How to Choose the Best Keywords

Let's say John is selling his ebook, "How to Start a Doggie Daycare Business," on his website and now he wants to start driving people to it. And let's say Jane wants to start a doggie daycare and is using a search engine to find an ebook on how to do it.

What keywords would she use? "doggie daycare" - that's a given, but what else?

She might enter:

dog
lodging
kennel
boarding
business

She could also use "e-book" instead of "ebook" and "day care" instead of "daycare" so John's keywords would be:

how to start a doggie daycare business
how to start a doggie day care business
doggie daycare
doggie day care
doggie
dog
business
ebook
e-book
lodging
kennel
boarding

And some doggie daycares call themselves "dog hotels" or "doggie camps" so John might want to include "hotel" and "camp" on his keyword list as well.

Don't worry about plurals. Search engines figure them out on their own.

If someone using a search engine wanted to find your site, your blog, or your Squidoo lens, what words would they use? Grab a piece of paper and make a list.
 

But when it comes to getting your site found on search engines, the trick is to know what words other people would use, not the words you'd use.

This is where keyword tools come in. They'll show you the exact keywords and phrases people have used on search engines.

SEObook has a free keyword tool that's pretty handy and it shows you how many people search on Google, Yahoo and MSN every day for the keyword(s) you enter in it, but...

I entered — internet — into it and it said that 1051 people use Google, Yahoo and MSN every day to search for:

internet zkjhsdkkkkkkkksfd

I find that hard to believe. Ok, one two-year-old, maybe, but I don't believe over a thousand people do EVERY DAY, so I don't trust what SEObook says.
 

Another one is Google's Adword Keyword Tool. Even though it's for people to use to create pay-per-click (PPC) ad campaigns, it works for finding good keywords, and it's free.
 

But if you really want people to find you online, you want:

- Most Searched Keywords
- Rank Improving Keywords
- Low Competition Keywords
- LSI Keywords (a.k.a. "synonyms")
- Long tail Keywords
- Misspelled Keywords
- and Competitor's Converting Keywords

Keyword Country will give you all that and more. It's the best keyword tool available.

 

An example of a long tail keyword would be 'small business web design' and a short tail keyword would just be 'web design'.

Enter the first keyword on your list into one of those keyword tools and see what keywords people used to search for sites, like yours.

The list it gives you is gold. Print it out so you can use a highlighter to highlight all of the other keywords people used that you can use for your site.

Next, go back to your original list and search for the second keyword on it.

Keep entering the words on your list and when you're done, enter the words you highlighted that other people used.

  Your goal is to find as many good keywords as you can.  

What other words could you use? If, for example, you had a marketing web site, you'd not only want to see what keywords come up when you try "marketing," but also for "promotion."

How about derivatives of your important keywords? In the above example, you might use, "market," "marketing" and "marketer" as well as "promote" and "promotion."
 

Now that you know what your keywords are, you need to know how to use them so the people using search engines will find you. Check out 20 Smart Ways to Use Your Keywords.