Is Keyword Research The Key To Search Engine Traffic?

The other day in my Interview with Austin C. Davis of Trust My Mechanic I found several things very interesting. The first thing was his answer to this question:

Q. From the polls I have run on this blog, one of the top questions people have about Internet Marketing is “How do I get more traffic to my website?” Can you give us a brief description of one of your favorite methods to generate traffic to your site?

A. Hands down, KEYWORD RESEARCH! Most site owners make sites and post to their blogs about topics that they as the site owner THINK are of interest to the reader. I do things backwards. I do my keyword research FIRST, find the most traffic for the search term, then I will Google the actual keyword phrase to check out my competition…

After giving it a little thought, I decided that I agree with Austin.

Keyword research is the most important thing I do to get search engine traffic to my sites.

Getting links to your site is extremely important, but without keyword research links don’t help nearly as much. If you just focus on getting links without keyword research you are losing out on tons of Search Engine traffic.

By doing good keyword research you make it a lot easier to get traffic from the Search Engines. In fact, even if you use outdated keyword research techniques you will get WAY more Search Engine traffic than those who aren’t doing keyword research.

There are many methods of researching keywords to increase your search engine traffic. I suggest taking a good look at Austin’s advice (see Interview with an Internet Marketing Expert), and I also suggest reading the following posts for more keyword research information:

Intro to Chossing Keywords

Methods of Choosing Keywords

Choosing Keywords and KEI

More Thoughts on Keyword Research

Final
Thoughts on Keyword Research

How do I Research Keywords?

Keyword Research for Blogs vs. Websites

How do the experts research keywords?