There comes a time (preferably in the beginning) during your search engine optimization campaign when you have to decide which keywords to target on the search engines. Deciphering which keywords to target is crucial because all SEO is based on proper keyword placement, linking, architecture and most of all profit. A thorough SEO analysis can make the difference in achieving 1st page rankings in 1 month as opposed to taking a whole year. Proper keyword research can also help you determine how much a keyword is worth and how many free visitors your site could possibly drive from the search engines.

Here is a list of stats to analyze when trying to determine which keywords to go after.

Total Estimated Visitors - By far the most important metric to know is how many times a keyword is being searched in the search engines. Because let's be frank, it would be more time efficient to go after a term predicted to produce 1,000 visitors a day versus a term that only generates 30 visitors a day. There are multiple keyword traffic research tools out there to help you figure out just how much traffic each keyword can generate to your web site.

Total Sites Competing - The next thing to do is find out how competitive each keyword is. Once you decide which keywords to go after, type them into the search engine you are trying to rank on and see how many websites are showing up in the results. Google's search engine gives you an idea of the competition, if you look in the top right you will see a section that tells you the number of sites competing for any given keyword/phrase (ex:"1 - 10 of 1,100,000 results for the term "keyword phrase"". ) If you do this for each term you are targeting, you will get a good idea of how many sites you will have to compete with.

Allintitle:Keyword Phrase - While you are at it, you can search the keyword again, but this time add "allintitle:" to the front of it (ex: allintitle:keyword phrase.) This will only display the results that actually have that keyword phrase in their title tags. This search paints a better picture of the real competition because title tags are the most effective SEO factor. Plus if a site hasn't written proper title tag data or they're not targeting those keywords, chances are they aren't a site to worry about.

Keyword in URL - Another factor to examine is how many of the top 10 or so sites actually have the keywords in their URL. This is important for ranking well on search engines. Look to see if all the top sites have the keywords in the URL. If not, and your site does, this may give you a competitive advantage.

Ages of Sites - Another important factor major search engines examine is how old the site is. If a site has been around for awhile and is still thriving, it is a sign of a legit business and trust. Older sites tend to be hard to outrank.

Size of Competition - Performing a site: search on all the top sites ranking for your terms. This will give you an idea of how big your site has to be to compete for that term. To figure out how many pages your competitors have, search site:yourcompetition.com.

Links Pointing to Your Competition - performing a link: search on all the top competitors ranking for your targeted terms will give you an insight into how strong your competition is. This is a very important factor considering Google and other engines judge sites based on how popular they are by looking at how many sites link to them. Examining the Google Pagerank of your competition could also give you a good idea on how much link strength a site possesses.

Competitors Listed in DMOZ and Yahoo! - Check to see if the top sites are listed in DMOZ and Yahoo! because Google uses these directories to help them determine relevance and rankings.

Future Keyword Trend - Is the keyword you are targeting a temporary or seasonal term? Or, could it be the new and up and coming product? Using keyword trend analysis tools can help you determine if a keyword is worth going after. Remember, it is best to assume that you won't start seeing results for the keywords you are trying to achieve until about 3 months after the start of a proper SEO campaign. It's important to take this into consideration when going after certain terms in some industries.

Keyword's Worth - Knowing how much a keyword is worth can make a huge difference in revenue, ROI and time spent. Imagine that you own a pet store and you offer all types of dog products. It would be best to spend more time focusing on terms like dog houses, dog bed, puppy medicine instead of dog collars, leashes and doggy treats.

Sponsored Search Bidders - When you search a term, you can see first-hand how valuable a term is based on how many companies are bidding for sponsored listings. Usually the more websites bidding for a term, the more searches or profit those keywords can bring. There are also a variety of keyword spy tools to help you see how much the average cost per click is to rank in paid search.

Local Search - Could you add cities or states to your key terms? Most of the time local search terms are easier to obtain than broader searched terms.

Remember, once you determine which keywords will bring the most traffic to your site, it is best to see how hard it is to rank for each one of them. All proper keyword research leads to profitable possibilities. Before you spend $1,000's of dollars or hundreds of hours optimizing your site and/or building links, make sure you are heading in the most efficient direction possible.