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To be successful on the web, you must provide solutions to the problems your visitors have. Keyword research is the key to figuring out what those problems are.

Whether you are pursuing search engine optimization or even PPC, understanding what your potential customers or clients want is where the game is. Despite everything you have read about ecommerce, marketing, web design and so on, there is one true theme to making money on the web. Figure out what people need and provide a solution. Just to be clear, you should charge money for the solution! Can’t leave that out.

Keyword research is the way to figure out what people need. They are, after all, typing in their need. One of the first keywords to research, of course, is “buy.” If you get ranked under such a keyword phrase as it relates to your site and products or services, you are going to do okay. Regardless, the idea is to research just about every possible phrase related to your products or service and then make sure you take the necessary steps to get in front of people using those phrases when they search.

You will often be told that keyword research is exciting. It is, after all, the yellow brick road to your client’s hearts. In truth, it can be less than enthralling. This is particularly true if you have a site with a large scope of products or services. Doing keyword research for a site like Amazon, for instance, would be torturous. Regardless, you probably will not be sitting all perky at your computer when you are doing the research. This can lead to problems.

You are going to run into temptation when researching your niche. What is temptation? It is a keyword phrase that does not really fit your site, but is sort of close. The evil little bugger on one shoulder will start saying, “Come on, it is close enough. Just go for it. Who is going to know!” At this point, you will start thinking to yourself that the site doesn’t really offer anything technically for the keyword phrase, but visitors will probably be interested in your stuff that is kind of the same.

So, should you incorporate such phrases into your site? I’ve done it as have others. You can do it as well. Personally, I’ve found it adds traffic, but not much in the way of revenues. I’ve stopped doing it and taken a different tact. Instead of falling to temptation, I try to go out and find the solution to whatever the keyword phrase is suggesting is a problem. Ah, now we have revenues! In some situations, however, this simply isn’t possible and I just skip over the phrase. Others, of course, would advise grabbing it anyways.

When doing keyword research for a site, I find sticking strictly to your niche is the key. If you fall to temptation, you are probably going to be disappointed with the results anyway. Now, if only Angelina Jolie would tempt me…

About the Author

Halstatt Pires is an SEO consultant with MarketingTitan.com.