Best Practices When Researching Keywords for SEO

Peter Roesler, President - Web Marketing Pros

By Peter Roesler

President, Web Marketing Pros


Think of how the average person would search for the answer to a question. This is the foundation of finding keywords for SEO. You’ll want to use their specific questions to determine your key phrases.

Say you’re into zodiac astrology and wanted to find out what the stars have to say about the year ahead. An Aquarius would probably type “Aquarius horoscope 2012.” In the same way, figure out what questions your content answers. Gather keywords for SEO from this information.

You should also focus your content. While it may be easier to get all your information out in one article, you would probably benefit more by breaking it down into separate, more specific articles. In this manner, you are able to determine which keywords are best for SEO because the topic of the article is more targeted.

Sometimes you will already have a general idea of what keywords you’d like to base your web page’s content on. Head over to Google’s Keyword Research Tool  see what other related keywords you can find. By browsing Google’s list of keyword ideas, you may be able to develop your own ideas for additional content based on specific key phrases.

A great feature of Google’s Keyword Research Tool is that it shows the level of competition (High, Medium, and Low) you’re up against when deciding keywords for SEO. Even if your ideal key phrase has high competition, don’t be intimidated. There are ways around that.

One way to lessen competition for a key phrase is to localize the content. This technique is not applicable for all companies and web pages, but it works wonders for those that qualify.

If your key phrase is “luxury limousine service,” it will likely have high competition for the top spot on the search engine results page (SERP). A limousine service company in Baltimore stands a better chance of ranking by making “luxury limousine service Baltimore” its targeted keywords for SEO.

Overall, you always want to provide the best content you have to offer. Some of your competitors will be so focused on keyword density  that they neglect to write truly comprehensive and useful content. When you’re providing valuable content to readers, you eliminate a significant portion of your competition and increase your chances of ranking higher on the SERP.


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