Keyword Research: Considerations and Limitations for Successful Internet Marketing

At the beginning of 2006, there were nearly 1 billion Internet users on planet earth, producing about the same number of daily searches. (Manage the number of daily searches carefully, there are quite different numbers, but whatever the actual number is, it’s huge!)

As e-marketers, we want to understand what people are looking for when they search the Internet. Keyword research can help anticipate trends. Google Zeitgeist is an entertaining source of aggregated information about Internet searches, and all the major search engines publish similar data. Keyword search data produces surprises as well as realization as the internet reveals undisguised preferences as surfers feel unnoticed.

By exploring the keywords that people are searching for, we can understand if we really have a market and, if we do, how difficult it will be to exploit it. The relationship between the number of searches for certain keywords and the pages that compete for this keyword in the indexes of the major search engines reveals how effective it will be to use these keywords on a website.

It is important that strategic keywords contain at least two words so that visitors to your website from search engines are targeted. The more words in the keyword phrase, the easier it is to be at the top of the list. Generally speaking, the process of finding the right keywords will be to first find the most general terms that represent the business of the website, and then break these general terms down into more specific ones. Each page of your website should be optimized for the most specific term that characterizes this page. Whenever possible, favor product names over other available keywords.

The number of keywords in your keyword basket determines how many web pages your website should have at least. It is a good idea to have no more than 5 main keywords for each page. When launching a new website, it makes sense to be as specific as possible in your keyword selection, more generic and therefore more competitive keywords can be selected later.

These are the general principles of keyword research and they work. However, they do not guarantee the success of a website business. Here are some additional factors:

1. Consider the quality of websites in a certain industry. There are certain industries that have an overall poor quality of websites. Quality here refers to all the factors on the site (technology, coding standards, content). In those industries, it will be easy to be at the top of the list and make money if you can find a revenue model that works.

2. English is the dominant language on the Internet. Keyword research can and should be done in multiple languages ​​to maximize exposure.

3. The general e-preparation of an industry or commercial area. There are multiple business models on the Internet. In some areas, simple lead generation might be the most effective and profitable way to go. Some commercial areas may simply not work.

4. The goal of keyword rich content is to rank high in the major search engines. However, search engines will only be able to “see” these keywords if our website is fully crawlable, for example, if we use search engine friendly technologies.

5. If a website ranks high in major search engines for relevant keywords, it will attract considerable traffic. Internet traffic is money, but this is only true if potential customers actually convert to paying customers, traffic converts to ad clicks, etc. This opens the discussion to other areas such as website permanence and usability. A website has to convert or else it will not be successful.

In a nutshell, keyword research is certainly a very important and fascinating field of internet marketing that reveals the magnitude of the internet. But it is one of several key ingredients. Keyword research can be used as a feasibility study and forecasting technique for a new website venture and increase the traffic potential for an existing one, but it is not the only factor that improves a website’s visibility online. Internet. If there are other must-haves on-site and off-site as well, visibility will translate into traffic. However, traffic will only make money if a website has a good conversion rate.