Should I outsource keyword research or can I do it myself?

A number of related issues go into the answer to that core question. Some of the most important of those are these:

1. The depth of your knowledge concerning directly and tangently related keywords

2. The keyword software that you have at your disposal

3. Your skills at using the software

4. Your knowledge concerning determining which keywords are actually beneficial from a business perspective

5. Your budget

As you can see, all of these come down to what you know and how much money you have to dedicate to this part of your Internet business plan. I’ll go into each of those a little more deeply

Your Thorough Understanding of Keyword Research

There is no aspect of online business that is more important than identifying appropriate keywords. Your list will form the basis of all of your search engine optimization efforts, your advertising campaigns (PPC and others), your copywriting and your article marketing efforts (as well as your other content syndication). In other words, without a good foundation of keyword research, all other aspects of your marketing will suffer.

There are many tools available online. Some are free to use, such as Google’s tool; others are not. You must be willing and able to use a mix of these resources in order to develop the most comprehensive list. You should gather information comparing keyword research tools.

Most of the tools are relatively easy to use, but the interpretation of your results can be difficult unless you have experience in doing so. Each keyword that you discover will not have the same value to you as every other keyword, and a high volume of searches for a certain keyword does not necessarily make that keyword of greater importance to you than another term or phrase for which there may be substantially fewer searches.

Money

I believe that even if your funds are limited, keyword research is so important that, if you are not capable of conducting and interpreting the study, this is a place to spend those precious financial resources. The expense of outsourcing keyword research is relatively small when it is compared to the potential benefit. I recommend that, if you do hire professionals for this task, that you make sure that they also do a competitive analysis of your industry or niche and offer advice concerning how to use the findings of the study to your competitive advantage.

Sometimes, although not always, researching keywords is part of an overall search engine optimization (SEO) package. These contracts are considerably more expensive. However, if you choose to go this route (contracting for an SEO package), make sure you understand exactly how thorough your SEO company will be.

Bottom line: You can do this task yourself if you already know a great deal about the process (or are willing to take the time to learn what you need to) and if you have the critical tools.

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