Finding the Most Popular Internet Search Terms

Keyword Selection Tools for Webmasters, Article Writers & Bloggers

Jun 19, 2009

It is often said "content is king" to creating web traffic. The idea of writing an article or building a website is to generate viewers. The right keywords are critical.

Web surfers use keywords to describe what they are looking for when performing a Web search. Web marketers, webmasters, article writers and bloggers attempt to benefit from this real-time want/need of web surfers to draw traffic to their web presence.

Keywords are an Element of Search Engine Optimization

There are many factors in why a particular web page shows up on the first page of a web search. Keyword density, backlinks, relevancy, proximity of terms are all factored in if a site appears in a search. Creating a web article or web page that with a high ranking in what’s called an “organic search” is the goal. Creating pages that consider all the above takes time and effort and the sum total of that effort is “search engine optimization” or just “SEO”.

The goal of creating web content is a high “organic search result”. A good “organic search result” is when a web page appears high in the list of pages that are not paid advertising.

Though the above factors are critical, it all starts with keywords. Keywords are the words that surfers type into a search box. Having a great site or article makes no difference if it does not employ the keywords that most surfers use when looking for content. The first order of business in creating web content that people will find is selecting keywords that people are using in surfing the web.

Google Trends and Google AdWords for Keyword Selection

As Google is by far the most popular search engine, knowing what people are looking for on Google is invaluable in selecting keywords that will generate web traffic. Google provides a great deal of help in this regard. There are two particularly useful tools: one gives insight into the terms that are currently the most popular, and the other provides a history of searches over time.

Google Trends gives up to the minute data on what people are currently searching for. The first page lists the 10 most popular search terms and is updated frequently throughout the day. Clicking on “more hot trends” on the first page, gives the current top 100. In that 100 there are usually words that can be related to nearly any subject. For article or website currency, incorporating terms from Google Trends is priceless. There is an additional feature that shows whether a term is growing or rising in popularity.

In determining what words to build a site or article around, Google provides another tool: Google AdWords. With Google AdWords one can determine how popular a given term is, but more importantly it provides synonyms and suggestions. These synonyms and suggestions can be incorporated into content to increase a site’s chances of success in an organic search.

Tools From Other Search Engines

Though Google is by far the largest search engine, a significant number of searchers use other ways to find things on the web, and knowing what is being searched for on other search engines can build traffic. Here are a few:

Great Keywords Help an Audience Find Great Content

There are many things that search engines measure when listing a site in search results. A site creator or article writer may have their own words in mind in creating their content. If those words are not the ones being used by most people to describe the subject, no one will find the page, and the content will be wasted. It all starts with finding the keywords people are using.

The copyright of the article Finding the Most Popular Internet Search Terms in Online Publishing Resources is owned by David J. Shestokas. Permission to republish Finding the Most Popular Internet Search Terms in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.