subject: Keyword Research & Where To Begin [print this page] Keyword Research & Where To Begin Keyword Research & Where To Begin
One of the most common misconceptions about conducting keyword research is the belief that you already know which words a customer would use to find your site. You don't. Not without first doing some research anyway's. Even though you know what your site is about and exactly how you would find it, it's difficult to predict how a paying customer would go about looking for it.
Alot of this is due to the fact that as the owner of the site, we have a tendancy to think one dimensional. We as the site owner need to remember that a customer does not think like we do. They could be looking for dog training sites but searching for a specific "type" of training, such as "Why does my dog run away?". See this would entail learning about your dog running away, but also leading into training your dog to stay in the yard, not chase a car, listen to there owner, etc. As you can see keyword research would show that the long tail keyword, "why does my dog run away?" will lead them to your site about dog training.
Another problem is assuming that the generic or "big dollar" keywords are the most important for ranking your site in Google and such, even if the keyword you're going after has nothing to do with your site. Imagine a men's clothing store trying to rank for the term "yahoo". Sure, there are alot of people that probably type that word into their search bar daily, but they're not doing it because they need men's clothing. They're actually looking for Yahoo. Trying to get ranked number one for a keyword that has nothing to do with your site is a wast of time and money, the customer will show up, meaning you will get alot of traffic but they are not going to stick around once they see the site is not about yahoo and about men's clothing.
Please spend the time to do the keyword research, remember that it is just as important to your site and receiving traffic as making sure you have a relevant product for the customer
