If you want to boost your website's search engine ranking, keyword research is a vital component in the process. If you happen to target the wrong keywords, customers and search engines might not even know your site exists.

This means you are losing potential revenue, wasting time and gaining rankings that are irrelevant. To get ahead and stay competitive, you have to choose much more wisely.

The actual keyword research process involves several different steps…

One of the most important things to remember along the way is that you might not know what keywords customers use to find your site. Even if you think you do, you probably don't.

To really understand what they are looking for and how they are looking, you have to research your niche market.

To maximize your keyword research, implement these 5 tips:

1. Create a keyword list. Start out by creating a list of every potential keyword or phrase a customer might use to find your site. Think in both broad and very focused terms.

Brainstorm keywords that cover all of your products or services. Try to avoid really generic terms. Instead, focus only on keywords that are very relevant, but not necessarily obvious. Take a look at competitors websites and see what keywords they use.

2. Get a keyword research tool. With a keyword list in hand, you need to dig deeper to uncover the hidden gold!

A keyword research tool will help you find more related keywords you most likely missed in your list creation. Among other things, it will also give you an idea how many people search for your specific keywords each month.

Ad Word Analyzer is a solid and effective keyword tool to use for this task. As you're researching keywords, you be sure to keep an eye on how competitive they are too (eg. the number of ads and competing websites on Google).

This can help you decide how much effort to put into trying to rank for each keyword. If there's too much competition, you might consider trying to rank high for a number of long tail keywords (4 - 6 word phrases) instead.

3. Refine your keyword list. Once you've done your research, it's time to fine-tune your keyword list choosing only the keywords you want to focus on. It's usually best to choose 5 - 10 keywords to start with.

You can always use more keywords from your keyword list later on to build additional pages. In fact, you should plan on doing this. Search engines love when you add content slowly, but consistently over time.

4. Execute your plan. With your keywords in place, it's time to make sure your website is optimized correctly. This means tweaking existing content and even adding more content. You should develop new pages to support the keywords based on what kind of content will work best (I prefer 500 - 600 word articles).

When writing, or having it done for you, make certain the keywords are used naturally and don't feel like they've been added for the sake of "stuffing" them into the content.

It also doesn't hurt to use your keywords in your Web page title tags, meta description tags, meta keyword tags, Alt text, anchor text and navigational links.

5. Keeping up with it all. Even after the initial round of keyword optimization is over, you'll find you need to frequently re-evaluate your strategy. If you find that some keywords aren't ranking well, make changes.

Tweaking is to be expected and normal. Not to mention, diligence can put you in the forefront and keep you there!

A good keyword tool can help you find targeted keywords with search volume, yet very little competition. These are niches that you can make money in with less effort than competitive niches.

Using the data from a keyword tool like Ad Word Analyzer, you can target and usually dominate these niches by running PPC ads and also by building search engine optimized websites.

You basically want to own as much real estate (listings) on Google and other search engines as you possibly can.

To save time and for ease of use, a keyword tool must be simple enough for anyone to use.

Well, that's certainly the case with Ad Word Analyzer…

Simply enter your primary keyword, hit Enter and you'll get the following:

1. A complete list related keyword phrases.
 
2. The number of recent searches for each keyword phrase.

3. The number of ads that exist right now on Google AdWords and MSN.

4. How much it will cost per click to be #1 on Google and the estimated daily clicks.

Within minutes you can determine whether or not you should use or ignore specific keywords!

Now this keyword data is great for PPC, but you still need more information when it comes to doing SEO for your website…

So, Ad Word Analyzer also tells you the number of websites listed on Google for each keyword. Then, it automatically calculates the exact search to results ratio by dividing the number of websites by the number of searches.

You can instantly gauge the actual supply and demand for all of your keywords by simply looking at the results/search ratio. The lower the ratio, the more likely you will be able to make money in that particular niche.

In my opinion, a keyword tool is one of the most important investments any webmaster can make…

Just don't try to cut corners and use an inferior or free keyword tool with minimal features. It's not worth the amount of lost revenue.

The Ad Word Analyzer keyword tool does much more than I've covered here. I suggest you pop over to AdWordAnalyzer.com and see why some users have called it the "Ultimate Keyword Research Tool".

Yes, you can do this.

First, and most importantly, you must understand how your ad gets to the top of the ad rankings on Google…

Instead of simply being based on how much you pay, it is based on a combination of your clickthrough rate (or how popular your ad is) and the amount you're willing to pay for each click.

Your competitor may pay more per click, but you can actually pay less and still outrank them by getting a higher clickthrough rate (CTR).

For example, let's assume your competitor has 1.0% CTR (their ad is clicked on once in 100 searches) and they're paying .49 cents a click for that keyword…

Now you may be only bidding .25 cents on the same keyword, but you have a 4.5% CTR. Well, you will likely rank higher and do so for a much more profitable price!

How cool is that?

This means if you want to succeed on more competitive terms, then you must tweak you ad until your CTR is above your competitors.

It's as simple as that.

Since your ads appear on Google almost instantly (you can also display ads on their search network and/or content network), you should monitor your campaigns throughout the day and fine tune as needed.

You also have the option of turning off search network and content network sites in Edit Campaign Settings to see if you are able to close more sales and increase your CTR. This is often the case, but you need to test this yourself to find out.

Remember, you must maintain a minimum CTR of .5% with Google’s entire network. If you fall below this for a keyword after 1,000 views by searchers, then the keyword will be disabled.

When this happens, and it probably will, don’t get discouraged. Be thankful.

These keywords often are not profitable in the first place, since they are not being searched by somebody interested in what you have to offer.

This is actually very easy to do…

In this example, I will use the keyword phrase "fishing gear" (you can use your primary keyword or just follow along for now).

Go to Google.com and do a search for "fishing gear". Then click More Sponsored Links ». Print all the pages, so you can review the ads.

Now do a Sponsored Links search for "free fishing gear" and print all the pages. Look for all the ads that are no longer displayed…

These advertisers are most likely using the negative keyword "free". Most beginners don't do this. These are the advertisers to watch.

I suggest you visit each of their websites and see what they are selling. If they offer an ecourse or newsletter, then sign up. You will also want to track their ads and ad positions on Google a minimum of once per week for a month or so.

Next do a Sponsored Links search for "free fishing abcdef" (you can use any random string of characters). Print all the pages. Ignore these advertisers. They are totally clueless and are simply wasting money.

All of the other advertisers are your real competition. Model your AdWords ads after theirs for maximum results. You will be very pleased with the results.

Lastly, rinse and repeat. Do this for all of your keywords.

I do suggest using a keyword tool to expand your keyword list and automate the process.

You might also want to check out Adwatchers.com. This tool finds profitable AdWords, Yahoo, and MSN PPC campaigns.

You should always be on the lookout for strategies to improve your results, especially if they are easy to implement…

1. Add Negative Keywords

Negative keywords should be thought of as an extension to the keywords you already have. They are words that add qualifications to those searchers who see your ad, allowing you to get rid of those who are likely a waste of your ad budget.

Let me give you an example. Probably the most common negative keyword is "free". By typing in a dash in front of free ("-free"), you prevent searchers who types in the keywords containing that word like "free information" or "free pictures".

And, if you're selling a product, these searchers are very difficult to turn into paying customers on the spot because as soon as they see a price on your page, they will hit the back button and look for a free competitor elsewhere.

When deciding whether to use the negative keyword term "free" you should consider the sales process. If you go for the sale right away (instead of just trying to get a lead), and you have competition, then it will likely increase your campaign results.

2. Add Exact Matching Keywords

These are the most stringent keywords because the only search they allow is the exact phrase you typed.

So, if the searcher typed in "Apple computers" and your exact match was "Apples", then your ad would not be shown.

To add an exact match, you just put brackets [ ] around the keyword (ie. [Apples]).

A good strategy when adding your keywords is to test which type of keyword has the best conversion rate for you. Do this by putting each term in quotes, brackets, and just the keyword alone.

You may be surprised to find that an exact match may show a 9% clickthrough, while a normal keyword might have 3% clickthrough rate for the same word.

When the keyword is just normal and without anything surrounding it, then it is called a broad match. 

When your keywords are in broad match, then your words undergo Expanded Broad Match…

Google's expanded broad match automatically ads plurals to words and identifies similar terms.

So, if your normal keyword was "apartment", then your ad might also show for the similar keyword "flat".

This is especially useful for the English language because there are many different synonyms. However, this also might cause problems for you if searchers not interested in your product often type the synonym.

For example, your keyword might be "car", and your ad also shows up for "auto", but "auto" does not convert any visitors to sales like the term "car".

You can find out likely synonyms for any keyword by using the Google Sandbox keyword tool in Ad Word Analyzer. If you find any objectionable keywords, then you can get rid of the term and just use phrase or exact match for the keyword!

If Content is King on the Internet then keywords are Queen…

Discovering just one new pocket of keywords that you hadn't thought of before can double your traffic in 10 minutes!

One of the most valuable things you can do is get a "competitive index" of various keywords…

How many people search for it? How many bidders? How many pages are there on the Internet about this topic?

Before I start a Google AdWords campaign, I take a look to find out how many bidders are bidding on my keyword…

If there's less than 10, it's going to be a day at the beach.

More than 30, we'd better sharpen our pencils.

More than 60, ONLY experienced web marketers should play.

There's an easier way to judge the competition than by clicking through Google's results and counting the ads, since that's WAY too tedious.

Ad Word Analyzer is a powerful keyword tool that does it all for you and more.

Every conceivable combination of keywords represents a market.

There's an infinite number of keyword phrases.

So, there's an infinite number of markets out there for you to tap into.

Search engine marketing is about niches…

It's not about being all things to all people, it's about being a few specific things to a few specific people.

The profit is in areas where there's a lot of need and not very many bidders.

Example:

There are 103 Google bidders on "used car".

But there are only 24 bidders on "san diego used car".

And there are only 13 bidders on "used japanese car".

It's always better to be a big fish in a little pond, especially if you're just getting started.

The narrower the niche, the more valuable the click is, and also the less that click normally costs you.

Using a keyword tool, you can gather and analyze a lot of data in a short amount of time.