How do you go about finding Keywords ?

The goal of finding the right keywords is to bring targeted traffic to your Web site by identifying keywords that are often searched for, but still not so competitive as to make a top ranking next to impossible.




Start with your Website concept, or idea, and create a list of keywords. Write down all the words and phrases that you think are related to your ideas and that can be used by people when they search for your Web site.

Don't limit your Keywords to single words

Statistical research has shown that most people search using multiple-word keywords composed of two, or even three, words in order to get more targeted results.

Try to look at the Web site from the visitor end.

Who are they?

What are they trying to do?

What other items are they looking for?

Work out what problem your target market is trying to solve, when they do a search.

Your Web site should solve that problem.

What other keywords would they look for?

Add them to your original list. You can add a whole new major direction, and income stream, to your Web site simply by thinking about your target's other needs.

Adwords

Some keyword bids can easily reach prices higher than $20/click.

To stay in the game you need to find those overlooked lower traffic keywords. There are many sources where you can extract keywords from.

One of the most popular Keyword tools is Overture's Keyword Suggestion tool.

Because of its popularity the keywords you find there are often very competitive both on Adwords and Overture (now Yahoo Search Marketing).

Fortunately there are some better alternatives. One good place to look for the right keywords are in the competition's meta tags.

Most website have meta tags, and their owners make sure to use the right keywords in them.

You can search for competing sites in Google and check the keywords in meta tags.

Wordtracker

Go to WordTracker and start the trial. It works fine, but, unfortunately, it's fairly limited.

For more advanced features you can buy a one-day or one-week subscription to full service for a small fee.

WordTracker will guide you through 4 steps:

Step 1. Type in your first keyword, and click on the "Proceed" button. WordTracker will display a list of keywords related to the word that you had typed in.

Step 2. Click on the first word which is applicable for your Web site idea and WordTracker will open another window and show a list of keywords, which contain the word you had clicked on, and the number of times they have been used by searchers.

Add related keywords to your basket by clicking on them. Repeat this process for each of the related words.

Step 3. This step gives you some choices that are only available in the full version.

Step 4. You'll see keywords from your basket along with their attributes, the most important of which is the KEI Analysis.

Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI) - a rank based on how popular the keyword is, and how much competition it has.

The amount of competition is determined by searching for each phrase on MSN, and finding out how many sites come up in the results.

Write down the most profitable keywords (KEI > 10) along with their attributes,

Click the link at the bottom of the page to try again, clear the basket (in the trial mode it can contain only 30 words) and type in your next keyword.

You may repeat it as many times as you need to analyze all related keywords.

It is important to note that, WordTracker assigns high KEI to words with low Count and very low (or zero) Competing.

Don't target these keywords.

What good would it do for you to rank high for these words if no one ever searches for them? Select words with high Count (not less than 100).

The free trial uses MSN to determine the amount of competition. Additionally, check the competitiveness of your best keywords on Google.

Search for each of them using exact match search.

These numbers are usually much higher than those on MSN, and KEIs are correspondingly lower.

Finding the most profitable keywords

Now it's time to pick the keywords with the best profitability.

These will be ones with high KEI. A low score means that either not many people search for this phrase, or that there's too much competition for it.

Eliminate any words with low KEI, especially if they're not searched upon very often (i.e., Count is low).

Your Competitors

Go to Google and search for the first keyword from your idea. Make a note of your competitor's site.

As you review the Top sites, you may get some great ideas for content on your own Web site.

You may add new relevant words and phrases to your original list of keywords or, perhaps, you may even discover a new idea that is so strong that you decide to adjust your first concept, or even replace it with this new one!

You will be much more effective if you stick to what you really know and love.

The amount of content for maximum success should be in the range of 40-70 different highly profitable keywords.

You sould be able to create 40-70 keyword-focused content pages which deliver high-value information and rank well with the Search Engines.

Typos, Common misspellings and Conversion

The three major benefits of adwertising with misspelled keywords:

Higher Click-Through-Rates

Higher Sales Conversions, Less competition,

Higher ROI.

Many search engines already recognize misspelled keywords and suggest the correct spelling, however these typos can be targeted with pay-per click advertising.

There is a very good chance that if someone is looking for the product your are advertising, their eye will catch your ad, as search engines are most likely not serving up what they were actually looking for.

There is one thing to look out for. There are many typo generators out there.

Many of them just replace characters randomly in your keywords.

This may work, but you will quickly run out of keyword space in your Adwords account if you generate thousands of typos just for one keyword.

Remember Your Target

When using Adwords, there are 3 different match types: broad match, phrase match and exact match.

Here's what each of those keywords do: Broad match: matches any search that includes all of your keywords in any order.

Phrase match: matches any search that includes all of your keywords in the same order.

Exact match: matches your exact keyword.

Many people use just simple broad matching.

Exact and phrase matched keywords have priority over broad match, so if your competitor uses exact match, and you use broad match, his ad will be showing instead of yours, because his keyword is more specific.

To gain an edge over your competition you need to wrap your keywords for all three possible match types.

For example let's take the keyword: keyword research.

broad match: keyword research phrase match: "keyword research"

exact match: [keyword research]

If you have many keywords it can become a nightmare to wrap all your keywords in square brackets and quotes.

There are several tools around that can help you with keywords, and saves you time by wrapping your keywords automatically.

Paste your keywords, select the match types you need and you get your wrapped keyword list almost instantly.

Download a trial version and see for yourself.

Keyword Tool - Free Trial

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