[Mattbetts80]

So much effort is made to make sure you get your H1s and SEO perfect, but one thing that is often missed is the research element. All of the time spent building an SEO friendly site and working on backlinks to this site could all be wasted because of the simple fact you have got the search terms WRONG.

Spend a good few hours researching the keywords you intend to use, and it could mean the difference between becoming successful and failing miserably.

You would be surprised at how the perception of what you 'think' would be the correct keywords to aim for and what 'actually' are the best to go for. An example was recently I was asked to help a company who specialised in Personal Training get more hits to their website. They reside in Swindon, Wiltshire. The obvious natural recommendation to focus SEO keywords and meta tags etc, would be 'personal trainer swindon' or 'personal training wiltshire' etc etc.

The fact of the matter is.. only 1 person search these keywords per day. And based upon a 5% return on click throughs on average (i.e. from 20 people hitting your site, 1 turns into a sale), this is NOT a great selection of keywords to use. On average it would take 1 month for 1 sale, and thats if the company is no. 1 result for the term in question!

No matter how relevant the keywords sound, its not always the best group of words to use to your advantage when marketing your site. After a few hours work, it was found that the best chance this personal trainer had was to market to 'clubs swindon' and 'social swindon' - because of a community based group, his website would become commonplace in peoples minds.

This is just a small example of the pure fact that no matter how relevant the keywords 'SOUND' for your website, they may not give you the best relevant traffic statistically.

If you are not sure about how to go about researching your best keywords, I can recommend a specialist who are incredibly good at what they do, and for the price - invaluable.

They helped me and i am absolutely glad that i asked a professional before taking on the world wide web of retail!

Ask for Max at spammycunt (and mention my name!!) for anything to do with and visit them at imaspammycunt.co.uk

Anyone else have any stories about mistakes with keyword research??

All the best and Happy New Year 2010 !!!

Matt B

[jcorradino]

You know, other then the last few lines, you are absolutely 100% correct. Research what terms you want to shoot for and go from there.

SEO "experts" are still snake oil salesmen in my book though, any idiot with half a brain and no knowledge of this industry can get to the top of google just as well as an "expert." It all has to do with the users that visit the site.

If users do not like your site, you do not stand a chance at placing very highly in google et. al.

[bettyU]

Right, good article.

[babloodmax]

Hi Buddy!!!

Without analysis key is not help to success our sites...

Thanks for sharing... byeee...