Determining keywords is a critical step in web design. If your website and meta
tags do not contain related keywords, web surfers will be unable to find your
website when they conduct searches.
The formula is a little tricky - you will need to locate terms
that are popular and relevant to your site. These terms may or
may not be terms that you feel are relevant terms. The
optimal terms in a site should be terms that a potential customer
would use when searching for a website with your content. In order
to achieve success your website should be optimized with terms
and phrases that are descriptive, related to your content, and
which receive a significant amount of searches. The caveat, of
course, is that you want to find terms and phrases where there
is little competition, so you quickly achieve high ranking in
the important search engines.
relevant + popular with searchers but
not with competitors = success
Markets saturated with other sites competing for search terms
make it difficult to find quality keywords. Sometimes it is better
to optimize for a less popular term, one that is more targeted
at your visitor, as it will likely have a higher conversion rate
than a less specific popular term. The first step to determining
keywords is brainstorming a list of logical terms and phrases
that relate to your product or offerings. This should be done
by a number of individuals; sometimes people have very different
ideas for search terms and by identifying a variety of people
and their search terms you may tap words that hadn't occurred
to you. There are a number of free and low-cost tools available
online and for download that will allow you to expand and research
terms that have been brainstormed. The results typically vary
with the tools but overall the tools will assist you in determining
where to focus your keyword efforts. The tools will often assist
with pay-per-click engines, creating expanded, related keywords
or phrases that can be bid on.
In addition to examining log files to see what terms customers
are using to find a website, visit competitors web sites and examine
their meta tags for additional terms, use a thesaurus to find
related terms, include misspellings of keywords in your meta tag
keywords, and optimize for various forms of nouns and verbs, including
tenses and plurals.
Keyword Tools
KeywordTumbler
- KeywordTumbler takes existing keyword phrases and generates
multiple variations, reordering the words. This allows you to
build a large keyword list in seconds.
TheDowser - Overture
Keyword Tool, Google Keyword Sandbox, Keyword Harvester, Google
AdWords report analyzer, Google AdWords optimization tool, log
file analyzer, conversion tracking and optimization tool.
Keyword Research Tool -
KeywordDiscovery helps you choose the right internet marketing keywords
that will help your search engine placement and ranking. Use KeywordDiscovery
for keyword research. Web marketing is all about search engine
ranking, and that starts with the proper internet marketing keywords.
Get a free keyword report and web site promotion information!
http://www.KeywordDiscovery.com
Keyword
Suggestion Tools - A handy little tool will show you the
results of your query from Overture for determining
which phrases are searched most often. Enter a search phrase below
to see how often it's searched for, as well as get suggestions
for alternate (but similar) keywords.
Keyword
Ranking Tool - This utility can be used to check search
engines for keyword ranking and track search engine ranking for
your various keywords over time, which, as you probably know,
is critical when doing search engine optimization.
Overture
Keyword Tool - After entering a keyword or phrase, Overture
provides a list of related phrases that have been searched on.
The tool provides a count that indicates the number of times the
phrase has been searched on.
Topword
Tool - Topword Tool is a free online tool that analyzes
a complete web page and counts keyword occurrences, as well as
keyword phrases (number in brackets), equal to or above that set
in the Minimum Occurrences setting. It supplies a list of keywords
and keyword phrases which are most likely to achieve the highest
rankings on a major search engine. The tool will also analyze
your meta description/keyword and title tags and then, through
color coding, inform you of words/phrases which should be included.
The main use for this tool is checking your optimization and tweaking
existing web sites to rank well.
Google
Suggestion - The Google Suggestion is a new online tool
for webmasters. As you type into the search box, Google Suggest
guesses what you're typing and offers suggestions in real time.
This is similar to Google's "Did you mean?" feature that offers
alternative spellings for your query after you search, except
that it works in real time. For example, if you type "bass", Google
Suggest might offer a list of refinements that include "bass fishing"
or "bass guitar". Similarly, if you type in only part of a word,
like "progr," Google Suggest might offer you refinements like
"programming", "programming languages", "progesterone", or "progressive".
You can choose one by scrolling up or down the list with the arrow
keys or mouse. The tool provides a number that indicates the number
of searches a specific word or phrase has had.
Keyword statistics give webmasters a way to tap into what is
on the minds of Internet consumers. When you can match your marketing
efforts to the various ways people locate their items of interest
on the net, potential customers will be streamed to your site
like ants to a picnic.