Over 2 years ago, when I just started online marketing, I decided I'd promote Vizio TV's... The Costco I used to go to had just started to sell them.... Or, I had just noticed them - because I was looking for a flat screen TV and Vizio's were cheap, compared to everybody else. Very cheap.

Anyway, I picked 3 or 4 models and, dutiful student, I used product name keywords for all my lenses (back then Squidoo was still being promoted as the stupid easy way to make money as an affiliate; turned out, Google had pissed on that a few months earlier, but I did not know and those who'd written products promoting their 'make money with Squidoo' were not eager to share and/or update their products).

Anyway, in short order I had 4 lenses on various flat screen TV's (Vizio and other, but mostly Vizio). I made many mistakes. Including how I thought about keywords... I looked at traffic, pr of top pages, inurl, intitle commands, number of backlinks, age of domains.

But I missed a big thing. Specifically, I did not find the answer to the question: What's the person typing in this keyword thinking.

I wrote articles for my lenses, 10 of them. Nine of 10 got read 50-200 times. One of them got read over 1,800 times the first month. It's still read 30-60 times a month now, though it's 2 and a half years later and the TV model I was promoting is ancient history.

So, I looked at it, pondered the mystery of its attractiveness. It turns out, I accidentally did what you're supposed to do when you do keyword research and promote products: I answered a specific question a specific buyer had in mind, specifically, I told them that the TV model I was promoting was good for gaming.

Just so we're clear, I put Vizio flat screen tvs in Yahoo answers. One of the question was about Vizio tvs being good or bad for gaming. I did a bit of research, found out that some models were, some were not (the image on some refreshed 4s on others 6s (i.e. 4 times per second vs 6 times per second; the consensus in the gaming community was that you needed at least 5 but 4 was good). I found out a couple of other things (like resolution) did, or could, play a role (depending on other factors that I no longer remember).

I did another thing right: I promised them in the title and the summary that they'd know the answer to their question if they read the article. I'm not going to look up the article title... but, if memory serves, it was something like: Are Vizio Flat TVs Good for Gaming?

My second best read article, by the way, was title (and was) A side-by-side comparison of... kind of article.

Conclusion, when doing keyword research, don't forget to ask yourself: what's the person typing in this keyword thinking?

Take vizio, samsung, or any flat screen tv. When someone's typing a model name/number in the search bar, what are they thinking?

Well, it turns out, they're wondering if it's good for gaming.
Turns out, another question they have is: is it the right size for my room?
They also were thinking, how does it compare with Samsung tv's, with LG (and a few other) in terms of quality and price.
They were also wondering if Vizio plasma tv have the blackout problem that other brands had (Vizio came on the market in 2002 and, many people heard of it for the first time in 2010).

So, instead of just writing an article/post around the keyword, now I can ask myself: which of these questions is posed by people who can afford the darn thing and are willing to spend money on it now?

Very important question.

Experience tells me that the gamers were. By the way, I was not then, nor at any other time, a gamer.

But you don't need first hand experience, just some common sense and a bit of knowledge about people.

People who want to know if it's right for their room are close to buying... but they're not passionate about the answer... it's not attached to that TV model... Of course, if you promote on Amazon.com it matters less... They can buy anything else and you still get the credit... if they do it fast enough.
People who're wondering about blackouts... they're doing research still.
People who're wondering how it compares to other brands... research mode still.

People who're wondering if it's good for gaming? They must have a tv screen for their passion. They pay money and, some, spend stupid amounts of time, playing their games. For them, not having a TV set it's not an option. The very passionate ones will move mountains to get the cash needed... The only question is, will they buy through your link or not?