Keyword research is at the core of an search engine optimization strategy. You cannot begin on your SEO journey without quality keyword research. One of the best tools for conducting SEO keyword research, is Google’s Keyword Tool, available through the Google AdWords interface. Let’s walk through the Keyword Tool and how it would be used to conduct preliminary research for an online arts & crafts supply retailer.

Accessing the Keyword Tool

If you use Google AdWords and have an account, you can visit http://adwords.google.com and click “Reporting and Tools” from the top navigation menu. Select “Keyword Tool” from the dropdown.

If you don’t have an AdWords account, you can access the Keyword Tool by visiting: http://www.googlekeywordtool.com/

Using the Keyword Tool

Before entering any keywords, and really before using this tool, it is important to consider the core terms around your product. In our example, an arts and crafts online retailer will have lots of words to consider. General terms around the site, like “arts and crafts store,” and variations thereof (derivative keywords), such as “arts n crafts,” “art supply,” “arts crafts store,” should all be considered. Furthermore, words for specific product type subpages, such as “construction paper,” “glue” and “adhesive” etc. will need to be pondered when optimizing these pages deeper in the site. For our example, we’re going to start with the general terms.

Enter a list of general (and related) terms in the search box as shown below:

Make sure you leave the “Only show ideas closely related to my search terms” box checked.

Once you click “Search” the results thrown back will be sortable by both competition (which refers to saturation of PPC bids on those keywords) and monthly search volumes (the number of users searching for these terms monthly). You’ll want to sort by the latter, and look at which terms are most frequently used by end users to find sites like yours. Focus your efforts on derivatives of those words.

For example, we learn from these results that “arts and crafts supply center” is searched for only 58 times per month, while “craft and art supplies” is queried 6,600 times. This gives you an idea of how users are searching and where to focus your efforts. You’ll want to pick a set of words that cover not only those with larger search volumes, but also a few that add a regional element (i.e. – arts & crafts Peoria, IL) to the search term and a few with lesser volume. This ensures that as you focus on building momentum with the broader terms, you’ll get some quick wins as well.

For information on where in your content to infuse the words you generate from Google’s Keyword Tool, check out my post, “On Page SEO – Keyword Placement.”

If you have questions related to using the keyword tool, or on choosing which terms to start with, please leave them for me in the comments. I’m happy to help however I can.