Image via CrunchBase, source unknown

Keywords. Period.

Online business owners know that keywords make your online business rotate. Proper keyword placement and density can mean the difference between money going into your account and money leaving your account.

After all, keywords mean spiders,spiders mean communication, communication leads to traffic, traffic leads to customers, customers lead to money.

I guess I have taken a little bit of a turn toward the “geeky” side since I started my online business and studying e-marketing because when I find new tools for keyword research I actually do get excited!

There are so many wonderful free tools for keyword research like good ole’ Google Adwords Tool, Keyword Discovery and Keyword Spy.

Of course there is the free trial version of WordTracker, however, if you are serious about capturing your online market, I do think the paid version of WordTracker is worth the investment or my personal desktop favorite of Keyword Elite.

When I first started online business marketing I read a couple articles on keyword research and thought I had enough of a handle on it and granted I did ok for being in a competive market BUT then I started to learn how many different ways the RIGHT keyword can help business.

The Right Keywords Can:

• Mean the difference between organic (a.k.a. Free) front page Google rankings
• Lower cost per click cost for paid ppc advertising
• Targeted traffic that converts verses general, breezing through traffic
• Lessons of long tailed keywords
• Get you in front of your search engine competition

What Makes Good Keywords?

Search Results. You must use the tools above to see what people are actually searching for then make another evaluation of competition and know your own strengths and limits to judge if you can achieve the front page success.

I have personally over the last couple months find that I enjoy taking on more challenging keywords because I know that I have finally “cracked the code” while maybe my own “code” but I have a very systematic approach that I will go through to get my information not only on the front page of Google but dominate all the listings on the front page.

Once you enter your starting keywords into your tool of choice above, continue to drill down into the smaller more exact phrases people are searching for. Take your list of results and head to the Google homepage and enter those phrases into the search box.

What do the results look like, millions? Add quote marks around the keyword and search again… ahhh, makes a little bit of a difference? Look at the top ranking sites and make a call if you think your content is better and you can get ahead of it.

If you haven’t seen the Google Cheat Sheet for searching, do a few more queries using some of these cool tricks.

Resources

A free tool that will help you evaluate your keywords can be found from Microsoft. This is a plug-in that operates on Microsoft Excel, if you don’t have Excel, they give you the option of a free trial on the same page.  True Microsoft fashion, free tutorials are also available for you on the page.

Your next step: I only found out about “online commercial intent” a few months ago and I have now added this as an essential part of my checklist for all my keyword research. If you are not familiar, this will actually help you with your keyword choices by advising what keywords are more likely to convert- yes, keywords where people are searching with their wallets in their hand verses the search for free information or “surfing”. Check out this great free tool, book mark it, enter your keywords and see if you are surprised.

Ok, so you have done your keyword research now you are ready to make the leap and try to find a domain name that is keyword rich to help you get a jump start. Try out this free domain keyword tool to help you find a domain by looking at your keywords for you and providing you with automatic options.

Now, you have a summary of

• Where to go to find your keywords
• How to estimate your competition
• Further drill down for those niche long tail keywords
• Where to go to find out what words have the greatest potential to return time investment
• A nifty little tool to help with your domain name choices.

Go Ahead, check it out, play around with your keywords and see what you think.