Finding SEO Keywords

Step one to any good SEO plan is to find the keywords that will help get traffic to your site.  In order to do that you need to find keywords that: a) have a large monthly search volume, b) have low competition with other publishers, c) have relevance to whatever it is you are marketing.

Begin with Google’s very own keyword tool.  Just type in a word or phrase of words that have relevance to your topic. If you’re marketing globally then look for the words and phrases with the largest global traffic volume.  If you’re only marketing in the US then only worry about the US traffic volume.  Personally, I look for words and phrases that have more than 10,000 monthly searches and less than 200,000.

Once you select a few words and phrases (you can select as many as you want) type each word or phrase into the Google search engine to determine how many competitors you will have.  To rank well on a new blog or website try to find words and phrases that have less than 100,000 competing pages in the SERPs.  Do the search with and without them wrapped in quotes (“…”).  This will give you a clear picture of how those words and phrases can hold up against the competition.  Keep in mind that the majority of the pages that come up in the SERPs will have little or no SEO properties.

Take at look at this article to find out more about finding keywords.  Then take a look at this article to find out more about long tail keywords.  (Long tail keywords are just keyword phrases).