You may have asked yourself, “What’s so important about keywords?”
In brief, keyword are those words and phrases people type into search engine boxes to find what they are looking for.
Those programmers at Google and other search engines have had to deliver the best and most valuable results for any given keyword requested. This is due to being in a popularity contents. The more popular the results they return (more accurate), they more likely you will be to continue using their service. Since they make their money by selling advertising, as they keep your loyalty, they improve their bottom line.
Search engine algorithms are designed to ensure that you do find what you are looking for.
Now, the odd point is that there is a steep dive between the top few and everything else. Statistically, the top-ranking keywords get the bulk of the hits. User studies show that most of the clicks are occurring on the top three links listed – about 80% or more. And most people don’t look beyond the first two pages. They find what they are looking for, or type in another, longer set of keywords until they do.
Because of those usage studies, search engine algorithms have become increasingly complex – and constantly change. Scammers keep them busy, because as soon as some scammer is able to get to the top of their rankings, they change in order to keep that from happening again.
However, the plus to all this is that they have also given you the tools to find the top-ranking keywords. Not that they’ve made it easy.
The trick is to follow the hints they’ve given out (over and over) of how to help make your pages easily found by search engines. If you use the common principles as stated, then you can optimize your site for search engines and everyone wins. They know what your pages are saying and reward you with higher (or top) rankings for those terms.
One of these tools is Google’s Adwords Keyword Tools (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal). On this page you can log in with your Google account (which is free if you don’t have one) and find on average about 800 possibilities for any particular term you type in.
Within thse results, you can note several things: 1 – Searches, both global and locally by the last month. 2 – Trends, whether more or less visitors are looking for that term. 3 – How much people are paying for advertising for that term. (Cost per click, or CPC.)
Searches are how many people look for that term. Know that there are only so many of these who are going to find your site. For every top page in Google’s ranks, maybe a third will click that first link. 2nd place gets about one-fifth, 3rd place can get less than 10%, and so on. So out of 100 people looking for that keyword every day, maybe only 30 people will wind up looking at your site.
Trends can show relative use of a term based on time of year. Gifts get more clicks during November-December, while outdoor gear and sports items get more clicks during the summer.
CPC tells whether people can make money off that keyword. Some of these are inflated beyond any sense. But the real use is whether advertiser recognise that people want to spend money when they look for that keyword. If you use one of these terms, it’s likely that they’ll spend money with you. And if it says .05 or less, then people really aren’t advertising with ads on Google for that term.
All of this looks exciting – until you look at how many competing pages there or for a given term.
For this, you need to do a usual search for that term in Google and see how many pages are returned. If you see that 50,000 people are looking for a given page, but over 1 million pages use that given term, then you have an idea of the competition for that top spot you’ll have to overcome. Sure, it would be nice to have 30% of those 50,000 peole, but you’ll have to be on the top of that heap for them to find you.
And now you see that the selection of keywords to describe your product is key.
Most profitable businesses will trust their site to professionals who make their living from professionally selecting keywords and optimizing sites for them. And these professionals continue to make their living only as long as they achieve results for their clients.
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Author: Robert C. Worstell (BS, M.Msc, MBA, PhD) is an independent researcher and the author of numerous practical books, articles, videos, and whitepapers on the Internet and Marketing, as well as several specific articles on best website designs. His most recent book in this area of how to do a website is titled An Online Sunshine Plan and is specifically written so that anyone can take a small web business online quickly, simply, and profitably.
Other new and latest releases of his best self help books are available through Lulu.com and many online distributors as well as larger bookstores.
This article is free for reproduction as long as by-line remains intact.
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