Did you know, that this year people will spend 204 BILLION dollars on the internet!? That is over 500 million dollars every day of the year. In the next ten minutes I am going to teach you how you can use keywords to claim your portion of that fortune.
Definition of Keywords
Search the internet and you will find as many definitions for keywords as you will find websites about SEO. It is true that the word can be used to describe several different things, but in terms of SEO Keywords are the words that your potential customers are typing into search engines.
How Google Uses Keywords
Google and other search engines use keywords to determine what sites people want to see. When your potential customers enter a keyword in the search box, the search engine displays the web pages they find that are most relevant to that keyword. Relevance is determined by complex algorithms, but that is a topic for a later post.
Where to Start
A good place to start when choosing keywords is to put yourself in your customers’ shoes and ask, “If I was looking for my products online, how would I search?” or, "What keywords would I use to find my products online?". Write those keywords down! Remember this is just a place to start, and not a way to choose your keywords.
Solidify Your List
What you have at this point is a list of keywords that your potential customers might be using to search for your products. Before you can choose effective keywords you need to see what keywords people are using to search for your products online.
Believe it or not, there are several free tools that you can use to find out what keywords your customers are using to search for you. One of the easiest is the Google Keyword Tool. This tool displays your search, along with other similar keywords, and the average number of times it is searched each month. It will also show monthly trends, highest month, and other information that you will use more at a later stage of choosing keywords. This is extremely useful because it quickly takes a single phrase our customers MIGHT be using, and turns it into a list of hundreds of keywords that our customers ARE using. It is a subtle, but very important difference. Keyword tools take all the guess work out of the process by telling us the keywords people are actually looking for. All we have to do is decide which keywords we will be most successful with... I say that with a grin because that is where the real art of SEO comes in. Keyword tools help you solidify your list, but they should not be the final determinig factor in what keywords you focus on.
Determining your Keyword Niche
One key to success is choosing the keywords that best describe your niche. A niche, is another name for the market you are going after. For example, if you sell children’s toys you are in a different niche than a company selling children’s clothing. You and the other company are selling children’s goods, but you are focusing on the toys niche while they are focusing on the clothing niche. To help you quickly determine if a keyword fits your niche, ask yourself two valuable questions.
- "Does this keyword match my product or service?" If the answer is no, move to the next keyword and ask the question again; if the answer is yes, move on to the second question:
- "Based on average search volumes, can I compete using this keyword?" A good range to start with is 10 to 50,000 searches per month. If the answer is yes for both questions then you have found a good keyword to use on your website.
Before you can be sure that you have chosen the keywords that are going to be the most successful for your, you need to test them. The fastest way to test your keywords is to set up paid advertising campaigns. This way you can quickly see actual results from actual visitors to your site.
Google adwords is the method I always use first. With adwords you can quickly send highly qualified traffic to your landing pages, and measure the effectiveness of that traffic. If people buy, it is a great keyword, if they don't, then move on.
It is important to test your keywords to be sure that you are choosing the keywords that are going to bring buyers to your site, because the keywords that you choose are going to be the foundation of all of your Internet Marketing efforts.
Finalize your Keyword List
Once you have tested your landing pages, and you know which keywords are the most profitable, you can finalize your list. Remember that keywords change with shopping trends, and they are a tool you can use to bring traffic to your site. Keep testing new keywords to ensure that the keywords you are focused on are the best ones for you business.
Quick Checklist for Choosing Keywords
- Make a list of keywords you think your customers are using to search for your products.
- Use a keyword tool to solidify your list
- Determine your Keyword niche
- Test your keywords
- Finalize your keywords list
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