When conducting keyword research for an ecommerce website you have to take into account all your categories and products. Don’t assume the search volume is going to be generic across the board. There will be many different types of branded keywords along with category based keywords that you will come up with. The goal is to not overwhelm yourself. If you are relatively new to the search engine optimization industry take things slow at first. Start with all your high level pages and maybe category pages and make a column for each URL in your spreadsheet. Now start conducting keyword research while thinking really hard what a person would type to make it to that specific page. If you are feeling good about it you can include all your product pages as well and get it all done in one swipe. Get ready for very large lists of keywords though. Don’t be surprised if some pages generate thousands and thousands of keywords. It will take some time to really sift through all of them and chose the cream of the crop. Remember that you should never target more than 5 keywords per page so if you see a page is generating hundreds and thousands of keywords and you feel confident with what you already have will work feel free to move onto the next one page.

Keyword research is a very important step when optimizing a website. Don’t worry though because if you find out later on that you missed a really good phrase or word to target you can easily introduce into the website at that point in time. In fact, I typically recommend keyword research is completed (after the onsite optimization is completed) every 1 to 2 years. This is because of the long term nature of SEO and also this will give you enough time to gather data about the keywords that you have incorporated on your website.

Some industries keywords change all the time because of new industry buzz terms springing up frequently. Imagine what those websites must have to go through. For the most part though once you optimize a website you don’t have to do it again unless you change your content or find that there are new buzz words in your industry that have made their way into search volume.

Here are some areas to look at when starting your keyword research:

1. Google Analytics: If you have Google analytics set up on your website it already has a list of existing keywords that are attracting visitors to your website. This is a great starting point. Punching in each word into your keyword research tool will generate a nice list you can than dwindle down.

2. Competition: Do you currently have competitors that have well optimized websites? It is not a bad idea to take a look at their website and eyeball the meta information and content to see what types of keywords they are using. I don’t recommend copying content or meta information because that is just wrong but getting a feel for how they use the same types of keywords is ok.

3. Long Tail Keywords are Okay: When conducting keyword research don’t be scared to use long tail keywords that don’t necessarily have a tremendous amount of search volume. We are conditioned to want to go after the short high search volume keywords but neglecting the long tail is not the right approach. You have to remember that everyone in your industry is targeting those already. It is ok to go after them because naturally your website will target those types of keywords already but the long tail keywords can generate some good quality traffic fairly quickly.

4. Industry Buzz Terms: Don’t forget about searching for industry buzz terms to target on your website as well. Depending on your industry you could generate a very decent amount of traffic for your website if your business is in an industry that uses a lot of industry type terms.

5. Singular and Plural: Make sure to conduct research for terms using singular and plural forms of certain keywords. Sometimes the difference in search volume can be very drastic so don’t forget to keep this in mind when conducting your keyword research.

6. SEO Keyword Research Tools: There are several great keyword research tools to consider when conducing keyword research. Keyword Discovery is the best keyword research tool that I would recommend on the market…it is the tool that I personally use. I do not recommend using free keyword research tools as many of them tend to not show accurate and search data.

In addition to my keyword research tips, I located a video that show some great advice for basic keyword research:

Keyword research is probably the most important aspect of all your search engine optimization efforts (besides the content on your site of course!). These keywords will dictate what type of visitors you will target for your website so it is important to not only get them right but really not miss out on any that might generate a really targeted visitor for your website. So spend some time developing the relevant keyword list for each page of your site…all of your hard work will pay off if you give it the proper time!

No. 1, there are two sides of the keyword equation. Supply and demand.

The supply is how many websites that are targeting a specific keyword. Just go to each of the search engines and type in a keyword and see how many websites come up for that keyword. That’s your supply number.

Demand is the reference to how many people are searching for your keyword each month. Keyword Discovery, Word Tracker and a few other tools are available to help you figure that out. But what you want to do is get your hands on the number of people who are conducting searches for each of your potential keywords.

Next, you need to figure out the profitability potential of each keyword. Some people call it a keyword effectiveness indicator (KEI), or index.

To figure your KEI you’ll divide your demand number by your supply number. In other words, if Google shows 1,000 websites for the keyword phrase “redheaded midget wrestling” but you find that 400 people per month are searching for that phrase then your KEI will be .4. That’s a 40% ratio.

Of course, this number by itself means nothing. It can only have meaning relative to other keywords. So put all your keywords into a spreadsheet and sort them by KEI. The higher the number the more valuable that keyword is. Even still, a highly valuable keyword may not be any good for your site concept so be sure that you toss out any keywords that doesn’t match your concept.

That’s a quick way to determine a value for your keywords and decide which ones are the most valuable for your website.

What’s popular today may not be popular next year. Searchers could be hot on to a particular search phrase one day and move on to another search phrase a month later. I’ve seen it happen.

As a for instance, today searchers may flock in droves to Google “local SEO” but 30 days from now the number of searches for that phrase could drop by 200% while searches for “geotargeted SEO” could rise by 300%. The numbers may change, 150% and 250%, but the principle is still the same. People’s search habits are about as fickle as their voting habits.

Sarcasm aside, if you stay on top of what is popular today in terms of what people are searching for at the search engines, then when what people are looking for has shifted in your industry, you’ll be on top of it. You’ll be in a much better position to react to the market and start targeting those newer search phrases within your search engine optimization efforts – even if on a temporary basis.

Certainly, keyword research is a necessity for online marketing and the more information you have on your own sites and your competitors’ sites, the more successful you can hope to become. But do you really need to go out and buy 10 different keyword research tools?

If you are a new Internet marketer or a small business person going online for the first time, I’d say just start with one free tool. Google AdWords is the best free keyword research tool there is. It gets the job done and is adequate enough that most paid tools aren’t necessary for the average marketer. If you are an Internet marketer that runs thousands of SEO and PPC campaigns every month or year then you might need something a big more sophisticated.

Using multiple tools isn’t bad. You can often check information against other resources to see how they compare. Just don’t get too married to analyzing every detail. While analysis is important, if you overdo it then you’ll end up spending more time analyzing and less time acting on what you see. Analysis without meaningful action is deadening.

But on keyword research tools, Titus offers a good list. Take your pick and use the ones that provide you with the most benefits.

The question is, Where do you make your money in the keyword business?

An old friend of mine is a real estate investor. He buys houses cheap, fixes them up and sells them. He likes to say that he makes his money when he buys the house, not when he sells it. The reasoning goes like this: If you pay too much for the house and spend money on repairs then try to sell it you could lose money. In order to make money in the real estate business you have to buy the property at the right price and leave room for the money you’re going to put into repairs. If you expect to sell the property for market value and earn a profit then you have to do your math before you buy the property. If the numbers don’t work, don’t buy.

This principle is the same in the keyword business. If you are going to turn your keywords into profit then you do that by choosing the right keywords to start with. If you pick the wrong keywords then you will likely not make any money or, if you do, you won’t make as much as you could have. You earn your profit on the front end, which means starting in the right place is absolutely imperative. And it doesn’t matter what niche you are in.

• The specific niche you want to serve
• Are there any lucrative sub-niches within your niche?
• What the most powerful and profitable keywords within your niche are
• What keywords your competitors are focusing on
• Keyword trending over periods of time
• You can identify keywords that are not useful to you at all
• Potential negative keywords for use in PPC
• How much you can expect to spend on your marketing efforts with the keywords you are planning to target
• Which keywords can easily be placed into groups for more effective management

As you can see, identifying the right keywords is very important – and, I might add, profitable. This step of the marketing process is so important that I wouldn’t even think about marketing online until I’ve done it to satisfaction.