Keyword Research Part 1: Basic terms and Some Preparation

What is keyword research?

Keyword research' is a practice used by search engine optimization professionals to find and research actual search terms people enter into the search engines when conducting a search. Search engine optimization professionals research keywords in order to achieve better rankings in search engines

What is a Keyword in SEO?
Your SEO keywords are the key words and phrases in your web content that make it possible for people to find your site via search engines. A website that is well optimized for search engines "speaks the same language" as its potential visitor base with keywords for SEO that help connect searchers to your site.
By wordstream

What are long tail keywords?

Long tail keywords are those three and four keyword phrases which are very, very specific to whatever you are selling. You see, whenever a customer uses a highly specific search phrase, they tend to be looking for exactly what they are actually going to buy.

For example, if people search for "best car" their intention is almost obscure. You really do not know if they are going to buy a car in next few days or they are doing the search for different reasons.
but if someone search for "best cars under $10000 in NY" the keyword implies that he is going to buy a car and his budget is $10000. So the longer the keyword the more specific it is.

That means it is good to rank for the long tail keywords than for short keyword, what is the benefit of ranking for a keyword that wont bring you sale????





Long tail keywords are -

• comparetively easy to rank for than that of shorter keywords.
• the conversion rates are higher, that means you will get more sale.
• They have less search volume.

Some more example of long tail keywords ...

best inexpensive hair dryer, how to lose weight without exercise etc

Understanding Keyword Intent

You should target to rank for keywords that are used by people ready to make a purchase and in return bring you money. for this purpose you need to know keyword intent.

1. Low intent keywords.
searchers/ people use these keywords to navigate through web/website or collect information. For example. "net worth of facebook" " signs of pregnancy" etc.

2. On the other end, Buying intent keywords are used by a potential client, buyer etc.

For example, "best place to buy treadmil, cheap cycle online, coupon for baby diapers' etc

3. there are also  ‘Product’ Keywords

“Product” keywords also indicate prospects’ desire to commit to a purchase. Product keywords include:

• Branded searches (brand-name goods)
• Specific products (“iPhone 6” etc.)
• Product categories (“summer dresses”, “insect repellant”, “beach accessories” etc.)
• Affordable
• Best
• Cheapest
• Comparison
• Review
• Top
  
  
  For example: Iphone 5, affordable house in NY, best leather bags, etc

Another illustration

Now which types of keywords should you choose?

 Since your blog is new and not so much powerful to rank for high competitive keywords, you should choose low competitive; long tail keywords for your blog..

If you want to do affiliate marketing, then product keywords (best hair dryers for curly hair, affordable domain name registrers, cheap mountain bikes etc)  are right for you since you will be writing editorial reviews on your blog on products from amazon.com/ebay etc .
After reading your article people can take a decision whether to buy the product, and when they use your referral link to buy the product you get a commision for the sale.!!!

And if you want to make money through google adsense, the keywords you want to rank for should have handsome figure of CPC. (cost per click , the price an advertiser has to pay for showing ads on your blog, that means the more costly a keyword for him is the more profitable the keyword for you. note that, google get 32% of the cpc and you get 68% of it )

Where to find keywords and their monthly search volume and cpc of each???

There are many paid tools for doing keyword cultivation, but you can use Google free keyword planner tool

See this tutorial on how to use keyword planner tool, then you can find how to get high cpc keywords ideas by yourself. Same way you can find keywords for your affiliate marketing niche too.
Our next task is to do keyword research to check if the topic/keywords you are thinking of targeting can be ranked by you or not.

image sources: hubspot.com , wordstream.com, receptional.com