Keywords Coffee and Tylenol
December 15th, 2009 | 
Author: As the title suggests in this post I am covering Keyword research, a task that can be frustrating and time consuming, however it is important that you research the keywords used in your site, marketing and advertising properly .
To start with you are going to need a good keyword research tool, one that can check and compare results from several different sources is best as while you may be aiming to score well on Google you cannot afford to ignore results from other engines like Yahoo or Msn Live etc as these will also play a huge part in how well your campaign fares on Google.
Often Search companies will supply these tools for users and Easysearchlive.com is no different you will find an extensive tools page here http://velocitymarketerhosting.com/seo-tools/ (Velocity Marketer Hosting is owned by Easy Search Live).
To start your keyword research you first need to decide what niche your site fits best in try to drill this down as accurately as possible for Velocity Hosting this would look something like this Web Hosting>low cost>unmetered. this establishes the core keywords most relevant to your site or campaign, we would then use the keyword tool to compare the top 10 results on the major search engines this will then leave you with a generated list of keyword/phrases that the top 10 listings on the search engines have used, (sometimes this list can be quite extensive) and the number of seaches performed using those keywords/phrases.
Keeping in mind the top few results are likely to be quite expensive in a PPC campaign and competition on various search engines will also be extensive select a few that have reasonable traffic (it is better to have a few keywords rather try to compete for the top keyword phrase).
By this time you will definitely be looking for a cup of coffee and that niggling sensation is the start of the headache so it may also be time to reach for the Tylenol.
Having selected your keywords/Phrases it is time to check what it is going to cost you to run those keywords in a PPC campaign, you need this information because if they are outside of your budget then it is pointless using them on your site (Marketing and Advertising campaigns get better results when the keywords match those of your site).this can be quite time consuming also and be prepared to revise your keyword list or start from scratch.
Time for another coffee and a bunch more tylenol
When you have finally sorted out which keywords you will use it's time to start drawing up your marketing plan, now the key to a good marketing plan is to keep it simple try to avoid over complicating what should be a simple process.
You know which keywords are going to be used so lets order them according to importance, next we want to look at how we are going to use them and where, some will be suitable for anchors in textual advertising while others will remain simply as extra tags or be used as content anchors on your site.
We need to identify where and when we are going to place our advertising ie Google adwords and determine exactly how much of the budget to allocate to that campaign (each keyword/phrase is classed as a seperate campaign), Our Target Audience and the start and end date of the campaign.
the next phase is to design your adverts ensuring that the chosen keyword for each appears at least once in the ad content.
Be sure to write all this up and place it where it can be a visual reminder, I personally like to use a whiteboard next to my desk for this purpose as it allows me to check on what i have done or what needs doing at a glance.
Launching your Campaigns:
a mistake a lot of first time advertisers and marketers make is to panic because it's been a week with no indication of a result, campaigns need time to work and patience is the key here, my campaigns normally run for a minimum of 6 months with control checks evey month and a revision check every 2 months this allows sufficient time for the campaign to propogate throughout the web and allows for proper modelling of the results, campaigns that are under performing may need tweaking at the 2 monthly revision and this can be a simple as changing the wording of the ad slightly or simply changing the colors used.
Constant changing of the ad is detrimental to it's effect remember it needs time to be seen by the Internet community and your Target audience so make changes subtle and leave some time between them.
When performing the monthly checks what you are looking for is the number of clicks each ad has received and what your ROI (Return On Investment) has been for the period, you are also looking to see that your ads are in fact being displayed and that there are no errors in the ads (sometimes a webmaster can change the formatiing of his/her site and this can adversly affect the formating of your ad, it may now contain extra symbols or spelling errors or the colors may have varied from the original, in which case some urgent repairs may be required.
In closing my tip is "Don't rush things , think the campaign out thoroughly and keep a big box of tylenol next to the coffee pot 
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It is quite easy to figure out which keywords are ok for your campaign once you know very well the specific of your business and the correct relation between business and keywords. All you need to do is use a strong keyword tool that will find you hundreds of related keywords, will show you which are most searched for (so more expensive), which of them are more popular and which are most interesting for your competitors. You can even find the CPC for them if you use the right tool, so making the right choices doesn't have to be so hard.
I myself use the <a href="www.ispionage.com">iSpionage</a> marketing tools and i can say they give me everything i need and more, they kind of do the job for me, i just give directions and read the results. Of course it is a paid keyword but it sure worth the cost. It cuts down the time i used to spend on keywords work, in less than half.
I would never call it easy as you actually want results. Simply using a software to find the most searched for terms will get you bottom of the dog pile results. You have to find balance between the number of searches and a low amount of competition for the terms, and have to have a keyword marketing plan to build links under those terms from related sites to see even slight success. You hear all these claims about posting replies to blog comments related to your site etc.. about it can take months of hard work to do that right. First off you have to add value to each response, and each response must be different to avoid being nailed for search engine spam. Same with directories and link exchange, with link swaps, and with article marketing. You can’t just be an autobot and succeed. Easy is not even close to a word to describe any portion of SEM.
As I stated in the article finding the keywords is only a part of the equation that needs to be performed, quite a lot of the auto keyword tools do not give up to date information with some being as much as 6 months out of date, relying solely on a single software can leave you using old information and well behind the competition you need to confirm the data gathered (one way is to perform several searches on the major engines using the chosen keyword)you then need to compare it's use with the top 10 listings in the results in order to gain insight on the best way to use that keyword as it's not just a matter of putting it a few times on the front page.