What are Keywords

Wednesday, 8th September 2010 - Search Engine Optimization

Keywords are the words that web surfers enter in search engines to find web sites.

It is important that your web site has good search engine rankings for popular keywords that are related to the theme of your web site.

The right keywords are important to the success of your SEO activities!

It’s pointless to optimize your web pages for keywords that nobody uses in the search engines. In Addition to getting more targeted visitors, the keywords must not be too broad or too general.

You will always need to build a list of good relevant keywords that people use on search engines to find your web site.

Which keywords are the right keywords for your web site?

Use focused and targeted keyword phrases that are common enough so the web searcher will use these to find your web site, but selective enough that they don’t return millions of matches. Very specific keywords generate highly qualified, targeted traffic that will increase your sales.

The first step in choosing the right keywords is to make them very specific to your products or services. Some tips for doing this are as follows:

  • use keyword phrases that consist of two to four words
  • avoid very competitive keywords
  • be specific
  • only check the keywords that are important to you

For a successful online marketing campaign, you have to target the right keywords.

The keywords you use should be relevant for your web site and web surfers should be searching for your keywords. Most people use a two to four word phrase in a search, so phrases are very effective.

Single words cannot be promoted effectively. For example, it is not likely that someone looking for “free software download” is going to type just “software” or “best loan rates Australia” is going to type just loans into the search box.

Avoid the most popular keyword phrases because you’ll be competing with millions of other pages for a search engine’s attention. You will gain more traffic and business by fringing your keywords. It is unrealistic to think that a new web site could rank number one on a popular phrase like “mp3”. More established companies who have been on the Internet for several years
will have the big advantage of high link popularity.

Internet users who use four-word searches are more likely to purchase goods or services than those using fewer words.(source: Oneupweb Research)