A Tutorial in Optimizing Keyword Tags

Harvesting a mammoth list of keyword tags for your niche use could take weeks. If not for the development of helpful keyword tools, you'd be wasting a lot of valuable time that could best be spent on other areas of your business.

Almost all keyword tools are relatively easy to use. You simply start with a broad keyword and dig down into it, grabbing each relevant word or phrase the tool spits out for you as a result.

For instance, you might start off with "golf" and the keyword tool would give you everything from other broad phrases like "golf clubs" to more narrow, long-tail phrases such as, "Calloway Big Bertha 460."

With a keyword tool, you'll be able to find out any and all keyword tags that are related to your niche, but you also get to see the volume involved. You find out how many people are searching for that particular keyword per month or per day.

Some people insist on doing it the hard way - they figure, "Why pay for keywords when I can brainstorm them on my own?"

The reason is efficiency of time and accuracy. You might be able to brainstorm, but will you catch every possibility?

Time-wise, think of how long it will take you to create a warehouse of about 10,000 keywords for your niche, because that's about the base number of keywords advanced online marketers use in their sales strategy.

The top 100 most-used keywords vary from niche to niche.

Of course, there are the most popular keywords ever - and most paid keyword tools (and even a few freebie tools) have top 100 lists for the week that you can view.

But let's assume you already have a niche. You've gather your 10k or more list of prime and long-tail keywords. You're ready to apply a strategy for the use of your keywords on the 'net - where do you start?

First you start by optimizing your own website with the keywords. Use them in Meta tags, in the headlines, in bullets, and bulk content. Even the domain itself ideally includes the use of a prime keyword in its origin.

After tackling this task, you move on to use the keyword list in your marketing efforts that will funnel traffic to your domain. Take each word and phrase and create an article using it in the title and body and submit it to various online article directories such as Ezine Articles.

Register Squidoo lenses (like this very page) and use the keywords in your URL, in the titles of each module, and in the content you create. Add a comprehensive tag list to the lens, too.

In your blogs that you create to develop valuable backlinks to your primary domain, anchor your hyperlinks to your site using the keywords. When Googlebots crawl your blog and see a link using the keyword "golf," for example - and it links to your site, they give your site a nod for being relevant for that keyword.