Keyword Research is Essential

When writing web copy, understanding the words your target audience is searching for is essential to the copywriting process. Depending on the market you’re writing for, your target audience will use different terminology during the search process. Therefore, it is essential to have an understanding of what words or phrases your audience is searching for before beginning the writing process. This can seem like a daunting task. Fortunately, there are a number of keyword tools that will help you determine which phrases to target while writing.

Here are some of my favorite free keyword tools:

• Google_Adwords: A great free tool. Enter one or several keywords or phrases into the search box and the AdWords Keyword Tool will bring back a plethora of possible alternatives along with much appreciated information, including monthly and average search volume and how competitive the phrase is.
• Word Tracker Free Keyword Tool: Another great free tool Word Tracker’s Free Keyword Tool will offer the top 100 free alternate keyword suggestions as well as the daily search volume.
• SEOMoz Term Extractor: Find out what keywords other companies are targeting. Enter your targeted URL into the box and this tool will extract the terms that are targeted for the search engines.
• Keyword Discovery: One of my favorite tools, Keyword Discovery is far superior to other because of the ease of use and the amount of keywords returned. For example, typing in patio furniture brought me over 2000 key phrases. While this may seem like a lot, it can be very helpful when writing copy as you often need to target more long tail terms.