Every day, over 350 million people go to a search engine like Google, Yahoo or MSN and search for something. They might be looking for a recipe for dinner that night, trying to find how to install their new printer, or they might just be searching for YOUR products or services.

Imagine if you could find out exactly what people were looking for online. You'd be able to make a fortune serving up exactly what they wanted. Here's some good news. You CAN! There are many services out there that are recording what people are searching for and you can access that information.


The two most important bits of information you can find out by doing keyword research are:

1) What people are searching for

For example, Mrs. Jones might be trying to save some money renewing her car insurance and she might have gone to google and typed:


That's called a keyword or keyphrase. They mean the same thing: something a person types into a search engine.

2) How many people searched for it

You can also find out how many times each keyword was searched for. For example, 15,000 people a month might be searching for 'cheap car insurance'. It's important to know how popular different things are so you can plan your marketing accordingly.


Businesses on the web build up what are called Keyword Lists. These are lists of one or more words that people are typing in to the search engines. Every industry in the world has a keyword list and the longer and more comprehensive your keyword list is, the more visitors you can get online. And the more potential customers you'll have coming to your site.

Here's an example keyword list that an MP3 player website might have.

buy mp3 player
order mp3 player
mp3 player shop
get an mp3 player
mp3 player
mp3 players

Keyword lists must have every possible variation of your keywords in it. That includes plural and singular forms and also words that mean the same thing. For example in the example above, they should also add words like 'audio player' to their keyword list. It's a different way of saying the same thing.

This is the third thing you'll find out doing keyword research - OTHER KEYWORDS that you need to have in your list.
Let's look at the three main groups of people who will get most out of keyword research.

1) People wanting to get visitors from a search engine for free.

Say you own a hardware shop and you want to get customers to your new website who are searching for tools. You will need to know which keywords people are using to find your types of products. Once you know that, you can get your site to show up when for those words when people search for them.

2) People using PPC search engines

Google and other search engines will let you buy advertising on their website. But you must know what words people are searching for before you can place your ad. You can import your keyword list straight into Google. The better your keyword list, the better your results will be.

3) People trying to make their website fit what customers want

Keyword research can also determine how your website will be laid out. After all there's no point investing loads of time building up a section of your website devoted to 'blue curtains' if everybody wants to buy 'red curtains'. By using a keyword research tool you can quickly see what your customers are really interested in.

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