This is page 1 of a 5 page keyword research tutorial.
The following pages attempt to offer beginners an easy introduction to keyword research.
As you read please keep a few things in mind.
Some basic concepts of keyword research are common to all techniques, and that's what we'll look at here, along with an introduction to a few of the most widely used approaches.On this page you'll be introduced to the subject of keywords, and will learn how to find them.
Why Do I Need To Learn Keyword Research?
Maybe you don't.
If you have a hobby site, and you don't really care about making money or getting visitors from the search engines, then there is no urgent reason to learn keyword research.
Still reading?
You do want people to find your site in the search engines, and maybe make some money too?
Ok then, in that case a basic understanding of keyword research is important.
Why?
Keyword research is how you will connect your web site to the web users who are looking for the kind of information you provide.
What Are Keywords Anyway?
A "keyword" is a word, or more likely a short phrase, that someone types in to a search engine when they are looking for information.
If someone is planning their next vacation they might go to Google, Yahoo, or some other search engine, and do a search for something like "florida beach vacation resorts".
Ok, So What Is Keyword Research Then?
Keyword research is the process of learning what words and phrases people are searching for at the search engines.
We want to find out what people want to know about our topic.
Usually some analysis will be done on the keywords to learn how popular a topic is, how many other webmasters are writing on this topic, and so on. We'll talk about more about this analysis later.
For now, here's a key point to remember.
If we want readers to find our site in the search engines, the trick is to find out exactly what these readers are looking for, and then give it to them.
How Do We Find Out What People Are Searching For?
Luckily for us, there are specialized services that keep track of all the keywords that everybody types in to the search engines.
No, they don't know what any one particular person searched for, but they do have a record of all the searches made by everybody.
Let's go ahead and visit such a tool, and do a little keyword research.
The Overture Keyword Tool
Please click click this link. A new window will open. It may take a minute or two.
You are now viewing the venerable Overture Search Suggestion Tool in the new window. This isn't the best keyword research tool, but it's free, very easy to use, and a tool that thousands of webmasters before you have used to get started.
Let's type the keyword "squirrels" in to the search box so we can learn how this tool works.
After a few moments you will see a long list of other keywords that are related to the subject of squirrels. These keywords come from real searches by real search engine users.
If we are planning a site about squirrels, now we have a more detailed idea what web surfers want to know about squirrels.
The numbers in the display represent how many times web surfers have searched for a particular keyword phrase on the Overture network.
The accuracy of these numbers is debated among webmasters, but the numbers do serve the purpose of giving us a general ballpark idea which squirrel topics are the most popular. As example, "flying squirrels" appear to have more fans than "baby squirrels".
Click on any of the keywords in the display, wait a moment, and you'll then see a list of new keywords related to the one you clicked on.
As example, click on "baby squirrels" and you'll see some more keywords that are related specifically to baby squirrels.
That's all there is to the Overture keyword tool. You start by searching for a general term like squirrels, and then you click on the keywords you want to know more about.
This is a free and easy way to quickly get a list of keywords related to your project. You learn a little bit about the relative popularity of different topics, but this tool doesn't perform any sophisticated analysis.
The Keyword Finder
If you have a Publisher-For-You account, you may wish to spend a few minutes with the Keyword Finder that is available in the keywords section of your control panel. The Keyword Finder is similar to the Overture Keyword Tool, and has a few more features.
Keyword Finder gives you the same keyword data as the Overture tool, plus the ability to save and edit lists of the keywords that you find. When you're done working on a list, you can email it to yourself for safe keeping. Keyword Finder provides a control panel from where you can manage one or more keyword research projects.
How Should I Use These Tools?
The Overture Search Suggestion Tool and Keyword Finder are useful for quickly brainstorming up a big list of keywords related to the topic you want to write about.
As you play around with either of these tools you'll probably find keywords that will give you new ideas for articles you could write, or maybe even entire new web sites you could create.
The Overture Search Suggestion Tool and Keyword Finder are a good starting point for beginners. Experienced webmasters usually use more sophisticated keyword tools.
Homework Assignment
Ok, now we know what keywords are, why they are important, and where to find them.
Before you continue with this tutorial spend an hour or so doing some practise keyword research with either the Overture Tool or the Keyword Finder.
Think of some topics you might want to make a web site about, and do some exploring for related keywords.
At this point it's not necessary that you memorize anything, or completely master the tools.
But it is important that you actually do some keyword research, not just read about it.
After you've had a chance to do a little exploring, we'll see you on the next page of this five part tutorial.
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