I recently attended a market research training and I noticed that a lot of emphasis was placed on keyword research. Keyword research is important for your SEO as it determines what terms and phrases you should be using. If your using the wrong terms and phrases then your website more than likely won’t end up on the first page of search engine results.

A statistic has shown that 75% of internet users never look past the first page of search results. This is a massive percentage of internet users so I’m here to provide you with 5 FREE ways to carry out your keyword research!

PAID SEARCH

This is a simple but effective method of keyword research. By simply typing your keyword into the search engine and observing the results with the ‘AD’ icon gives you an insight into who is willing to spend money on coming out on top of the search results. Play around with different variations of your keyword in order to see how many of your competitors are paying to pop up under each.

ORGANIC SEARCH

This is another simple yet effective way of carrying out keyword research. Again, type your keyword into the search engine and spot the non-paid results. These are the results that pop up without the ‘AD’ icon. Your competitors here will be the websites that are trying to make money rather than offering just information.

QUANTCAST

Firstly, you can use the free version of www.quantcast.com and set up your account. Enter either your own website or a competitors’ website into the search bar and it will tell you who your audience is and who is already visiting the website. You can uncover demographics such as the age and gender of your audience by scrolling down to demographics section. The most useful here may be the level of income demographic due to the fact that there is more of a chance of somebody buying from you if they money.

ALEXA

www.alexa.com is keyword research tool that offers a free 7-day trial. Like quantcast, enter the website into the search bar. This tool will tell you how popular the website is, the global ranking of the website and also where your visitors are from. Alexa also provides audience demographics such as gender and education.

GOOGLE ADWORDS KEYWORD PLANNER

Although you need a Google AdWords account for this tool, the Google AdWords keyword planner is free to use. Click the ‘search for new keywords’ section and enter your details. A bar chart will be generated based on a trend of monthly searches over a 12-month period. It also generates ad group ideas with a number of associated keywords. You can sort these by average monthly searches and competition etc. Scan through the ideas to see if any of them would be suitable for you.

These 5 methods are the bricks and mortar of building up your SEO in order to heighten your chances of appearing on the first page of search engine results.