There’s the occasional mistaken belief that all the good keywords and keyword phrases have been taken, but this is far from the truth. In reality, there are some great keywords discovered and created every day. Here are a few ideas to help you find some good keywords that will help to pull targeted traffic to your site.
#1 Stay atop current trends.
Keywords are like most other things in life – they’re changing and evolving as society changes and evolves.
For example, ten years ago the word Google was non-existent. Today, it has a place in the standardized dictionary and anyone with a computer knows how to Google and what it means.
Current trends are therefore a fantastic way to find good keywords and keyword phrases. Fortunately, there are a number of resources available online to help you stay fresh and on top of what’s going on.
For instance:
*You can track trends on Twitter via Trendtastic or the Twitter search function.
*You can visit social bookmarking sites to see what’s hot.
*Google Trends and Google Alerts help you stay on top of industry news and trends.
*And additionally, Trendwatching.com is designed to show business owners what consumer trends are hot.
Read the headlines of your favorite blogs, news feeds and even the list of books on the New York Times or Amazon Bestsellers. Look for your industry or category specifically to find out what people are reading and use those ideas to brainstorm keywords and keyword phrases.
#2 Analyze the competition.
There are a number of fantastic tools you can use to check out what your competition is up to. Earlier we mentioned Google Alerts. This is a tool that tells you when any specific phrase has been used and it will even send you a daily report of all the sites, blogs and newsfeeds that have used that phrase.
For example, if your keyword phrase is “Romance Writing” then you’ll get a lovely list of every site, page and feed that used that phrase that day.
Keyword Spy and keycompete are two website services that help business owners keep an eye on what their competition is up to. You can track their keywords to help build your own keyword strategy. You can also use your competition’s keywords to help brainstorm your own.
Yes, keyword research! It’s the single most effective way to stay ahead of the game.
Every keyword or keyword phrase you find via your competition, trend watching, brainstorming, or paying attention to your analytics and website visitors, needs to be researched using a keyword tool such as the google keywords tool. It’s the best way to get a good return on your investment and to claim that coveted first page ranking.
Finding good keywords requires an ongoing commitment to studying industry trends and paying attention to your audience and prospects. It requires patience and research too. There are great keywords just waiting to be brainstormed, discovered and capitalized on, you just have to get out there and find them!
