Use a Keyword Program to Research Your Niche

A keyword analyzer program carries out multiple tasks. Different programs have different bells and whistles, but the "big three" tasks are:

1. Find keywords and phrases ("search terms") in your niche or topic of interest.
2. Gather data on the number of times people search for each search term.
3. Find out how many sites are optimized for each search term - a basic measure of how much competition there is for that term.

Other data gathered by a keyword program may include more detailed information on competing sites (age, number of backlinks, directory listings in DMOZ and Yahoo, on-page SEO factors etc).

The objective here is to come up with as many ways as possible that someone might search for your topic. You will undoubtedly have some ideas of how you personally would search for it, but those terms may not be how most of your prospective customers would search.

Most keyword analyzers allow you to start with one term or import a whole list of terms, and will then consult their database for more keywords and search terms which apply to the same topic to come up with keyword suggestions. In many cases the program will also allow you to point it at a specific web page to analyze which key phrases have been used on the page, as a starting point for your own list of key phrases.

It's important to keep digging into the possibilities, using synonyms and alternative words, to find as many key phrases as possible.

Different keyword programs use different sources for their search volume data. Some sources are more reliable than others. Most data needs to be double-checked before you rely on it. Google fairly recently started showing actual search volumes in their keyword research tool, and that is probably the most reliabel place to check. The other important factor to check is the "phrase match" or "exact match" search volumes instead of "broad match".

What does that mean?

Well, on the Google keyword tool page, once you have a list of keyword results, there's a "Match Type" dropdown just above the list of keywords. It defaults to "broad match", which means the search volume numbers include anything which even vaguely matches your term, with extra words stuffed in the middle or on either end. For example, if the key phrase you're working on is "green loafers", broad match would give you traffic for phrases like "green leather loafers", "green loafers suck" and "loafers lying around on the green grass".

The alternatives to "broad match" are "phrase match" "exact match" and "negative match".

Phrase match means that your phrase appears as you specified it, somewhere in a search term. "Green leather loafers" and "green loafers suck" would be phrase matches for "green loafers".

Exact match means that only your exact phrase matches, so none of the examples above would match.

Negative match is used for excluding phrases or terms from results.

You'll get much more accurate search numbers if you use phrase or exact match. Broad match numbers are far too optimistic and will lead you to try to optimize for key phrases with the words in strange orders, which are in reality very seldom searched for.

Most keyword programs currently show you broad match search volumes, pulled from a variety of different sources. Always check the numbers against Google's phrase or exact match volume numbers before you decide on a key phrase to target.