Tweet

How To Select The Best Keywords For Your Site

Written by: Jennifer Horowitz

Article Overview: “The Single Most Misunderstood Concept in Search Engine Positioning”

How To Select The Best Keywords For Your Site

As more websites compete for valuable search engine “real estate,” Search Engine Optimization is becoming much more complex.

And *keyword selection* remains one of the most important (yet least understood) pieces of the puzzle.

“Why keyword selection is so important and
how to select the best keywords for your website”

To clear up the mystery, let’s break it down into bite-sized pieces by answering our most frequently asked questions about keyword selection:

“What’s the difference between a keyword and
a keyword phrase? And which should I use?”

Put simply, a keyword is a single word, like “Maui.” But a keyword phrase is a more descriptive string of two or more words, like “Maui vacations." Your approach to keyword selection will vary, depending on your industry. For certain niche markets, using single words can be a good strategy (as long as they are specific to your product or service). But regardless of your industry…

Well-researched keyword phrases will attract quality, targeted visitors to your website who *specifically* want what you are selling.

Let’s assume you sell Maui vacations, and your website is listed at the top of the search results for the keywords “Maui” and “Maui vacations.” Let’s look at the characteristics of two groups of visitors you’d attract.

Those who perform a search on “Maui” are searching for a wide variety of topics. Such as Maui’s history and culture, snorkeling, botanic gardens, hiking trails, sailing, golfing, and yes - some will be looking for Maui vacations. But only a small percentage of the people who perform a search on the keyword “Maui” are qualified prospect for your vacation packages.

Now think about the prospects who find you by searching for “Maui vacations.” Every prospect who performs this search is a qualified prospect for you. And by getting a top ranking with this more descriptive keyword phrase, you attract people who are more likely to become paying customers!

You see, someone who wants to take a vacation to Maui is not likely to search for “Maui.” They’re not going to search for “Vacations.” And they’re not going to search for “Hawaii” either. They’re much more likely to enter a keyword phrase like “Maui vacations.”

Today, more than ever, your ideal prospects are going to enter precisely what they want to find, rather than general, open-ended terms. Which means your keyword selection must target your ideal customer with laser-beam focus.

At the same time, the search engines and directories themselves are also becoming much more strict with the pages that they’ll accept and index. They’ll be watching your submissions like a hawk to make sure that they’re completely relevant to the topic reflected by your keyword phrase.

In a previous article, we weighed the pros and cons of doing your search engine positioning yourself versus hiring a reputable company to handle this time consuming task for you. Many of you have wisely realized that it can be much more time-effective and cost-effective to leave your search engine placement in the hands of experts, so you van focus on your core business.

So the most important question of all now becomes:

“If I hire a company to do my search engine placement for me, should I be expected to provide my own keywords and keyword phrases, or do they have a responsibility to advise me?”

Frankly, any company that doesn’t provide hands on consultation in this area is not helping you to maximize your search engine rankings. Keyword selection is the entire foundation on which your search engine campaign is built. Can you imagine hiring a contractor to build your house… only to have him say,

“Okay, YOU lay all the bricks and pour
the concrete - then I’ll do the rest?”

It’s senseless.

Related Articles
  SEO-Niche Marketing Thru Search Engine Optimization
  Winning The Search Engine Game
  PPC Campaign - 4 Tips To Increase Effectiveness
  Inbound Links are VERY Important!
  5 Costly Search Engine Optimization Mistakes That May Doom Your Business

Article Tags: keyword phrase, keyword phrase, keyword phrases, keyword phrases, keyword selection, keyword selection, Maui, Maui vacations, search engine, search engine, search engine placement, search engines



Related Forum Posts
Re: SEO... - 1: Find the Best Keywords 2: Discover Your Competitors 3: Optimize Your Title 4: Optimize Your META Tags 5: Use Headings 6: Use Title and ALT Attributes 7: Nomenclatures 8: Create a Site Map Page 9: Include a robots.txt File 10: Install a sitemap.xml for Google MySQL/Oracle:
Re: Web Business Podcast is LIVE! :) - Hi David - have you thought of making these into videos? Even if it doesn't have you live on screen? Remembering the Success Secret Keywords would be a lot easier if we could see them.
Re: Google Chrome is not faster than firefox 3.1 - Just a quick update here for Beat, To copy your bookmarks (and history, passwords etc if you want) from IE to Firefox: Open Firefox, Click File (top left of browser) Click Import Select IE Click Next follow the instructions provided, hope this helps, Carol
Scoping Your Articles for Ghostwriters - Martin, can you advise your process for scoping out the work for article writing. specifically, 1. How do you scope the boundaries of the article? (is it by the Keywords?) 2. How many keywords do you provide to the ghostwriter for an article of a certain size? 3. How do you measure quality? (is it just your impression that the article is good)? 4. Who owns the article? 5. How do you know that this article is not published elsewhere on the Internet? Thanks
Re: Hello from the UK - Hello! What part of the UK are you from? Site looks good, how are you marketing it and what do what want to achieve?


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

How do I finance a franchise?

SEO – Link Building Secrets

Fear Factors in Small Business: Sales & Marketing

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.