Typically the term implies that the Researcher is looking for the number of searches performed in a specific time period, using a specific search command or query.

Keyword research is mainly used to find highly searched for phrases, that will produce high levels of traffic to a website.

A person who is performing any type of Keyword Research could use the data for any number of reasons.

The following list is by no means comprehensive but will give you an idea of how you can use the information gathered from Keyword Research.

• Purchase Keyword focused domain names.
• Article and blog post titles.
• Category and subcategory titles.
• Tags used on blog posts for categorizing content.
• Meta data for page titles and descriptions.
• Hyperlink titles and on page link text.
• Localized or area specific search data.
• Market and product research.
• and so on…

Keywords help Search engines determine the content on a webpage, so when a person types in a specific search command, the search engine will provide the best possible result based on the Keywords and related synonyms found on a particular web page .

This is why so many people focus heavily on performing Keyword Research.

Keyword Research is vitally important for building a website that is targeting free search engine traffic and to keep your costs down when running a paid advertising campaign such as Googles Adwords.

There are plenty of tools available to perform keyword research, Google has a great Free Keyword Research Tool, and is my personal favorite for providing quick and easy results, The Google Keyword tool is perfect for gaining a basic understanding of Keyword Research techniques.

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Knowing what keywords people use when surfing the web will help you understand what they want, and therefore give you the power to put yourself in a position to supply them with what they are looking for.

The Google keyword tool is yet another great free product from Google.com.

This tutorial is basically an introduction on how to use Googles Free Keyword Research tool for finding targeted and specific keywords that real people type into Googles search engine when looking for stuff online.

You can find the Keyword Tool by doing a search at Google.com with the key words Keyword Tool, the first result to come up should be Googles Free Keyword Research tool, I would be very surprised if it isn’t

Otherwise you can type into your browsers address bar the following URL, https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Once the site is loaded into your browser you will see a page similar to the screenshot below.

There are quite a few functions for this tool, but for this tutorial I just want to show you the very basics of keyword research. I have numbered each of the main elements of the Keyword Research Tool homepage and described theme in detail below the image.

1. How would you like to generate keyword ideas? The keyword tool gives you Two choices for generating traffic data, in this example we want to make sure the Descriptive words or phrases option is checked.
2. Enter one keyword or phrase per line: This is the area you type in your main keyword or phrase. By leaving the Use Synonyms box checked, additional keyword ideas related to your main keyword will be returned at the bottom of the page.
3. Type the characters you see in the picture below: Fill in the capture text, this proves that you are not a bot trying to access the data but a real person.
4. Get Keyword Ideas: Click this button to generate your results.

Once you have entered your keyword or phase, filled in the capture image and hit the Get Keyword Ideas button, the Google keyword tool will generate a list of keywords that contain the specific word you initially typed in.

In the example below, I have used the Keyword Prayer, I have numbered each of the columns and described them in detail below the image.

1. Keywords. This column contains a list of all related searches using the specific keyword you entered. Notice how we now have a list of multi word phrases that contain our initial Keyword.
2. Advertiser Competition. This column is used to Gage the competition you would be up against if you would be running a Google Adwords campaign. A Google Adwords campaign is when you pay to advertise on Google.com, your results are shown in the sponsored links column to the right of your search results in Google.
3. Local Search Volume. The Local Search Volume column will provide search results for your country and language, this does not give you data specific to your immediate area, suburb, state etc…
4. Global Monthly Search Volume. The Global Monthly Search Volume column will return results from all countries and all languages.

By Clicking on any of the column header links you can rearrange the order in which the results are listed, from highest to lowest or lowest to highest.

Googles Free Keyword Research tool is one of my favorite and most used tools online.

I am always coming back to use this site, when deciding on article titles, blog posts and even choosing Domain names.

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