keywords are extremely important

Most techniques to improve your search engine rankings have one thing in common keywords. Choosing appropriate keywords is extremely important. Think about it: Keywords are what lead search engine users to your site.

How to choose your keywords
Choosing the right keywords is the first step to better search engine positioning. Analyze your business carefully and think of all the words that relate to your company or product.

Let's say you sell puppy food. What words would you search for when looking for the same product? Ask your colleagues and friends to think about the same question. This is perhaps the most important stage in your war for a spot in search engines' top 20.

As you think about keywords, consider the following:

1. Who needs your service?
Think about who will use your services, then target them with keywords. For example, people whose dogs are about to have puppies will need puppy food, so you can add phrases like "dog pregnancy" and "puppy health" to your list.

2. Include variations of your keywords
People will search for your site using all sorts of keywords. Making your site easy to find means including misspelled, capitalized and plural keywords. Always include the longer forms of keywords too. For example, use "domestication" as well as "domestic."

3. Avoid wrong keywords
Do not use "stop words" -- particles like "and" and "the" and common words like "Internet." Remember, the more specific your keywords are, the better the chance that people who find your site through search engines will actually benefit from its content.

What are the best places for keywords?
Click on any of the links below to read more about effective keyword placement in:

HTML Title
Text of the page
Meta description
Meta keywords
ALT tags
Comment tags
URL name

Alphabetical priority and its influence
Whether a file name starts with A or Z can have a surprising effect on a site's search engine rankings. Some small search engines still use alphabetical priority as a ranking factor. Directories such as Yahoo! and Open Directory Project list sites in alphabetical order. It's important to consider the effect of the alphabetical hierarchy as you choose keywords. To learn how alphabetical priority is assessed, click here.

Avoid spam
Be careful choosing keywords. If all your keywords don't relate to your site's content you risk being penalized for spam. Don't include "MP3" and "Pokemon" in your keyword list if you sell puppy food. Sure, it will drive up traffic temporarily, but it can also get your site rejected from important search engines.

An Overview

Keywords

* Choose appropriate keywords -- it's critical
* Include variations of keywords, such as misspelled versions
* Avoid stop words
* Place keywords throughout your site

You know that keywords should go be in your HTML title and meta tags, but did you know that you also need to place them in heading tags?


better search engine positioning > The Primary Starting Point
The vast majority of Internet users find new web sites by using a search engine.

A position within the top 20 listings of a major search engine tremendously increases traffic to a web site.

Portal Power
In recent years many search sites have capitalized on the portal trend, positioning themselves as starting points for all of a user's online explorations. The main page at Netscape.com, for example, features customizable options such as stock quotes, horoscopes, news, shopping and more. This trend has leveled off a bit with the emergence of vortals and specific destination sites. However, major portals will remain a popular gateway for many web surfers.

Because the top 8 most-visited search sites combine portal features with a search engine or directory, a good listing on one of these sites provides terrific exposure.

It's low-cost!
Online advertising, such as banner campaigns, can be quite expensive. Search engine placement, on the other hand, can be a low-cost process. Although some search engines have "pay-per-click" programs, paid submissions and many companies optimize sites for paying clients, there's no reason why you can't significantly increase your site's traffic by simply understanding and applying optimization strategy. Any webmaster can learn more about search engine optimization tips and submission procedures.

High search engine rankings can be more effective publicity tools than paid ads. A top position on a major search engine such as AltaVista can increase traffic far more than an expensive banner ad. Plus, the traffic you get will be more targeted -- it will consist of people who set out to find exactly what your site has to offer.

SearchEngines.com can help
SearchEngines.com is your complete search engine resource center. Here you can learn how to better position your site and search the web more effectively. Our content includes a complete guide to search engine optimization, web site submission and web site promotion.

Different engines, different rankings

Every search engine uses its own unique formula, called an algorithm, to index and score web sites. Search engines' algorithms weigh various factors, such as a page's design and links, to rank pages in their search results. By constantly refining and improving their algorithms, search engines hope to give their visitors the most relevant results.

Many search engines form partnerships and buy technologies to improve their algorithms. They combine many factors and place different weight on each one.

Webmasters who want their sites to achieve a Top 20 position spend a lot of time studying different algorithms. Even when several search engines rely on similar factors in composing their rankings, they may still rank the same site differently. For example, imagine two search engines both use meta tags and keyword frequency as their only ranking factors. If the first one weights meta tags as 70% of a site's value and keyword frequency as 30%, and the second one does the opposite, their results will be completely different.

Understanding ranking factors
Before you can understand how each search engine scores web sites, you need to understand the various factors they consider. These factors can be divided into two categories: page-related and outside.

Page-related factors are concerned with keywords and their placement in the HTML. These factors include:

* Format, placement and content of the title tag
* Keyword frequency, weight, prominence and proximity
* Use of the meta description tag
* Use of ALT tags
* Use of comment tags
* Use of keywords in URL names
* Alphabetical placement

Outside factors are not related to the content of your HTML. They include:

* Link popularity
* Click popularity
* Themes
* Overall site design

Achieve results
You can improve most of the above factors to achieve higher rankings. Pay attention to what your competition is doing. Analyze their high-scoring pages and use their techniques.

Keyword Research

Keyword Research Tools

The Keyword Research Tool will help you research appropriate words and phrases to include in your webpage's body text to aid in promotion. Simply enter the sort of word of phrase you wish to be found under, and the tool will suggest some additional words and phrases you can think about using. How One Simple Yet Incredibly Powerful Software Is Transforming The Lives of Regular People From All Over The World...Instantly Elevating Their Income and Boosting Their Qualified Traffic Google Keyword Research Tool

5 Important Facts About Pay Per Click Advertising You Must Know To Survive Online.

..

Fact #1 - Pay per click advertising is one of the most powerful ways to reach your target audience (people who are looking for something to buy) because it can put your marketing message in front of over 1 billion users online in only a matter of minutes!

Fact #2 - Advertising through pay per click generates a higher than average response and sales.

Fact #3 - The key to success with pay per click advertising is to build MASSIVE, quality keyword lists and unleash them on to the search engines and on to your target market.

Fact #4 - Pay per click advertising allows "anyone" to make an income from home, privately, and watch it grow into CEO level income! (Yes, if you have a job right now, you can bet your lunch money that if you follow what I say, you can make more money than the overpaid CEO of your company!)

Fact #5 - Keywords are the building blocks of the internet. Without them, you couldn't find a darn thing...but with them you can dominate the search engines and suck in traffic and income like clockwork.

--

How Effective Is Your Keyword Research?

By Shari Thurow, The ClickZ Network, Aug 30, 2004
Columns | Contact Shari
Sponsored by Kellysearch

Many search engine marketers and ad agencies offer keyword research services. Keyword research and analysis aren't as simple as using the tools available at Overture and Google. Web site owners must go beyond these tools and look at the big picture.

Keyword analysis can be performed on three levels:

* Keyword research tools

* Web analytics software

* Site search engines

Data-mining all three levels provides site owners with the full perspective of how target audiences find the information on their Web sites.

Keyword Research Tools

Many of you probably already use the keyword research tools available at Overture, Google, and Wordtracker. By all means, keep using these tools. They provide great data for keyword research.

For long-term keyword analyses, I gather monthly data from Google, Overture, and Wordtracker. Additionally, I review related search results on Yahoo, Business.com, and Teoma. By researching all these resources, instead of just one, I can determine which specific keyword phrases are the most popular on all these Web search engines and look for a common denominator. I can also see subtle differences among the engines. Some searches are more popular on one engine than another.

For many sites, creating a keyword phrase calendar is a good strategy. The construction industry tends to be more active in warmer months than colder ones. The cold and flu season is coming up in the U.S., which has implications for pharmaceutical and health-related Web sites.

By creating a calendar based on keyword research over years, site owners know what pages to create for timely "natural" search engine optimization (SEO) campaigns and what ads to create for pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns.

Web Analytics Software

I always use Web analytics software (WebTrends, HitBox, ClickTracks, Omniture, etc.) to review keyword phrases. For example, if a natural SEO campaign is successful, the Web analytics software will reflect that success in the following areas:

* Top referring sites

* Top referring URLs

* Top search engines

* Top search phrases

* Top search keywords

* Top entry pages

Additionally, Web analytics software can show if site visitors access the most appropriate pages or sections on the site.

Web analytics software can also reveal untapped keyword phrases. On our own site, we found one of the most frequently visited pages is an article containing graphic design tips. Knowing our target audience seeks knowledge about that topic, we can create an article series on the topic that will provide additional entry points to our site for optimization campaigns and provide additional opportunities for link development campaigns.

Site Search Engines

If you have a site search engine, helpful information to review includes:

* Number of words entered in the search query

* Average number of words entered in the search query

* Average number of characters entered in the search query

* Search terms that yield results but no clicks

* Search terms that yield no results

One item I like to measure is search box length. Sometimes, search boxes aren't long enough. When visitors enter several keywords in the box, they can't see all the words they typed. On the flip side, some search boxes are too long. I try to determine, through focus groups and usability tests, the optimum length of the search box based on the average number of keywords and characters entered in search queries.

Need a starting point? Begin with the length of Google's and Yahoo's search boxes.

Another overlooked item in site search is those search terms that yield results but no clicks. In many of the search engines our firm creates, we use meta-tag descriptions and title-tag content for the search results. If we find a specific keyword phrase consistently yields the appropriate URLs in the search results, then we know the calls to action in the title tag, meta-tag description, or both might not be effective. We'll then rewrite that specific content and measure the resulting CTRs.

What I find interesting is if we optimize pages for better site search engine conversions, Web search engine visibility increases, too.

Analyzing Keyword Research Data

By gathering and analyzing keyword data, Web site owners gain valuable insight to user behavior and ways to create a more user-friendly site that converts visitors into buyers.

Say a site owner discovers visitors are searching for a specific keyword phrase on Google, then arriving at a specific page on his site. He then discovers same keyword phrase is a heavily searched term on his site search engine. This data indicate visitors might not be arriving at the most appropriate landing page. Increasing optimization for other site pages may be necessary.

Compare site searches that yield no results with Web search engine data. If the Web search engines indicate a keyword phrase is popular, and the site search engine shows visitors have a genuine interest in a keyword phrase, you can create new information around a topic.

Conclusion

The goal of keyword research is to:

* Discover new keyword opportunities.

* Fix missed keyword opportunities.

* Generate a calendar of keyword phrases; some keywords are more popular at different times of the year.

* Increase the number of clicks from landing pages to the site.

* Increase the relevance of landing pages from natural SEO, PPC advertising campaigns, press releases, or offline marketing efforts.

Remember, keyword research and analysis is an ongoing process.

Want more search information? ClickZ SEM Archives contain all our search columns, organized by topic. >>resource
-----------------
Five Steps to Effective Keyword Research
By Lisa Barone - February 23, 2007

There's no getting around it. Keyword research is a vitally important aspect of your search engine optimization campaign. If your site is targeting the wrong keywords, the search engines and your customers may never find you, resulting in lost dollars and meaningless rankings. By targeting the wrong keywords, you not only put valuable advertising dollars at risk, you are also throwing away all the time and energy you put into getting your site to rank for those terms to begin with. If you want to stay competitive, you can't afford to do that.

The keyword research process can be broken down into the following phases:

Phase 0 - Demolishing Misconceptions
Phase 1 – Creating the list and checking it twice
Phase 2 – Befriending the keyword research tool
Phase 3 – Finalizing your list
Phase 4 – Plan your Attack
Phase 5 - Rinse, Wash Repeat

Phase 0 - Demolishing Misconceptions

Over the years, we've had the opportunity to work with a wide array of wonderful clients. And as different and diverse as their sites and the individuals running them may have been, many had one thing in common: they were self-proclaimed keyword research mavens right out of the gate.

Or so they thought.

One of the most common misconceptions about conducting keyword research for a search engine optimization campaign is the belief that you already know which terms a customer would use to find your site. You don't. Not without first doing some research anyway. You may know what your site is about and how you, the site owner, would find it, but it's difficult to predict how a paying customer would go about looking for it.

This is due to site owners evaluating their site through too narrow of a lens, causing them to come up with words that read like industry jargon, not viable keywords. Remember, your customer probably doesn't work in the same industry that you do. If they did, they wouldn't need you. When describing your site or product, break away from industry speak. Your customers aren't searching that way and if you center your site on these terms, they'll never find you.

Another misconception is that generic or "big dollar" terms are the most important for rankings, even if the term you're going after has nothing to do with your site. Imagine a women's clothing store trying to rank for the term "google". Sure, thousands of searchers probably type that word into their search bar daily, but they're not doing it looking for you. They're looking for Google. Being ranked number one for a term no one would associate with your site is a waste of time and money (and it may get you in trouble!). Your site may see a lot of traffic, but customers won't stick around.

Phase 1 – Creating the list and checking it twice

The initial idea of keyword research can be daunting. Trying to come up with the perfect combination of words to drive customers to your site, rev up your conversion rate and allow the engines to see you as an expert would easily give anyone a tension headache.

The trick is to start slowly.

The first step in this process is to create a list of potential keywords. Brainstorm all the words you think a customer would type into their search box when trying to find you. This includes thinking of phrases that are broad and targeted, buying and research-oriented, and single and multi-word. What is your site hoping to do or promote? Come up with enough words to cover all the services your site offers. Avoid overly generic terms like 'shoes' or 'clothes'. These words are incredibly difficult to rank for and won't drive qualified traffic to your site. Focus on words that are relevant, but not overly used.

If you need help brainstorming ideas, ask friends, colleagues or past customers for help. Sometimes they are able to see your site differently than the way you yourself see it. Also, don't be afraid to take a peek at your competitor's Meta Keyword tag. What words are they targeting? How can you expand on their keyword list to make yours better? It's okay to get a little sneaky here. All's fair in love and search engine rankings.

Phase 2 – Befriend the keyword research tool

Now that you have your list, your next step is to determine the activity for each of your proposed keywords. You want to narrow your list to only include highly attainable, sought-after phrases that will bring the most qualified traffic to your site.

In the early days of SEO, measuring the "popularity" of your search terms was done by performing a search for that phrase in one of the various engines and seeing how many results it turned up. As you can imagine, this was a tedious and ineffective method of keyword research. Luckily, times have changes and we now have tools to do the hard part for us.

By inputting your proposed keywords into a keyword research tool, you can quickly learn how many users are conducting searches for that term every day, how many of those searches actually converted, and other important analytical information. It may also tune you in to words you had previously forgotten or synonyms you weren't aware of.

There are lots of great tools out there to help you determine how much activity your keywords are receiving. Here's a few of our personal favorites:

Overture Keyword Selector Tool: Overture's Keyword Selector tools shows you how many searches have been conducted over the last month for a particular phrase and lists alternative search terms you may have forgotten about. Our only complaint with Overture is that they lump singular and plural word forms into one phrase. For example, "boots" and "boot" would appear under one category of "boot". This can sometimes cause problems.

Wordtracker: Wordtracker is a paid-use tool that lets you look up popular keyword phrases to determine their activity and popularity among competitors. Their top 1000 report lists the most frequently searched for terms, while their Competition Search option provides valuable information to determine the competitiveness of each phrase. This is very useful for figuring out how difficult it will be to rank for a given term. It may also highlight hidden gems that have low competition-rates, but high relevancy.

Trellian Keyword Discovery tool: This is a fee-based tool where users can ascertain the market share value for a given search term, see how many users search for it daily, identify common spellings and misspellings, and discover which terms are impacted by seasonal trends (mostly useful for PPC).

Google AdWords Keyword Tool: Google's keyword PPC tool doesn't provide actual search numbers for keywords. Instead, it displays a colored bar, giving users only an approximation. Still, it may be useful.

Google Suggest: Google Suggest is a great way to find synonyms and related word suggestions that may help you expand your original list.

Thesaurus.com: Again, another way to locate synonyms you may have forgotten.

If those don't tickle your fancy, we'd also suggest Bruce Clay's Check Traffic tool, which estimates the number of queries per day for that search term across the major search engines.

Keep in mind that you're not only checking to see if enough people are searching for a particular word, you're also trying to determine how competitive that phrase is in terms of rankings.

Understanding the competition tells you how much effort you will need to invest in order to rank well for that term. There are two things to pay attention to when making this decision: how many other sites are competing for the same word and how strong are those sites' rankings (i.e. how many other sites link to them, how many pages do they have indexed)? Basically, is that word or phrase even worth your time? If it's not, move on.

While you're testing your new terms, you may want to do a little housekeeping and test the activity for keywords your site is already targeting. Keep the ones that are converting and drop the losers.

Phase 3 – Finalizing your list

Now that you have your initial list of words and have tested their activity, it's time to narrow down the field and decide which terms will make it into your coveted final keyword list.

We recommend creating a spreadsheet or some other visual that will allow you to easily see each word's conversion rate, search volume and competition rate (as given to you by the tools mentioned above). These three figures will allow you to calculate how viable that term is for your site and will be a great aid as you try and narrow down your focus.

The first step in narrowing down your list is to go through and highlight the terms that most closely target the subject and theme of your web site. These are the terms you want to hold on to. Kill all words that are not relevant to your site or that you don't have sufficient content to support (unless you're willing to write some). You can't optimize for words that you don't have content for.

Create a mix of both broad and targeted keywords. You'll need both to rank well. Broad terms are important because they describe what your web site does; however, they won't increase the level of qualified traffic coming into your site.

For example, say you are a company that specializes in cowboy boots. It may be natural for your site to focus on the broad search terms "boots" and "cowboy boots". These words are important because they tell the search engines what you do and may increase your visitors, but the traffic you receive will be largely unqualified. Customers will arrive on your site still unsure of what kind of boots you sell. Do you offer traditional cowboy boots, stiletto cowboy boots, toddler cowboy boots, suede cowboy boots or women's cowboy boots? By only targeting broad terms, customers won't know what you offer until they land on your site.

Targeted terms are often easier to rank for and help bring qualified traffic. They also make you a subject matter expert to the search engines, since the targeted terms strengthen the theme created with the broader phrases. Sticking with our example, targeted terms for your cowboy boots site may be "men's cowboy boots", "blue suede cowboy boots", "extra-wide women's cowboy boots", etc. Broad search terms may bring you the higher levels of traffic, but it's targeted, buying-oriented terms like these that will maximize conversions.

Phase 4 – Plan your attack

So you made your list of about 10-20 highly focused keywords, now what do you do with them? You prepare them for launch!

Chances are, if you did your keyword research right, at least some of the words on your list already appear in your site content, but some of them may not. Start thinking about how many pages you'll need to create to support these new words, and how and where your keyword phrases will be used.

We typically recommend only going after three or four related keywords per page (five if you can balance them properly). Any more than that and you run the risk of diluting your page to the point where you rank for nothing. Make sure to naturally work the keywords into your content and avoid over-repetition that may be interpreted as spamming. Your content should never sound forced.

Your on-page content isn't the only place where you can insert keywords. Keywords should also be used in several other elements on your site:

* Title Tag
* Meta Description Tags
* Meta Keywords Tag
* Headings
* Alt text
* Anchor Text/ Navigational Links

You've spent a lot of time molding your keywords; make sure you use them in all the appropriate fields to get the maximum benefit.

Phase 5 - Rinse, Wash, Repeat.

Congratulations. Your initial keyword research process is behind you. You've created your list, checked it twice, made friends with the keyword research tools and are now off to go plan your attack. You're done, right?

Unfortunately, no. As your customer's and your site's needs change over time, so will your keywords. It's important to keep monitoring your keywords and make tweaks as necessary. Doing so will allow you to stay ahead of your competition and keep moving forward.

Good luck! >>Five Steps to Effective Keyword Research