Now, when you look at Google’s keyword tool known as ‘Insights for Search’, it would appear simple, and you may think it is one semi-sophisticated tool that just updates you when search volume is either climbing up or declining for a group of keywords or just one keyword. What I mean is this, do you think that all it takes to getting the best keyword, is to take advantage of the many free keyword research tools?

The issue with your keyword research is its dormant nature – you get a number, make comparison with other numbers at a time, then that is all for perhaps 12 whole months. However, don’t forget that your industry is not static – new challenges are always springing up. So, you have to be smart and constantly stay in lead of the bunch of competitiors.

But, you need to have a good grasp of your industry’s online ecosystem at the moment, and to be informed of what is likely to be in the future. Although you may still find the keywords you optimized previously as useful, how do you know the right opportunity to implement them? Okay, here’s another query for you; are you capable of structuring content regarding searchers’ urgent question in such way that would boost brand awareness? You can only do this by examining the trend in keyword search interests, instead of looking at static numbers.  This is what I call dynamic keyword search – it is a different dimension to the ‘numbers’.

Also, dynamic keyword search requires looking out for popular keyword searches in your niche at the moment, that are possibly not included in your keyword list. If you find these keyword searches listed on your keyword list, are you achieving ranking for them? Is there similarity between the search interest and the search terms that you focused on before and now? Is there any change since the last time you embarked on keyword research? If yes, what’s the reason behind the change? Is the change global or just limited to a location? If there is increase in the search interest, are the visits to your site keeping pace or lagging behind? If yes, what are the reasons, and if no, why is it so?

When you are looking at trend volumes, it is necessary to examine it from geographical point of view as well. What revelation would you get as a result? For instance, you may discover that your most targeted phrase or keyword is widely sought-after in U.S but doing poorly in comparison to your close competitors in UK. So, how do you fix this? This is where the application of Google Search Insight comes in.  Start asking questions regarding the data, the kind of questions that your close competitors are not likely to ask – as you ask more questions, you will gain more insight on how to stay ahead of your competitors. This is why the tool is called ‘Insight’.

Staying on top always requires consistent effort in blending with the trends in your niche. The Google Insight tool is very helpful when you know how to use it effectively.

There is no controversy about it; keywords are the basis of any search engine optimization campaign.
They will either make or mar it.

If you choose keywords that are highly competitive, getting result will take an extended period of time,
and that too, with much struggle.

And if you opt for very generic phrases, just be sure of poor conversions.
This is just what it is all about.Now, it is clear to you that extensive keyword research and choice
of good keywords are very essential.How can you carry out a through keyword research?

Check the tips given below.

• Begin with a thought-provoking session that will lead you into identifying and listing all the likely keywords and terms that web visitors are likely to enter to search for your offering.Also in this brainstorming segment, it is important that you bring yourself to think just as what the potential customer would do.

• Carry out further research to keep on building the keyword list.

• It is also sensible to have idea of the keywords or terms that your competitors are using; so you need to do some research on your competitors.

• Thoroughly examine your web stats and logs; this can offer you a valuable source of keyphrases and terms of what visitors are already entering to look for you on the search engines. Get those keywords and improve your rankings on them so that your chances for better traffic can be increased.

• Another place to look within your website is the search tool/feature (if you have one).The logs on this feature will reveal to you what visitors are looking for when they come to your site.This will also give you an idea of what words and phrases to include in your keyword list.

• Next, carry out an analysis on the keyword list you’ve built to find out the degree of traffic they can generate, and their rate of competition as well.

• Now, it’s time to segment your keyword list.Bring out the longer-phrases keywords (low hanging fruit) that are less traffic prone.
  These keywords can serve as your starting point since they can rank easily, and reasonably swifter.

Then, bring forth the words or terms that are relatively competitive, more traffic-prone and will rank for a fairly longer time – this will be your second segment list.The segmentation process is worth it;while you await the relatively more competitive keywords to start yielding result, the low hanging fruit list must have started generating traffic for you already.

Remember, too generic and less-targeted keywords will take considerably prolonged period of time to rank;also, conversion of traffic is most likely not to happen.Using very specific key phrases would not generate you substantial traffic as well.So what do you do?

Employ a three-level technique;

• Broad Based:
  It consists of single keywords and relatively short phrases, lots of traffic, generic to the industry, and relatively low conversions.
• Focused Keywords:
  Here you will find phrases that are fairly shorter.The phrases are centred on your offering.Higher traffic numbers is also a feature of the ‘focused’ level.
• The Long Tail Keywords – Laser Focused:
  This consists of more targeted and longer key phrases, higher conversion rates, and smaller traffic numbers.

Without adequate care, you can end up spending too much on Google AdWords and not get anything in return. However, your conversion rate can greatly be improved by effecting a few little changes.
A lot of people incur lots of expenses on their Google AdWords because of the wrong settings they employ in their campaigns.

Achieve better conversion with Long Tail Keywords – You can find many of them

Detailed studies have revealed that long tail keywords achieve quite high conversion rates when compared with single word keywords.
Long tail keywords refer to specific keywords consisting of 4 words or more.

The result of a recent Hitwise study shows that over 18% of searches have 5 keywords or more. Google also confirms that 20% of the queries they receive on a daily basis are ones that haven’t been tried in at least 3 months (90 days), and sometimes turn out to be first time keywords.

Using wrong Long Tail Keywords will cost you money

It may be a great idea to employ broad match for every keyword you use. Including all possible keywords manually in your campaigns is something that cannot be done and so, Google recommends that you employ broad match with your keywords.

Broad match is an excellent way to take advantage of those unanticipated but relevant keywords. When you incorporate a keyword as a broad match, your ad that follows will be qualified to appear next to queries with that precise spelling, in addition, it is also capable of capturing keyword expansions which include synonyms, applicable variation of your keywords, singular/plural forms, as well as phrases that contain your keywords.

However, it may not be as easy as it sounds, if you employ a broad match for every keyword of yours, it means your ads will be displayed for many irrelevant searches, and you will spend much money without having anything to show for it. For instance, the word “union” would be employed in carrying out searches about unions equipment, marriage union, trade union etc.

Because of this, it is necessary not to include the long tail keywords that are not relevant to your website.

Conversion Rate Increases with the Use of Negative Keywords

You can use negative keywords (as it is referred) in your Google AdWords campaigns. If one of your negative keywords is contained in a long tail keyword, your AdWords ads would not be displayed.

For instance, a case where you enter “-free” as a negative keyword, you won’t have your AdWord ad displayed when someone carries out a search for free things. The use of negative keywords is excellent for excluding web visitors searching for only free items.

You can employ a negative keyword when displaying the ad for a particular target group or audience.

When any of your keywords has two or more meanings as seen in the case of “union”, given above, a great way to exclude searches that are not related is to add negative keywords.

Broad match is a good way to garner more clients; however, you need to use this option with care. When you employ broad match with your keywords, remember to use negative keywords to avoid paying for needless traffic.

Long tail marketing comprises of niche marketing to numerous other niches by offering each of them with small amounts of different products or services.

Long tail keywords target customers. “Long tail” was made popular by Chris Anderson in an article published on Wired Magazine in October 2004. Niche marketing and long tail keywords work hand in hand on the internet. In order to view the long tail, obtain a spreadsheet of keywords that are related, along with their searches on monthly basis, use descending order to sort the keywords and prepare a graph using the searches. You ought to discover fewer keywords with a lot of searches, as well as a long tail of the distribution having few.

A large number of us can only compete effectively for keywords that are in the tail of distribution. Now, the question is: which keywords are among those that form ‘the tail of distribution’? And how is success achieved?

The keywords can be divided for four search bands namely the low search keywords, the medium, the high and the super. You can set the boundary between the low and medium searches to something like 500 searches every month; something around 1000 should be set between high and medium; and something like 10,000 should be set between super and high.

The keywords can also be divided into four competition bands namely; the low competition, the middle, the high and the super keywords.
You can set the border between competing pages (pages that contain the precise keyword phrase) to something around 10,000 searches each month; and something around 20,000 between medium and high; then 35,000, between high and super.
Speaking metaphorically, the quality of the fruit lies in the number of searches – if the number of searches is higher, the riper, bigger and tastier it becomes.

Where the fruit lies on the tree is the level of competition. The tip top of the branches is where the super competitive words are. On the other hand, you don’t need to stretch and strain too much for the low competition keywords. Two principles for harvesting the fruit exist: the first principle is to harvest the best fruit possible, and the second targets at “picking up the low-lying fruits first”. Explore these suggestions on how to achieve that:

• Take the super high competition keywords out of your list; that traffic will not be realized.
• The keywords that have very high level of competition for the given searches should be removed.
  It’s a futile effort trying to compete with them.
• Your first target should not be the high competition keywords. Concentrate more on where it will benefit you instantaneously.
• Normally, it pays to optimize web pages manually for higher-band or middle keywords. This may not apply when selling products that have high profit for each sale – this also depends if the researcher has intention to buy.
• If you generate the pages, you can dedicate web pages to low search as well as competition keywords. By doing so, the template will be created once, but you will subsequently use it again for several keywords. Writing each one separately is not worth the effort.
• It is possible to utilize the high end of the low band keywords in the alternate topics or titles of ezine articles.
  When the articles are submitted via a submission service like Article Wizard or Submit Your Article, randomly selected variations of these articles are submitted to so many article directories as well as blogs. They allow as many alternate articles as possible.
  A lot of your articles can be circulated within the internet with titles which include the low band keywords, with little effort when compared with single article submission. The appearance of the low competition keywords in the title of a page as well as page name could be sufficient to have the article displayed on the first page of Search Engines’ search results.
  A good number of first-page listings with only some searches a piece are in the long-tail marketing spirit.
• If you search for phrases that the search engines have not yet come across, you will find many of them. A page may be dedicated as a harbour for these particular low frequency keywords. Generate a page that has so many words of text containing words and phrases that are relevant to your topic. By the time search engines come across a query that is semantically related though not indexed yet, your page could be recommended on top list. Low-competition keywords can also be dropped into the text.

There should be division of your keywords by search frequency, as well as by the number of competing pages.
It will be of great usefulness in planning your long-tail marketing.