In Search Engine Marketing, whether you are doing SEO or PPC, one of the most important elements is always your set of keyword. But how do you get these keywords? How would you know which keywords to use when building your website’s contents and articles? Which keywords should you use in your marketing campaigns?

Knowing your audience is the key. You should know your target market, what are they searching for, and best of all how they perform the searches. These keywords will be in your initial list. The next things is knowing who your competitors are and what they are doing. By now you will have a broader list of keywords. But should you copy your competitors’ keywords? Not all of them. The keywords they are using plus the initial list you have will be the basis for the most important element in building your online business. Keyword Research.

Competitor and Keyword Research is best done using tools. And one of my favorites among a bunch of them is SEMRush. Using the tool is very easy. You type in the keyword and you get a summary including the estimated CPC, volume of traffic, and how heavy the competition would be. See the screen capture below:

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Down the results page, you will see the related keywords you can use. For each keyword same details are given, CPC, Traffic, Competition. Then lower down you will see who are ranking organically.

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Clicking on each website in the results will show you how each of your competitors are ranking and on what keywords. The report will also show you the keywords they are bidding on if they have a PPC campaign, including the ad copies they are using.

Or you can go to the bottom of the page and go directly to the Adwords Competitors table and see immediately the list of your competitors doing Adwords PPC. By clicking on each one of them, you will know the keywords and ad copies they’re using.

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Competitor and keyword research has never been this easy. With tools like SEMRush, researching and preparing for your website’s content and marketing campaigns is now easier.