10 Ways To Find Out What Keywords Your Target Customers Use
It is essential to know what keywords your customers enter into Google or other search engines so that you can show up on the first page when customers are looking to fulfill a need or want. This requires research to find the most important keywords for your business. The following tools can help you create a list of these important keywords to focus your search engine optimization efforts on.
Google Keyword Tool
Google Keyword Tool is a free tool by Google that provides 
estimates on the number of monthly searches of a specific keyword. It also provides insight on how competitive that keyword is based on people who bid for paid Google ads for that keyword. Additionally Google Keyword tool recommends similar keywords to the keyword phrase you enter.
Brainstorm with your Team
Create a list of every keyword phrase that you believe customers would enter into Google. It is a good idea to ask your team to contribute to the list.
Google Analytics
If you have Google Analytics activated on your site, you can look at the data to find out what keywords visitors are already using to find your site in search engines. You can add these to your keyword list.
SEOMoz Term Extractor
SEOMoz's Term Extractor is a free tool that scans websites and extracts the most frequently used keyword phrase on the site.
Google Search-Based Keyword Tool
Similar to SEOMoz Term Extracter, you enter a website's url into Google Search Based-Keyword Tool and it will produce a list of suggested keywords and how much it would cost to buy a Google ad for that keyword.
SEOBook Keyword Tool
SEOBook's Keyword Tool is similar to Google Keyword Tool except it provides daily search volume estimates from Google, Yahoo and MSN.
Ask Existing Customers
Find out how existing clients or customers would describe what you do.
Thesaurus.com
Look for synonyms of your top keywords in Thesaurus.com. You may find synonyms that customers would type into Google.
Monitor Conversations In Twitter
There are tons of conversations that could relate to your field of business. Use search.twitter.com to find what words people use to describe your industry.
Find Out What Adwords Competitors are Buying
Tools like SEMRush let you find out what keywords your customers are buying from Google Adwords. You need to pay for the premium version to see more than a preview.
It is a good idea to create a master list of your keywords with information about search volume, how competitive it is, level of intent of the customer, the likelihood of conversion and your current Google ranking.
This post was republished from the Sparkplug Digital online marketing blog.
Related posts:
Also look at the Google Insights for Search for a great list of upcoming keywords and even how language or phrases may vary by state or country.
Great article, thanks for writing it!
Hello from Montana:
Thank you so much. I really enjoyed the article and got some new ideas and tips.
It is great to share and learn from one another. Plenty of success to go around.
Judy H. Wright aka Auntie Artichoke