Article by Elizabeth McGee

The most important thing you can do for your business and your website is develop relevantkeywords that are not too competitive yet generate targeted traffic to your website. It’s called keyword optimization. Why is it important?Because Keywords and keyword phrases do a coupleof things for you:- With the right keywords, you will attract the viewers most interested in the items or services on your site. – You will rank higher in the search engines for yourchosen keywords, saving you thousands of dollarsin advertising.It all starts, however, with the best keywords that pertainto your product or services.When selecting keywords you should select 1 perhaps2 of the most relevant keywords for each page of yoursite. I suggest using no more than two keywords per page, preferably one.Why? Because search engines strive to deliver the most relevant pages for the search term entered. The more focused yourpage is for the search term, the more relevant the search engines will find your page. The more keywords you use,the less focused your page becomes.How do you find keywords that your target audience will use?- Think like your readers. Take yourself outside your sitefor a minute and think about how you would find the products or services you are selling. – Use Overture’s Keyword Selector Toolhttp://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/Type in your most basic keyword and it will show you thevariations of the search term and also the count of how many times that term was entered in the search engine.- Think of phrases as opposed to one single word. If yousell clay pots, think of keywords such as painted clay pots,or clay flower pots, large clay pots, buy clay pots. Use descriptive words when brainstorming phrases.- Ask your relatives, kids and friends what they would type in to find your products. You would be amazed at the greatideas that can be generated. For example, I asked a teenager once what he would type in to find shoes online andhe said ‘nice kicks’. As of this writing, Overture’s keyword selector tool showed a count of 12130. Hmmm, never would have thought of it on my own.- Use a thesaurus or Webster

Question by Ryan: Where can I find out how many monthly searches a keyword gets without using google keyword tool?
I can’t seem to get the right answer when I type my keyword into the google keyword tool, say for example I type in “real estate listings Tampa” it gives me suggestions that are close to that, but I want to know how many searches that exact phrase is getting and I can’t seem to find it. Any help would be great!

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Article by Dyllis Nicol

The most common problem today in any type of Internet marketing, whether it is Direct Sales or MLM is to drive enough traffic to your website. Everyone wants to be on the 1st page of Google. However, most people think that they can only do so through Google Adwords or PPC marketing, which can be a very expensive venture for you especially if you are a new and inexperienced marketer. PPC campaigns are found ranking on the right side of Google. This is not a natural search.

Now, if you want to rank in the natural search for Web 2.0 and content campaigns, (for example blogs, article writing, etc) you want to rank in the natural search for keyword optimization, which you can do for free with the right research. These campaigns are found on the left side of the page.

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Article by Shirley Kelly

Search engines are the #1 tool people use when shopping for products, services or information online. Optimize your website with the proper keywords or keyword phrases for your content and watch your traffic explode. If you gain an understanding of how to properly promote your website your efforts will reach it’s full potential.

To rank relevantly within search engine results, each website must be considered relevant to a particular search algorithm for a given keyword or phrase. Keyword selection can be a challenge to both experts and neophytes. While anyone can come up with various words that may be used when searching for their product or service, these words may not be the ideal mix for search engine ranking. Why? If a marketer chooses a popular keyword phrases, he or she and a million other businesses compete for top placement. Top SERP placement is dense, searchers typically giving up after the first three pages. To succeed, one must use relevant keywords that are not being used by everyone else and that are searched for quite often. This may include misspellings and other alternative data. After finding relevant keywords and phrases, the results must encourage conversion or success based on each business’ criteria. For example, while it may be possible for a DVD rental firm to get top listings under the search criteria “free DVD rentals”, the person who visits is looking for free merchandise and will leave if its not found.

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Article by Larry Lang

Search engines are the vehicles that drive potential customers to your websites. But in order for visitors to reach their destination – your website – you need to provide them with specific and effective signs that will direct them right to your site. You do this using carefully chosen keywords.

Finding the exact right keywords or phrases can bring hoards of traffic right to your door. But if your keywords are too general or over-used, the possibility of visitors making it to your site decreases dramatically.

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Article by Lee Traupel

One of the absolute best online marketing processes available to any business today is Google’s AdWords Select advertising program. It produces immediate results within minutes after being setup, drives highly qualified traffic via selected keywords and can be monitored and modified on a 24/7 basis via Google’s excellent online interface. There are no hidden fees – it costs a mere . USD to setup a campaign and requires a credit card submission at startup. We highly recommend this interactive marketing process to all of our clients and incorporate an AdWords Select component with all of our marketing campaigns.Google’s Pricing Model Google charges you on a CPC (“Cost per Click”) basis – you only pay for each clickthrough to your web site from Google’s, no more no less. You don’t pay for “impressions” (number of times someone views your add) like many first generation Internet advertising models – it’s truly a results driven marketing process. Keywords costs can vary tremendously ranging from $ .05 to . USD or more per keyword – Google assigns a “minimum cost per click” for specific keywords based on “market value” and “performance history” via Google’s AdWords Select program history. Be prepared to pay a much higher rate for very popular keywords and this is a moving target all of the time – the more popular this program becomes the more you will be forced to pay for selected popular keywords. Creating your Sponsorship Ad Your Ad’s position is based on a combination of the CPC (“Cost per Click”) you selected and relevancy of your ad – if your ad and keywords are relevant and drive clickthroughs, then your ad will rise in position on the sponsored column versus your competitors. This is an innovative feature and helps to distinguish Google’s program from all other PPC (“Pay per Click”) campaigns (Overture and their primary competitors) – most of these programs have an “economic bias” built into them; i.e. whoever pays the highest fees gets the top placement. Dynamic Ad PlacementGoogle’s unique AdWords Discounter keeps track of your costs per click versus your competitors. You select the maximum amount you want to pay for your keywords and the ranking algorithm keeps track of your keyword costs, ensuring you only pay one cent above the CPC (“Cost per Click”) cost you specified when you setup the campaign versus your competitors. Setup Process – Sponsored Link Ad and KeywordsAdWords Select is based upon driving highly targeted traffic to a web site via a set of keywords that are selected via Google’s account management interface. There are two primary components to the setup process, creating your “sponsored link” ad and selecting your keywords. You start by creating a “sponsored link” ad that is subsequently inserted into Google’s search results on the right hand column – targeted by keywords that you have selected. It only takes a few minutes to have your campaign go “live” after you’ve completed the setup process. It’s very important to spend quality time creating your sponsored link as this is the “online ad” that people will view in the midst of search results and competing sponsored links (in some cases). You have the ability to create a short headline coupled with two lines of text with approximately 35 characters per line – the headline must be succinct and hard hitting and the related text should backfill the headline with supporting words that convey what goods or services your company provides. Keyword selection can be the most daunting task for setting up a new campaign – be prepared to spend some focused time working through multiple keywords to find those that you can afford. It typically takes 1-3 hours to find 10-20 keywords that are relatively low cost – however, if your budget is open-ended and you have sufficient marketing funds to pay -8. USD per keyword then it can take much less time. Your market focus is also another important variable that can impact the keyword selection process – if you’re in a narrow market niche with only a small number of competitors then it is much easier and faster to setup a campaign. Finally, be aware you can find some keywords that are very inexpensive, but Google will disallow these if they don’t drive a minimum clickthrough amount of roughly less than 1% – you can start off with them, but they will be turned off after 7-14 days if they aren’t driving sufficient clickthrough volume. Wordtracker Keyword Research Tool You may want to utilize other keyword analysis tools that will give you a broader selection and help you to understand what keywords are popular and searched on, which in turn ensures the keywords you do select will drive traffic and will not be disallowed by Google. Wordtracker (www.wordtracker.com) is an industry standard keyword analysis tool that those of us in the online advertising world (and many others) have used for years to help us understand what keywords are popular – their service is very low cost and easy to utilize via their web site.

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Question by Crook: Ways to improve keyword ranking?
Apart from bookmarking, directory submission, forum posting, blog posting in which ways we can improve our keyword ranking. Thanks in advance..

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Article by Bob Douglas

Finding the most popular keywords online isn’t difficult. A huge percentage on online users use search engines like Google to find exactly what they’re looking for. But “popular” doesn’t necessarily mean profitable for you.

If you’ve ever seen one of those reports listing the most commonly searched terms over the past 30 days, you’ve probably been left scratching your head at some of the terms used.

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