Monday, July 20, 2009

Keyword Wars - Episode 1

Keywords deserve more attention than the brief discussion on the long and short tail in our last post. If you do any business on the internet, or believe any of your customers use the internet to find your company, the more you know about keywords the more you will be able to take advantage of their power to attract customers.

Keywords are the words and terms web surfers use to find information on the internet. Studies indicate that surfers respond better to information that repeats the keywords they used to find it. In other words, if someone enters the term “red tissue paper kites” into a search engine, he or she will be more likely to choose a result that delivers exactly that keyword term.In addition, search engines will present results that most closely fit the search term. So, if you sold kites and created content and link information for your web site using the term “red tissue paper kites”, and your competition didn’t, your site would be listed at or near the top of the results – and the customer would be more likely to choose your link because it’s near the top of the rankings and it reflects exactly what he is looking for.

The big question is – what are the words and terms that potential customers use to find companies and products like yours on the internet? Search engines want you to succeed on the internet because, if you do, you will likely spend more on internet marketing. To help you get started, there are a number of free keyword search tools, such as Google Adwords Keyword Search Tool, that you can use to find the search terms that relate to your company, product and market segment.

That’s the start. Keywords are very powerful tools and your competition has the same access and ability to use them as you do. Depending on your business segment, keyword competition can be fierce – and costly. Fortunately, there are ways to put keywords to work for your internet marketing without necessarily breaking the bank. Using the long tail keywords we discussed in the last post is one of them.

In Our Next Episode:

Luke finds Leia in grave danger – what keywords will he use on his PDA to find a solution?!

By Stephen Da Cambra

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