The KISSmetrics Guide to Keyword Research – Part III: 40 Top Keyword Research Posts of 2011

In the first installment of the keyword research series here at KISSmetrics, we took a look at keyword discovery and how to use a combination of several tools to discover new keywords and phrases for your website and content. In the second installment, we took those same keywords and analyzed keyword difficulty and competitors to determine which keywords would be best to target.

Since keyword research can be done in a variety of different ways and everyone has to find the way that is easiest for them, the final installment of this series is dedicated to the 40 top posts on keyword research in 2011. This list will guide you to even more keyword research tools, strategies, and keyword optimization. Mix and match then for the best keyword discovery and analysis for your business and clients.

Keyword Research Process & Guides

• How To Optimize A Web Page For A Keyword – Too many times, people unfamiliar to SEO think it’s all about selecting a keyword that drives traffic and then plopping it all over a web page. First, you must research which keywords you can realistically rank for and then optimize your web pages accordingly.
• Smart Organic Keyword Research – How do you narrow down the keywords you want to target from potentially thousands of options? And how do you choose the ones that will convert? Wil Reynolds, Mark Barrera, Craig Paddock, and Carolyn Shelby are going to give you some tips.
• How To Do Keyword Research like a Pro [DIY] – DIY keyword research is not as hard as it may seem while reading an expert article. With a basic understanding you can compile a list of high converting keywords.
• Strategies for Multilingual Keyword Research – A brief post outlining strategies on how to conduct multilingual keyword research for an effective global SEO campaign.
• How To Take Your Keyword Research To A Higher Level – Good keyword research is laborious. So is it no wonder that once you understand the basics, you may be tempted to use whichever tool you have at hand and try to automate or speed up the process. Except, should you want to do this?
• Keyword Research: Dealing With Uncertainty – When selecting the keywords you would like to rank for, you must take several factors into account. Preferably you’re able to calculate its potential ROI by finding out what effort is required for a return in profit. There are, however, various uncertainties that you can choose to minimize.
• Maximizing Your Keyword Research For AdWords – The easiest way to remember how to do good keyword research for AdWords is too create a seed, then dig deep and go wide. The author explains what this all means with examples.
• Do You Make These 13 Common Keyword Research Mistakes – A list of 13 common keyword research mistakes and how to fix them.
• 6 Keyword Research Mistakes You Might be Making – Here are some of the more common mistakes that the author sees people make with their keyword research.
• Starting Keyword Research: How to Build Good Targeted Keyword Lists With Free Keyword Research Tools – How to use simple and familiar free tools (that you probably already know and use in other ways) to generate a huge list of related and highly relevant keyword list, as part of your keyword research for content or blog / website SEO.
• Keyword Research: The Ultimate Guide – Do you want to read the most definitive guide to keyword research that you’ll find online? If so, then it’s here, and it’s free.
• Keywords Forensics: Research Search Terms That Others Miss – While keyword research considers keywords and phrases and then gathers data to draw conclusions about which are the best to focus on, keyword forensics surveys key phrases as they have been input by users in an attempt to identify a user behavior.
• How to Analyze the Top 10 Google Competition for Your Keyword – How you can effectively analyze how difficult the top 10 results in Google are for your keyword.
• SEO 101 – Part 2: Keyword Research – How the author does my keyword research. It’s not difficult but it can be a time consuming. Just being real!
• 15 Ways to Brainstorm for Keyword Ideas (and Jumpstart Your Brain) – Think of this process as where to get those initial ideas that you can then branch out of and find those hidden gem keywords. Below are 15 ways that can give your brain a “jumpstart” when it just feels like you can’t come up with anything on your own.
• Keyword Research that Doesn’t Suck – How To – Keyword research is not about traffic volume. It’s about opportunity. So, before you go off chasing keyword unicorns, check out this process.
• Visual Guide to Keyword Research – Human mind learns quicker and retains information easier if it is presented in a visual way, rather than through reading or listening. For that reason the author has decided to write this short guide which will allow you to learn basic keyword research trough pictures.

Keyword Research Tools

• Can You Relate to My Keyword Research Habits – A look at grabbing a competitive edge with keyword research using Market Samurai.
• Do You Know About the YouTube Keyword Tool – A great resource to identify keywords for your online videos.
• 5 Keyword Research Alternatives for Mobile, News, Social, Image & Video Optimization – Here are a mix of keyword tools and ways to use them in order customize keyword research for the increasing diversity of content types and methods of search.
• Favourite Keyword Research Tools From #MozCon – A quick roundup of some of the tools demonstrated at SEOmoz’s annual MozCon conference.
• Market Samurai Boot Camp – Keyword Research Module – Tips & training including how to use the Keyword Research Module to find the most relevant keywords and why the Golden Rules Filter is far beyond perfect!
• 6 Ways to Use Google’s Keyword Tool – Google’s Keyword Tool is useful for people who are creating AdWords and for doing search engine optimization. But that’s not all it’s useful for. Here are 6 ways to use Google’s Keyword Tool for your business.
• Keyword Research Webinar Transcript – What does Wordtracker do? Taking it at its simplest level, Wordtracker and its tools help you find the best keywords for your campaign. It’s easy to work with and it leaves you with the business of implementing the work you need to do rather than struggling to organize all these words.
• The Google Keyword Tool – Power Research Tool or Poison Kool-Aid for Niche Marketers – The Google Keyword Tool is an estimation of keywords and search stats. The operative word here being “estimation.” Google is NEVER going to give you exact information about traffic. And even though they do match up some synonym-like phrases, it’s never a complete story.
• Keyword Research With Wikipedia – Wikipedia can help you with your keyword research. Learn how much traffic you can reasonably expect to get if you rank in the top 10 in Google for your target keyword phrase.
• Using Google’s Keyword Tool to Find a Profitable Niche – Using keyword research as a part of planning before executing a profitable niche website.
• Google Correlate: A New Way To Research Keyword Popularity & Trends – With Google Correlate, you can upload data charted over either time or space and Google will look for matching patterns in search volumes. If you don’t have data of your own to upload, you can simply specify search terms, and Google will calculate the trending pattern and show matching patterns.
• How to Use Google Organic Click-Through Rate (SEO CTR) in Your Keyword Research Process – Learn how average organic click-through rates (SEO) found in Google Webmaster Tools can guide your keyword research and help you determine the benefit of higher SEO rankings.
• How to Organize Keywords for SEO & Google AdWords/PPC – Let’s say you have a big list of keywords which is not well organized & you want a quick and dirty way to organize it. Here are a dozen different tips and tools to help you organize your keywords.
• Keyword Winner: Keyword Research is Back with a Vengeance – The upsides and downsides of Keyword Winner, a keyword research tool.

Keywords for Content & Product Development

• 6 Simple Keyword Tips for Successful Writing – Keywords are very important in article optimization. Easy as it seems, a little help doesn’t hurt when you’re not sure on how to search for those keywords.
• The New Content Marketing Keyword Strategy – Four steps to successful content marketing keyword strategy.
• How to Use Keyword Research for New Product Development – Have you ever thought about using keyword research to guide new product development? Learn how to find out what customers want using Google Suggest.
• Fixed & Dynamic Keyword Lists for Content Marketing: It’s NOT Either Or – Creating content alone isn’t enough to ensure intended audiences will read it, so researching search keywords and social topics related to your business is a helpful way to empathize with what customers are looking for and what they’re interested in.
• Five More Ways to Leverage Your Keyword List – Aside from the SEO and PPC basics, here are five creative ways to get marketing leverage from your keyword research.

Keyword Metrics and Ranking Reports

• Keyword Tracking Reports for Search Engine Success – Here are some reasons for running Google rank reports including reporting the results of your SEO work, discovering the reason for an increase or decrease in visits, and more.
• Keyword Metrics for SEO (And Driving Actions from Data) – Rand illustrates some ways to take the keyword metrics you’ve garnered and turn them into visits to your sites.

Free eBooks on Keyword Research

• Keyword Research & Competition Analysis Mastery: The eBook – If you are at all interested in keyword research, this guide is for you. The author has gone into a great deal of depth in explaining every single step of keyword research.
• Better Keywords, Better Customers: A Guide to Keyword Generation – This eBook features tips and ideas from top SEO and online marketing minds like Outspoken Media’s Lisa Barone and Cyrus Shepard of SEOmoz. Inside you’ll find details and how-tos for putting together the ultimate keyword generation project for your business.

I hope you have enjoyed this series on keyword research. Now it’s your turn – what is your favorite method of keyword research and the tools you use?

About the Author: Kristi Hines is a freelance writer, blogger, and social media enthusiast. Her blog Kikolani focuses on blog marketing, including social networking strategies and blogging tips.