Keywords...the Key to Internet and Marketing Sucess

Keywords are customer bait. A good keyword draws visitors like honey and if your website is sticky...well there you go.

If you are writing a blog, the keyword list will expand as you write, depending on how far afield you roam. If you have a website, the list should be pretty solid from the beginning, because every website should have a laser focus on a specific niche.

Start with the products you have to sell. Each product name and category is a keyword. If you are selling something like herbal formulas, the individual herbs in the formulas are keywords.

If you are a coach or instructor, or if the site showcases you and your talents, then your name, your field of endeavor, your practice focus and any methodologies you feature are keywords.

If you are based out of a certain place and that place is relevant to your customer, add in place names and even addresses.

If you feature content by celebrities or experts, those are keywords.

Think in terms of categories and you won't go far wrong. What I like to do is to sit down with a legal pad and pen (how analog of me!) and start by asking the question: "If I were my customer, what words would I put into the search engine to find my site?"

I then begin my list of keywords. I usually try for 25 as a base. When I am finished, I look up any words that aren't names in a thesaurus and see if there are any synonyms for any of my words.

This becomes my base list of keywords. Next...Expanding the List.

Once you have your base list, it is time to stop being creative and leave the driving to your mouse and browser.

There are several good keyword suggestion tools out there. Back in the days when the Overture search wasn't owned by Yahoo, they created a handy dandy tool that you can't get to now, unless you are their customer.

Nevertheless, you should know, if you are a Godin fan, that vacuums do not exist for long in cyberspace. Someone always comes along to fill the void. In this case there were many. My personal favorite is SEO Book.

This little beauty actually gives you a summary of the daily hits on any particular keyword for the Google, Yahoo and MSN search engines as well as tons of links to other places where these things are tracked and instead of having to do the cut and paste I used to do with the original keyword suggestion tool, this one will export a CSV file so you can organize your research in a spreadsheet!

So how do you use this amazing dynamic keyword goldmine? Simply click on the link above (bookmark it as soon as you get there). Click on the "Tools" tab and then choose "Search Term Suggestion Tool". Input a search term and boom! Internet marketing dynamite. You will know ever possible (well at least the top 100) combination of keywords that uses the base keyword you put in and have tons of places to research that keyword.

The possible uses are amazing. You might want to check out the video tutorial on the page there. It will blow your socks off.

Next...Using the Keyword Tool

The first thing you will notice in the tool once you put in your first keyword is the column on the far left. This column is a list of up to 100 keyword phrases generated from your original keyword query. If there are no results (that would be scary actually) scratch that keyword from your list and go on to the next.

You will also notice that not every keyword phrase on the list actually applies to you and your business.

Next to each list from right to left are columns with numbers and links in them. Skip the Wordtracker Count column for now. Look at the 4 columns to the right of it. These show the DAILY search hits for each of the 3 search engines listed and a cumulative total for all three.

What this tells you is how many people look for these search terms on average each day. What this also tells you is whether or not this keyword is worth your attention. You should know that if the number is really high that the competition for that search term is also going to be very high.

Most often I find that the more generic the term the more people are competing for it. Take travel, for instance. The average daily from all three search engines for travel right now is over 16,000. Our greedy little eyeballs see that big number and instantly start calculating our piece of that pie.

There are a few problems that raise their hairy heads here, however. When you google "travel", you get (as of today) 1,130,000,000 results. If you were counting zeros you noticed that that is over a billion results. What chance do you have to make it on the first 2 pages? You do the math.

The other problem you will find, is that most sites aren't about travel in the broad sense, but specific travel: cruising, resorts, tours, destinations, business, pleasure, vacation, sight-seeing, etc. A person who just puts the word travel into the search engine may or may not be a customer for you.

But the long tail says (don't know about the long tail? Go here.)that people who are looking for stuff are usually looking for specific stuff. Do you want a million hits and 3 sales? Or are you interested in a thousand hits and 30 sales?

Hits mean nothing. Random hits use up your bandwidth without giving anything in return. Productive hits, on the other hand, mean a higher bottom line at a much lower cost.

So now as you go down the list, you will find specific keyword phrases that fit you like a glove. If that keyword phrase is getting even a hundred hits a day, you have struck gold. Assuming you can get in front of those hundred people a day with exactly what they are looking for.

Next...Using the Keyword Tool - Part 2

Coming soon to a lens near you...