What is a keyword? What is keyword analysis and research and why is it important? Well, it really isn't -- unless you are marketing online. Whether you manage a site targeted to a specific market, or are casting a net for a wider customer base, keyword research, marketing, and understanding how they fit together could be crucial to the success of your business. Used properly, they are inexpensive tools to drive what could well be massive amounts of traffic (read potential customers) to your site.
We are not going to discuss how search engines work, Boolean searching, or other more detailed topics involved here today. They are much longer articles and the process can get complicated if you decide to delve into the area in great detail. However, there are a few key concepts you do need to understand and one of the beauties of this is that you really don't have to grasp the entire picture immediately to see some effective results. Here is a brief outline:
First, you need to find keywords or phrases. Second, you want to get listed on the first page of Google to be found easily and quickly.
To stat with, a keyword is simply any word on any page anywhere on the internet. The more specific you are in your search for that word or phrase, the more relevancy the returned searches will have for your search purposes. For instance, if you are looking to start your own business from home and are looking for information on that topic, typing in the words "home business" will return many, many, many pages of sites that have "home business" in their title. Perhaps you want to use something like "best ways to make money in 2012", or "legitimate home based businesses"," home based businesses for consultants," or "tax deductions for home based businesses", and so forth. Be specific about what you want to find unless you want to receive a LOT of general information on a topic.
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT TO YOU AS A WEBSITE OWNER OR ENTREPRENEUR IS BECAUSE YOU NEED TO NOW REVERSE YOUR THINKING AND FIGURE OUT WHAT KEYWORDS OR PHRASE SOMEONE WOULD USE IF THEY WANTED TO FIND THE EXACT INFORMATION THAT YOU HAVE ON YOUR WEBSITE. The people searching for the information you want to provide may have never heard of you, and you want to be able to introduce yourself in a way that will make them happy, recurring, customers.The keyword, or usually keyword phrase, is how you begin to do that.
So first find keywords or phrases. Then, get listed on the first page of Google to be found easily and quickly.
To find the correct keywords or phrases you need to use a program that will search the entire web and analyze the search results of a keyword phrase you determine. A good program will show you to how analyze both the traffic and the competition numbers for those particular keywords so that you know how many hits those keywords receive and how competitive they are. The competition numbers tell you how many established webpages have the exact keyword phrases in their website title. The higher the number, the more competitive it is, and the harder it is to be highly placed on Google. The ideal ratio is a high traffic number coupled with a low competition number. More importantly, the program tells you what people would REALLY use to find you, not what you THINK they might use. In addition, they would suggest other related phrases that might be helpful. The programs are usually fairly inexpensive but well worth the money.
The next step would be to write short articles using those keyword phrases and get them published in an internet setting such as EzineArticles (where this article is found). EzineArticles requires high writing standards before publication. Google recognizes that and usually accepts their articles a bit more easily. If you don't care to compose the articles yourself, not to worry. They can be outsourced, usually very inexpensively.
If you have done the first two correctly, you will be one of the FIRST listings on Google when people use the keyword phrases that you have written about! Think about how many pages you look at when you get a search returned to you through Google. If you realize that most people stop after the first one or two, it is easy to understand why a first page Google listing is important and so much more effective for you and your business!
