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Internet Marketing - Selecting Keywords & Phrases

How to Select the Right Keywords for your Website

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Last article we reviewed how to avoid getting banned by the search engines. We discussed how search engines dislike or even hate tricks and sneaky techniques to improve a Web site’s rank. Search engines may even ban your Web site if you use certain tricks to manipulate your rankings.

Search engines LOVE good content. And what is good content? Good content is HTML text, well written page titles and descriptions with solid, clean programming.

Good content is driven by the right "keywords" and "key phrases":

• Keywords and phrases that describe what your Web site is all about;
• Keywords and phrases that are consistent with what Web site visitors use in search engines and directories to connect them to your Web site.

Here are a few techniques that you can use to help determine what keywords and phrases you should select preferably before building your Web site.

1. First, make your own list of keywords (search words) and key phrases (search phrases) that your potential customers might use when looking for your information, product, or service. Remember to include synonyms and well as common misspellings.

2. Search these keywords and key phrases to find your competitors on the top search engines. Then review these Web sites for keywords they are using.

3. If you have a Web site with a statistics package or Web analytics software check the keywords and key phrases that people are presently using to view your Web site.

4. Visit Wordtracker. This site provides a scientific approach to help you select the correct keywords and key phrases. Wordtracker compiles a database of words and phrases that people commonly search for. You enter some keywords, and Wordtracker tells you how often people search for them, and how many competing sites use those keywords. Wordtracker helps you find all keyword combinations that bare any relation to your business or service - many of which you might never have considered. Try the free demo trial offered on their Web site. It generally doesn’t take long to learn how Wordtracker works.

5. Visit Yahoo Search Marketing's Search Term Suggestion tool. This is a free tool. This tool is only good for relative comparisons of keyword and key phrase selection but it’s still a worthwhile tool.

6. Visit Google's Keyword Suggestion tool. It’s easy to use and worth investigating.

These tools and techniques should help you determine a list of keywords and key phrases to use on your Web site. So now what? Now you have a list of keywords and key phrases that you can build your Web site around. Prioritize these keywords. Which are most important? These keywords and key phrases should be used in page content, in Web page file names, internal hyperlinks, etc. Some general rules regarding keyword and key phrase usage:

1. Limit your use of keywords and key phrases to two or three per page. Each page or section of your Web site should be built around "themes". Using more than two or three keywords or key phrases per page will dilute your keyword impact on any given page.

2. Remember that your Web site's front page generally receives the most 'attention' by search engines. Your most important keywords and phrases should typically be used on the front page.

3. Use your keywords appropriately. Each page should read well. Your page’s content should have a "natural flow" to it. Believe it or not, search engines can pick up on this.

4. Avoid the over-use of keywords and phrases on pages. See our last article on "how to avoid getting banned by search engines" for further details regarding keyword "spamming".

Remember, search engines LOVE Web sites with strong content! Strong content means the proper and appropriate use of keywords and phrases. When building a Web site’s structure / navigation and developing Web site content think about making your site's copy friendly for both search engines and your Web site visitors who are reading and scanning your Web site.

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Avoid Getting Banned by Search Engines | Evaluating Your Competition

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