Keyword Analysis - Finding Out What Your Customers Are Searching For

Before you can start optimizing your web copy and meta tags, you need to know what words you're optimizing it for. What words do you want to rank well for? To answer this question, you need to know what words your customers (or potential customers) are searching for. This is called performing a keyword analysis.

Keyword analysis involves a bit of research and a good knowledge of your business and the benefits you offer your customers.

There are several websites specifically designed to make keyword analysis easier. Two examples are:

1. Overtures inventory tool (inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/). This tool is free and very easy to use and understand, but (last time I looked) it only tells you how many searches have been conducted in the previous month for your keyword (and similar keywords).
2. WordTracker (wordtracker.com). WordTracker is a much more powerful tool, but you have to pay to use it (you can subscribe for a day for around $10). WordTracker helps you find the most appropriate keyword for your site by telling you what people are really searching for. Heres how it works You type in a word which summarizes what you do, and it tells you how many times that word has been searched for in the last month. It also tells you how many other websites are using that word as a keyword (i.e. targeting the same customers you are). Based on this information, it rates the word. The best keywords are the ones that a lot of people are searching for but which few websites are targeting. WordTracker even suggests and rates alternative related words.

TIP: When youre using WordTracker, bear in mind that its just talking about numbers, and numbers dont always tell the whole story. So dont just jump in and use the best rated keywords; you need to consider your own situation. It may be the case that youre forced to select a keyword phrase which is not rated particularly highly. There are two situations in which this might happen:

• Youre in a niche market with relatively few customers searching for the keyword. In this situation, youll probably find it relatively easy to reach the top of the rankings, but you wont generate a huge volume of traffic when you get there.
• A lot of your competitors are targeting your keyword (its hotly contested) but its the only one you can use. If you target it, youll just have to work a bit harder on your backlinks in order to rank highly. When theres a lot of competition for a keyword, its likely that the traffic payoff is good once you reach top.

* Glenn Murray is an SEO copywriter and article submission and article PR specialist. He is a director of article PR company, Article PR, and also of copywriting studio Divine Write. He can be contacted on Sydney +612 4334 6222 or at glenn@divinewrite.com. Visit DivineWrite.com or ArticlePR.com for further details, more FREE articles, or to download his FREE SEO e-book.