Perhaps the most useful tool for businesses today is the internet. As most executives in large corporations have already developed a powerful online campaign, small businesses and even individuals realize the benefits of SEO strategy. In fact companies of all sizes flock to professional digital advertising firms, or individual contractors. This can have an extremely large return on investment. For many, the most promising results come from great search engine optimization. Search engine optimization, or SEO, involves many elements of a web site's design, as well as offsite factors, that influence a site's position in the major search engine results for relevant keywords. Since many consumers put great trust in the top organic results, placement on the first page of Google, Bing, or Yahoo will provide credibility to the site, and direct an incredible amount of relevant traffic to the website. Naturally, this results in an increasing number of conversions, the final goal of any business. Although it may be a sound investment for many companies to outsource this service, owners can learn a lot about SEO strategy on their own. This article will focus in depth on a very important aspect of fundamental SEO, keyword research. In particular, it will explain how to assess the competition for a queary. Such knowledge will help narrow down the list of keyword candidates.

First Steps - Make a list:

The first necessary piece of data is simply a list of relevant keywords. After all, there is no reason to optimize for queries that do not relate to the site. Along with this list should come the monthly search volume. You will find that for some words, the volume can be fewer than one hundred searches, while others range in the millions. Export all of this data to a spreadsheet, using software such as Excel, for further analysis. This is the baseline data. It is the first step of any targeted internet marketing effort.

Narrow the list:

Eliminate unrelated, poorly phrased, or negative keywords from the list. Next, focus on search volume. Keep entries with the highest figures, as these should generate the most traffic. Choose a small number of keywords to act as candidates for SEO. At this point, it should be a targeted list of perhaps 30 words. Unfortunately, promising keywords are often sought after by many businesses. It may be very difficult to place on the first page of major search engines for such queries. This brings us to the next step, a slightly more involved strategy.

Assess the Competition:

The next step in the keyword research process is to identify the competitors for desired keywords, and assess how difficult it will be to rank above them in the major search engines. To begin, type a keyword candidate into a major search engine and observe the first page of results. These listings are the competitors for this keyword. Choose one URL from the list and analyze its search engine strength. The primary tool for this is Yahoo Site Explorer. Use this feature to view the number in in-links for the URL. Record this data in your keyword research spreadsheet. Do this for multiple URLs that appear on the first SERP. It may not be necessary to attain back link information for all ten first page results, but the more the better. This information will give a general sense of how difficult it is to rank above those URLs. If a site has thousands of links, it will probably take a long time, and a lot of work to overcome their position. For sites with fewer links, the internet business marketing competition is most likely less fierce. Such knowledge may influence final keyword choices for SEO. Only the site owner can decide how much effort and time he is willing to put in (or how much money to invest in SEO services), a decision that influences keyword choice.