Keyword search tools and your niche market

Once you have decided upon your niche, the next step is to grab your keyword search tools and tackle the next, and very critical, assignment � selecting your keywords. This step is frequently undervalued, in my opinion, and the reason is, I believe, is because it is not the sexiest of activities. You are filled with excitement about your niche and want to get going. But without doing proper keyword search and understanding how to use the keyword search tools, it is the equivalent of building the most wonderfully attractive and enticing retail store, but locating it in the middle of the wilderness where no one will find it!

There is lots that I, and others, have written about keywords and their importance and I don't intend to go into too much detail about that in this article, but suffice to say that the 2 of the major reasons for their importance are:

The keywords you choose must reflect the words that people are using in the search engines when seeking information about your niche Without the appropriate keywords, the search engines will ignore you and you will not be found � remember what I said about building your magnificent store in the wilderness! The search engines will not try and figure out which niche you are in, they will just pass you by.

There is a lot more that can be said about keywords, but those two alone are strong enough reasons to convince you to select the right keywords.

So now that I have convinced you to approach keyword selection with the seriousness it deserves, what keyword search tools do I suggest? In my opinion, there are two that stand out about all the others. They are Market Samurai and Wordtracker. I have to admit that I am a big fan of both of them. However, right now I find that Market Samurai is really slow and that can be frustrating if you are doing deep searches, which you need to do at this stage. Market Samurai gives an amazing amount of information and goes way beyond keyword search, but the speed of getting the information goes against it. For that reason, I would suggest you use Wordtracker, which is also an excellent tool and comprehensive. It is fast, easy to use, intuitive and, very importantly, points you in the direction of keywords that are really worth going after. They also offer a 7 day free trial, which is really helpful.