When you first start a website you hear all this terminology about keyword research. What is keyword research in website development and three mistakes to avoid? When done properly it will drive all that traffic from Google and other search engines to your site for free.
1st Mistake in research
When people first start out they do some research for keywords that will drive a lot of traffic to their website, but they never consider how much competition they have to beat in order to get on the first page. The first page is obviously king of the hill. The higher the ranking the better chances you are to have someone click on your link to your website.
So instead of shooting for the moon with huge competition look at the low hanging fruit to go after. You don’t need a rocket ship to achieve results. You don’t even need a ladder. Look for keywords with little competition that will bring you in 10-20 visitors per month. I use Jaaxy to do my keyword research and that is what you will see in the screen shot below.
Here is a great example as you can see. The keyword “SEO” has an average monthly search traffic of 225,880. It also has an estimated monthly traffic to your site of 38,400 visitors. Wow that would be amazing. But then you look at the competition listed under QSR. There are 397 other websites competing for that exact term.
Then to make matters worse, using MOZ and Google, the first page competition all have a domain authority ranging from 83 to 100. As a new site it would be nearly impossible for you to get on the first page of the search engines. Also the page authorities of these webpages range from 70 to 94. This means that not only are the domains well established so are the pages. 
One more thing if you do a little more research all of those websites have “SEO” as an exact keyword. Sorry to beat a dead horse but if you try to rank for this word, you will see little to no traffic on your site for that word. That does not stop people from trying to rank for it. Then they get discouraged after a bit of time and quit.
Instead you should look at that low hanging fruit that will get you some quick results. Okay so what is low hanging fruit? They are those keywords that have competition of 100 or less. If you write an article about using that keyword you will, with a little work and luck get on the first page of the search engines and get some traffic. Still using this example a good keyword would be “free SEO keyword tool”
When you do additional research you will see that the domain authority has dropped considerably and there is even a page authority of 1. So with a bit of work you actually have a chance of ranking on the first page.
2nd Mistake
Many people feel that they have the perfect word. But the reality is that they are still too broad. Take a look at the above example. SEO is just too large of a keyword to rank for. Not only does the term have massive competition but it is also very, very broad. There are so many parts to SEO and what people could be searching for, that it would be easy for you to get lost in the maze.
On the other hand the second term is much narrower. “Free SEO keyword tool” is specific. You know that when people type that in they already have a great idea of what they are looking for and you can provide it! Good research and good content, gets great rankings.
3rd Mistake
With broad search terms you can have a keyword that is out of context. This will get you little or no meaningful traffic. Let’s pretend that you want to have use “storage” as your keyword. Let us also pretend that it is a low hanging fruit.
The trouble is that people may be looking for office storage, home storage, storage sheds, storage bins for the home. If your website is about meat storage none of that other traffic will be good for your site. So why not look at focusing on keywords that fit the context of your site. While you might get fewer visitors, you will get more targeted visitors and thereby get more conversions.
Conclusion
I have been working on this website for a little while now. I also have other websites that I keep up and running. I have made some of these mistakes and more. I will continue to let people know what they can do to be successful in their online research. I hope this helped you know a little bit more about what is keyword research in website development and three mistakes to avoid.
I learned this and more at my top recommendation. You can see all my recommendations here. Please leave any comments, questions, or your own personal experiences below.
Thank you Marc for sharing your expertise on keyword research. Jaaxy sounds like a great way to go. What does QSR stand for and what it is exactly? Also, what is MOZ? How about when people are using speech-to-text feature of their mobile phones? Would that affect the different type of keywords you get? For example, people might speak a full sentence into your devices but when typing on a computer, they will only use a phrase or just a few words together. Does that affect how keyword research is utilized? Where should keywords be placed in your articles?
Interesting article. Looking forward to reading more.
Stephanie,
Thank you for comment and great questions. Well lets tackle them in order.
QSR stands for Quoted Search Results. It is the amount of websites competing for that exact keyword. So the lower that number the easier it will be for you to rank for the keyword.
Because of you I wrote another article explaining a bit more about MOZ. You can read it here.
Of course no one can know for sure how Google ranks the websites exactly. But even if people use speech to text feature, the keywords will still be in that text. So it should still rank for it. Furthermore google picks information from your site and uses them as well as keywords so the sentences might help you inadvertently.
When I write an article, I put the keyword in the title, the first paragraph and the last paragraph. Then I write naturally. Don’t write for the search engines. Write for your readers.
I hope that answered your questions.
Let me know if you have any other questions.
Marc
I like that! a little more clear of what is so and what it dose represent as traffics and revenue. jay is good guide but if you could do the same online for free am in.. thank to make it more clear because is like alphabet soup in stats that change life!
Alan thanks for the comment. Yes alphabet soup is a great way to start out. Jaaxy is just my chosen tool. They do offer 30 free searches to see if it is really for you so I would still suggest to give it a try.
Marc
Hi Marc,
You have a nice website here and a very good article.
It can be very frustrating to build a new website because it does take time to get search engine trust and rankings.
This article provides real ways to get rankings sooner so that a person doesn’t give up too quickly on their website.
It will still take some time and patience but this will make it a lot easier.
Thank you,
Randy
Randy,
Thanks for the comment and the compliments.
I think the number one reason people lose faith is because they just dont wait long enough for the search engines to pick up their site and run with it. There are things you can do to drive traffic to your site while you are waiting for those pesky search engines to get you ranked. You can drive traffic via social media for example.
Marc
I liked reading your article. It taught me a lot about key word seo. What you said makes sense. The more complicated the key words that you use are the less likely you will have competition for those key words. Thanks for writing this, I know you are helping lots of people. can’t wait to read the next article.
Merceadez,
Thank you for the comment and I am happy you enjoyed reading the article. Key words do not need to be complicated for there to be less competition. Just try and think outside the box sometimes. 🙂
Marc