Targeted Keywords

Part of thoroughly evaluating your market involves conducting keyword research.

Keywords help you define who your customer base really is.

Thankfully, keyword research is a relatively simple process and doesn't take a lot of time to complete. If you know what you're doing, you can research plenty of good keywords for your niche in just a few minutes.

When it comes to keywords, there are head keywords and what are referred to as "long tail keyword phrases".

Head keyword terms are typically shorter phrases such as "weight loss", while tail keywords consist of multiple keywords that describe a market or niche, such as "weight loss strategies for seniors".

For the most part, head keywords are always targeted by a greater number of competition as they are a short-form description of a market, and long tail keyword phrases will generate less traffic, but are much easier to dominate within the search engines.

Savvy marketers focus on long tail keywords and gauge their exposure by a COLLECTIVE count of all traffic generated from multiple long-tail keyword based campaigns.

You will find it much easier to position yourself in the top search engine results if you primarily focus on injecting long tail keywords into your traffic generation strategies.

Consider the fact that it could take you months (and serious cash) to rank for the term "weight loss", however if you set up a dozen different campaigns targeting relevant, long tail keywords including "weight loss after pregnancy", "how to lose weight quickly", or "safe and easy methods of losing weight", you would generate steady traffic from all campaigns (although lower than a single main keyword), collectively giving you MORE exposure than a competitive keyword that you are consistently struggling to rank for much less maintain your position.

You can quickly conduct keyword research for your niche market just by using free online services, including

www.KeyCompete.com

www.WordTracker.com

www.Compete.com

Visit Google Keyword Suggestion Tool:

adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

In order to conduct keyword research, you have to begin by entering in what is referred to as a "seed" keyword, which serves as a starting point to your keyword research.

The seed keyword is a short term describing your market, niche or potential products you are considering promoting.

You want to look for keyword phrases that receive at least 300 searches per month according to the keyword research tool that you're using. Each keyword phrase could receive a lot more or a lot less than the tool shows, so keep that in mind as well and use the information and data to gauge the popularity of keywords, rather than a definitive number.

You also need to check to be sure the phrases you're targeting don't have so much competition that they would be extremely difficult to rank for.

Focus on the keywords that have less competition and strike a good balance between traffic and competition first, then you can go after the more competitive phrases later on after your blog is established and has begun to generate consistent traffic from the major search engines.