CHOOSE YOUR KEYWORDS

CHOOSE YOUR KEYWORDS
The first thing you need to do when you begin chasing a good
search engine ranking is decide which words you want to rank
well for. This is called performing a keyword analysis.
Keyword analysis involves a bit
of search and a good knowledge of your business and the benefits
you offer your customers.
There are several websites
specifically designed to make keyword analysis easier. Two
examples are
Overture's Inventory tool which you can find at http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

This tool is free and very easy to use and understand, but it
only tells you how many searches have been conducted previous
month for your keyword (and similar keywords).

WordTracker which you can find at http://www.wordtracker.com.
WordTracker is a much more powerful tool, but you have to pay
to use it (you can subscribe for a day for around $10).
WordTracker helps you find the most appropriate keyword for
your site telling you what people are really searching for.
Here's how it works... You type in a word which summarizes what
you do, and it tells you how many times that word has been
searched for in the last month. It also tells you how many other
websites are using that word as keyword (i.e. targeting the
same customers you are). Based on this information it rates
this word. The 'best' keywords are the ones that a lot of
people are searching for but which few websites are targeting.
WordTracker even suggests and rates alternative related
words.

TIP When you're using WordTracker, bear in mind that it's just talking
about numbers, and numbers don't always tell the whole story.
So don't just jump in and use the best keywords; you need to
consider your own situation. It may be the case that you're
forced to select a keyword phrase which is not rated
particularly highly. There are two situations in which this
might happen:
You're in the niche market with elatively few
customers searching for the keyword. In this situation, you
will probably find it relatively easy to reach the top of the
rankings, but you won't generate a huge volume of traffic when
you get there.

A lot of your competitors are targeting your keyword (it's hotly
contested) but it's the only one you can use. If you target
it, you'll just have to work a bit harder on your backlinks in
order to rank highly. When there's a lot of competition for a
keyword, it's likely that traffic payoff is good once you reach
the top.

Single Keyword vs Keyword Phrases
Generally speaking, you're better off targeting phrases, not single words.
For most businesses, there's simply too much competition for
single keywords

For instance, if you're in search engine optimization, you normally wouldn't
choose "search engine optimization" as your keyword.
Go to Google and search for "search engine
optimization" and you will see why... There are nearly 20
million results and top rankings are dominated by big companies
like Google, AddMe, Ineedhits etc (at the time of writing).
What's more, research shows that customers are becoming more
search-savvy - they're searching for more and more specific
strings. They're learning that by being more specific, they find
what they're looking for much faster.

So instead of targeting "search engine optimization", try to think
specific keyword phrase. Ask yourself what's unique about your
business? Perhaps your website is based in India? Then why not
use "search engine optimization india" as your keyword
phrase? This way, you'll not only stand a chance in the
rankings, you'll also display in much more targeted searches. In
other words, a higher percentage of your site's visitors will be
looking for a search engine optimization company based in
India.

Develop a keyword strategy
Also, think about developing a keyword strategy. If you start out targeting
a very specific keyword phrase as described above, make sure it
includes the more generic - hotly contested - single keyword.
For example, you'll notice that the keyword phrase above,
"search engine optimization india" includes the
important keyword "search engine optimization". This
way you are really targeting both at once. As your site's
importance (or PageRank) and search engine presence increases
you'll start to rank for "search engine optimization"
as well. In time, you'll start ranking well for "search
engine optimization" even though you are only actively
targeting "search engine optimization
india".

Google PageRank (PR) is how Google scores a website's importance. It
gives all sites a mark out of 10. By downloading the Google
Toolbar you can view the PR of any site you visit .