You'll be surprised by what your visitors really want, and if you do the proper research, you'll know. Discovering what website visitors want to read, learn about, or buy starts with these three things.

First: Coordinate your web server log collection to pull all files back to a centralized place. Having a log management policy helps get all web log information into one place and makes cross site keyword research easier.
Second: Run log analysis against both page impressions and back end log files. You'll discover search engines with significant traffic you didn't know existed. Often you can get a jump on interests before the popular logging tools update.
Last: Extract keywords for long-tail and significant phrase analysis. Look for context as much as actual keywords used. This tells you want visitors are really seeking and the keywords they use to find you.
I often get the question, “Can't I just use the free keyword tools to see what prospective visitors are seeking?” With recent news of keyword seeding, I've found my most accurate keyword research comes from my own properties. (SEOmoz.org provides an extended list of keyword research tools)
Plus, you aren't looking for just what visitors want to read about, but instead the concepts used by buyers in your marketplace. For a business-to-business website, I want to focus on buyers and capturing qualified leads, not some kid doing a science project or other marketers doing keyword research.
The key to understanding what visitors want is later solidified by tying keywords to purchase behavior. Using these steps tells you which ideas visitors seek can provide accurate free keyword research you can't buy anywhere.
© 2008 JWH Consolidated Inc, All rights reserved.

Justin Hitt helps turn visitors into profits at your business-to-business or industrial website. Clients include large publishers, hosting providers, and government contractors. Learn how at https://www.jwhco.com/