SEO 101 - Keyword Density and Keyword Research

OK, so you want to create a web site or blog and make money from online advertising. You have chosen the subject your web pages will cover, you have an idea what content you want to provide, but you are not sure how to structure it.

STEP 1: KEYWORD RESEARCH

Before you start creating your content you need to quantify the keyword searches that you are targeting. For this all you need to do is to create a Google Adwords account. We are not going to create ads at this point in time, but are simply going to utilize the Keyword Tool for some keyword research. Once you have registered a Google Adwords account and logged in select the Keyword Tool from the Tools and Analysis menu. Then type a search term, run the search and check the value of Global Monthly Searches column to understand how many people are executing a search targeting your selected keyword phrase.

The goal of your keyword research is to

• identify niche search terms – these are search phrases that are not very popular, but will potentially allow you to rate highly if your content is optimized for them and generate almost guaranteed traffic to your web site 
•  discover popular keyword phrases that have millions of searches – these search phrases are very competitive, but even if you capture a small percentage of the traffic they produce you might be able to generate significant number of visits to your web pages.

STEP 2: ANALYZE KEYWORD DENSITY

While keyword density is important try not to overdo it. When you do you run the risk search engines to classify your content as web spam which negatively affects your search ranking. One way to approach this is to use the Keyword Density Analyzer Tool. Now that you have identified the keyword phrases for your content identify the address of a site that is currently listed at the top of the search results for it and paste it in the tool. Then see the density percentage this top performing site has for the keyword.  You probably want to get close to it and improve on it slightly if you can. You the same tool to check the keyword density for your own web pages.