Keyword research is undoubtedly the most important part of SEO. If you try to implement a search engine optimization strategy without doing keyword research you might as well be shooting yourself in the foot.

You need to research what it is that people might be searching for to find your business. For example, are they going to be searching for “buy apple pie”, “make apple pie”, “sell apple pie”, “eat apple pie” etc. They are all about apple pie, but if you don’t have recipes on how to make apple pie then there isn’t any point to rank on it. Same goes for selling apple buy…if people want to buy apple pie and they find your site but you tell them how to make it then it’s a waste of ranking. You have put focus on a rank that isn’t providing conversion, thus rendering no value.

Once you have determined what keywords people will be searching to find your website you need to determine your audience. Demographics, age groups, religions, societies, cultures etc all can play important roles in your SEO strategy. You need to know if your website is targeted towards middle class stay at home mothers or high school drop out gothic teenagers. These are two very different target audiences that will expect two totally different websites.

SEO companies need to first determine the keywords that are relevant to the website, then the target audience/visitors and then search for keywords that are relevant to that target audience.

Understand that keywords are dynamic and will be ever changing with trends and vocabulary. What sounds good today might not be appropriate 6 months down the road. This means that keyword research should be a continuous process to ensure you are ranking on the correct searched keywords.

Keyword relevancy in content is a must, however it must be done tactfully and where it makes sense. You can no longer “keyword stuff” and expect the best result. Search engines have evolved past that and now penalize those websites whose content has too many keywords and doesn’t read properly. On top of that, if a user find your content but can’t read it because every other word is a keyword then they just hit the back browser and move on…fail.

Keyword research isn’t simply looking at your competitors and trying to rank on their keywords. It requires a methodical approach and continuous evaluation in order to be effective. Keyword research is sometimes described as being the most difficult to be effective at because it can be the most time consuming. Good keyword research is another piece of the search engine optimization puzzle.