’m glad I was able to read this again.
Florence Tejadilla recently posted..Skin Type Test: How to Determine Your Skin Type
I do not trust the Google Adwords tool, especially for certain locations. I find it tends to give wrong data which led me to lose traffic and customers.After trying all sorts of tools and techniques, I arrived at a keyword a simple research process, that works well for me. It is quick and does the job.For those interested, here is a post I wrote with details – http://www.kidnapcustomers.com/how-to-make-a-website/keyword-research-analysis/
Amit recently posted..Linkbuilding – Strategies, Ethics & Tools
Yea I have to agree it is far from perfect and often misleading. However, don’t those other tools extract search volume data from the Adwords API?
Hi Ben,
They do.
However, I think they somehow do a better job of suggesting keywords.
Came across an interesting/related article at SEOmoz on that as well
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/be-careful-using-adwords-for-keyword-research
Amit recently posted..Scribe SEO Review – It’s Not Worth The Price
Ahh ok, that’s a great article – read it just the other day
Great article. Finding the right keywords is very important but even more important is good relevant content on the website to support those keywords.
Thanks for sharing.
Anil recently posted..Permalinks Optimization
I prefer to use micro niche finder instead of market samurai because it shows you the competition straight away with the help of red, yellow and green lights.
You are right, keyword research is very important but we should also be performing a semantic keyword research to target more buyers. This type of research will allow us to attract people who are looking for a more specific item or product which in the long run will boost chances to make money. I would call it finding “money” keywords.
Pamela recently posted..Use Semantic Keyword Research For Higher Affiliate Sales