Posted on August 20, 2009 - by Kelly Verge

Warning: Get This Wrong and You’ll Fail at Internet Marketing

It’s not glamorous and our pride sometimes tells us that we know best. However the truth of the matter is that keyword research is where most new Internet Marketers fail. If you get it right, even a poorly thought-out marketing strategy can make sales. When skipped, even the best product with the highest-converting sales page won’t make a dime.

Good keyword phrases allow us to compete in the heavy-hitter niches without having to go head-to-head with the heavyweights. The big niches have a wide selection of affiliate programs, content, and even graphics that we can use to build our websites. When we narrow the niche through the use of keywords, we’re still part of the big pie, we’re just working on a smaller slice.

So how do you find gret keywords? Here are three ways:

“Free” Method

Do a search on Google for “keyword research” and study the results. It will take some time. It’s worth it.

Make notes. Paper is fine. A simple copy/paste to OneNote is my favorite method of taking notes, but Wordpad works, too.

Practice what you’ve learned. This is a case when reading isn’t enough. Run through several niches looking for keywords. Again, make notes. If you find several related keywords that all look good in a niche where you might be able to make money, you’ve identified a good project.

(Note the word “free” is in quotes. There’s no such thing as free – you’re trading time instead of money.)

Almost Free Method

Register for the Thirty Day Challenge.  As part of this free course you’ll get a free 45-day trial of Market Samurai along with all the instruction you’ll need to get up to speed with it.

Market Samurai is one of my top 2 choices of paid keyword research tools, so this option is a no-brainer in my book.

This year the Noble Samurai team has added quite a few new features, so MS is really more than a simple keyword tool.

Paid Method

Sign up for Micro Niche Finder.

MNF is my preferred keyword research tool, and as you learn about keyword research on the web, you’ll see that I’m not alone in this. One successful campaign/page/product will more than pay for MNF, so in my book it’s a must-have tool.

The paid tools like MNF and MS do basically the same things as the manual searches. Their results might be a little more accurate, but even if that weren’t the case, they do the searches in a fraction of the time (MNF tends to be quite a bit faster than MS). This is important when doing keyword research because the more phrases you’re able to search through, the more likely you are to find the real gems.

OK, so we know how, but why?

With proper keyword research and identification you’ll be able to more quickly pull in targeted traffic.

If you use this information when you register your domain, when you build your content, when you write your articles, and when you build your backlinks, you’ll rank more quickly for the keywords that have good traffic and less competition. This means you’ll see results sooner with less effort.

Often poor (or no) keyword research is the key difference between those who succeed in IM and those who struggle without any successes.

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