A very simple 3-step approach for keyword research for small businesses.

1. Find Relevant Keywords: Do not think like a business, instead, think like your prospects. What’s in their mind when they are searching? Make a list. Get Google’s help and widen the list.
2. Adequate Search Volume: It is great to compile a list of relevant keywords but are those keywords being searched? What is the ideal keyword volume? In my opinion, for a local business anything above 1,000 in monthly search volume is a good keyword to target.
3. Keyword Competition: Now that you have a list of relevant keywords with adequate search volume, it is time to assess how easy or difficult it will be to rank on the first page for these keywords. Do an exact phrase search for your keywords along with “allintitle” and “allinanchor” searches and analyze the results on the first page to ascertain the competition. It sounds difficult but it is actually pretty easy in reality.

That’s it, do click on the links above to see details on keyword relevance, search volume and keyword difficulty. If you have any feedback or questions then please do leave a comment below.