Keywords and Keyword Research

by Stephen Cope

So What Exactly is a Keyword?

Before we go into keyword research we need first to clarify what we mean by the term "keyword".

The term "Keyword" has two meanings depending on whether you are :
Search for something or Writing a webpage

From the perspective of an Internet surfer a keyword is the word or words used to search for something. For Example if you were looking for a information about cruise holidays you would go to your favourite search engine and enter:

cruise holidays or cruise holidays Caribbean, cruise holidays Med, cruise holidays cheap etc

These are the keywords from the perspective of the searcher. Notice that although we have used the term keyword the searcher usually enters more than one, 2-3 word searches are the most common.

From the perspective of an Internet publisher i.e. someone who writes web pages a keyword represents the topic or theme for a web page. For example if you were going to write an article on Mediterranean cruises then the page keyword would be Mediterranean cruises, and the page content would all be focused on that.

What is Keyword Research?

Keyword research is about finding out what Internet surfers are actually searching for. Are they searching for:

cruise holidays or cruise holidays Caribbean, cruise holidays Med, cruise holidays, Mediterranean cruises cheap, Romantic Mediterranean cruises etc

You don't want to make a website or write a webpage on "Romantic Mediterranean cruises" if no one or very few people search for them.

Keyword Research Tools

 There are number of tools available for keyword research, however the main ones are :

Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool- Overture is a free tool and can be used directly from the overture web site or through many derivative programs.

Wordtracker - is commercial software specifically developed for keyword research. They do offer a free limited trial version on their website.

For more details see the resources at the bottom of keywords and keyword research page and keyword tips for tips on choosing keywords. Keyword research is not just important from a web page optimization perspective but also from a monetization one when using Google Adsense.

The value of your web page can vary considerably depending on your keyword selection as you will discover in Keywords and Google Adsense.

About the Author

Stephen Cope is a Freelance technical trainer and the webmaster of several sites.For more details on keywords visit niche website guide and for more on Google Adsense try money making websites.