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Keyword research is the cornerstone of search engine optimization. When someone searches "fishing," your fishing site better be in the first 30 results, or it won't be found. You need proper keyword density, use of headings and meta tags, and incoming links with good "anchor text" (more on that in future issues), but keyword research is where you start.
You can still use the Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool for free, but better is the Wordtracker service. I once optimized a site for "mountain hiking," and only later discovered, with Wordtracker, that "mountains hiking" was getting over half of the traffic shown by Overture for "mountain hiking." I wasn't optimizing for "mountains hiking." In fact, there are four things to be careful of when using Overture.
1. Singular and plural forms are lumped together.
2. Misspellings are sometimes lumped together. I just searched for "perseverence," and it displayed results for the correct spelling, "perseverance." Had I not noticed, I might have optimized for the misspelling.
3. Keyword phrases are sometimes alphabetized. Careful here. If you saw "bag lightweight sleeping," you might realize that people actually searched "lightweight sleeping bag." What if you see "optimizing website." It might be searched for that way, or it might be "website optimizing," and you need to know. The worst part is that the search tool only alphabetizes sometimes, so you never know.
4. Overture seems to often show more monthly traffic for a keyword than Wordtracker shows for all the search engines put together. I'm not sure which is more correct, but given Overtures other flaws...
Note: Be careful if you use the SBI keyword research tool. They may still rely on Overture for demand figures. Also, I once optimized many pages based on the SBI tool, only to find out it had been producing totally inaccurate figures. The tech people fixed my program, and they may have worked out the bugs by now, but double check your results against Wordtracker.
A good keyword has good demand, and not too much supply. "Fishing" had 289,000 searches on Overture last month, but can you compete against the 35,000,000 results that come up on a Google search? "Bass fishing tips," with 3,700 searches, and 31,000 results is a more likely winner. (Wordtracker rates them for you, with anything over a "10" considered a good keyword.)
Do the Google search in quotation marks, by the way. Without them, the term "bass fishing tips" will pull up all the pages with any of the words, and a page about cars with the word "tips" isn't your competition. On the other hand, search for your pages without quotation marks, because you want others to see you in the first 30 results when they search that way, as most of them will.
(Note: another good thing about Wordtracker is that they give you supply figures for MSN and Google separately. Interestingly, you can sometimes compete easily on MSN for a term that's over-supplied on Google.)
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) experts don't often mention it, but it isn't just the SEO potential of a keyword that's important. Think WSO (Web Site Optimization) too. "Fishing tips," may bring in traffic, but "fishing poles" might bring in more money. Consider the terms and what people are looking for when they use them. Who's more likely to buy your products or click on your affiliate links, a searcher for "fishing stories," or "fishing gear?"
One more thing. No matter the demand/supply ratio, a keyword must have enough demand to base a site on it. On my backpacking site, I easily get half the traffic in the world for "dirtbagging," but that means ten
Next Time: You chose your keywords, now how do you optimize your pages? The latest tricks.
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