Almost all SEO begins with keyword research. Understanding what people are searching for and how many people are searching helps form a solid content strategy.
Beyond the basics, keyword research encompasses many more advanced considerations, including SERP features, keyword search intent, competitive analysis, and even internationalization.
Read the latest Moz posts on keyword research. We’ve also included links to our most popular keyword research resources to help your SEO journey.
Keyword Research : Everything you need to get started with keyword research.
Keyword Research Learning Center : Our free keyword research learning hub. Here, we’ve gathered our top resources in one place.
What is search intent and why does it matter? : Learn more about the power of search intent and how to use it in your keyword research strategy.
Keyword Explorer : Want to dive in? Try our top-rated keyword research tool, with over 500 million keyword suggestions.
Introduction When told that writing for the Web is different to writing for print publications, the understandable reaction of many journalists is that it shouldn’t make any difference; we’re writing for people, not machines, they say. But there is a need to write differently for the Web and the reasons for this are quite simple: the ...
Use your server or analytics search logs to find what people are looking for once on your site.The keywords used to search within your site or narrowed with search filters (by price, brand etc.) are a gold mine of fresh terms and phrases that can be used within your content and links to attract those users. Track what your visitors search for on your site, see which filt...
I've spent this week putting the finishing touches on our keyword research guide (which will most likely be available--both to purchase and for Premium Members--on Monday). This afternoon I had the pleasure of speaking with Bill Tancer from Hitwise. Bill took me on a walkthrough of Hitwise's Competitive Intelligence tools, which he referred to as their "f...
What's the difference between a fortune teller and a search marketer? No really, what's the difference? The funny hat? Both rely on a keen understanding of the customer and the environment -- and for search marketing, it all starts with the keyword. Note: This post is a way to introduce traditional copywriters to writing with Search in mind. It follows my pr...
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Probably the most famous, and most used, keyword research tool is Overture's Keyword Selector Tool. (Which, despite recent reports and confusion about it's demise, is going to stay online.) I've heard some people say it...
In the stock market, analysts and traders buy, sell and trade shares in companies based on the speculation of future earnings or declines. Stock pickers attempt to determine which investments will rise and fall based on publicly available information. Slate magazine recently pointed out that even the best stock pickers, however, are generally terrible ...
An astute reader emailed me (Preston, you're a genius) to suggest that rather than attempt to collect PPC stats on our own, why not tap into the vast resource of the Internet marketing community - surely, together, we will be far stronger than we would be as just one firm. Here's the goa...
...fury meaning me, of course :)Yesterday Rand and I were checking out KeyCompete, a fairly new keyword research site. What is KeyCompete? Well, in the site's own words:"KeyCompe...
I worked out a $20 discount with WordZe for SEOMoz readers. This is reduced from the normal price of $45. It only lasts two days, so take advantage of it quickly before the price goes up. Just to refresh your memory, if you're wondering what WordZe is, it's a new keyword research tool. ...
For a long time, the SEO world has revolved around the idea that KW volume prediction tools could only give relative levels of accuracy, i.e. term X is more popular than term Y. These tools have never been good at fulfilling their true claim - predicting search volume. I set up a campaign to test the predictions of KW research tools like KeywordDiscovery, Overture, Wordtracker, MSN, etc...
One of the most consistent problems I see when conducting site reviews for clients is keyword self-cannibalization - the practice of heavily targeting the same keyword phrase on multiple pages of a site. In my opinion, sites are shooting themselves in the foot when they do this. Let's look at a few quick examples: ...
A year and a half ago, the major search engines got together and talked about the issue of blog spam. Ask didn't attend (although they received an invite), but Google, Microsoft & Yahoo! all sat down (with the creators of popular blog software packages) and found a way to help make links from anonymous sources on the web separa...
Since folks are angling a bit for some hardcore SEO knowledge, I thought I'd take a stab at the thorny and often unproductive process of researching keywords in the long tail. The tail of search queries in a given industry is typically not visible via any of the major KW research programs or search engine ad databases (Overture, Google, MSN). In these instances, there is a research method to fi...
One of the best forum threads I've read in a long time is in progress at Cre8asite. Started by Kim Krause Berg herself, innocently enough with a post about women equalling men online in pure numbers (though it would appear from the latest eMarketer numbers that ...