How to select Keywords

Determining keywords is an art; it’s best to work backwards. What would a customer search for if they were looking for your site? You literally have to put yourself in the consumer’s place and let go of your preconceived notions about what you think your keywords are. You should remember when writing your site that you need to use words that are not only related to your content, but are popular search words as well. This is called keyword optimization, or choosing the most searched keywords related to your content.
Selecting the correct keywords can make or break your website. Potential customers search the web for desired sites, and if your website doesn’t have the keywords they’re looking for, they’ll miss you.
A great website is not so great if no one finds it. Remember to research your keywords carefully from the consumer’s viewpoint and then sit back and watch the traffic roll in!

Getting Started: Know the Site

To create a great keyword list, you will need to know your website backwards and forwards. You should know what the site features, and just as importantly, you should know what it doesn’t’ feature.

Lengthening the List

Each time you plug a keyword into your tool of choice, it will return the number of searches conducted for that term over a given period of time. It will also suggest keywords from the tool’s database that are similar to the one you entered.

The basic idea now is to go through the list returned by the keyword tool and copy any and all similar terms as well as their corresponding search values, which relate directly to the site you’re optimizing. Then, paste them to a spreadsheet program so that they can be further edited later.

Narrowing the List

So you have a long keyword list; it’s time to narrow it down. I narrow my lists by deciding if the potential gain for a keyword is relative to the competition. In order to make that decision, I need to know three variables:
1. The number of searches on a particular keyword (already got those from Overture)
2. The Amount of Competition (I’ll show you how to find your competition in this section.)
3. Will the keyword lead to conversions (this is up to you?)

Keyword Layout

Remember when selecting keywords: words on a higher competitive level should be placed on pages that will receive deep links in groups of 2 or 3 where all of the keywords are very similar like:
* Running shoes, Shoes for running and buy running shoes online
* Web design in Atlanta, Atlanta Georgia web design, Atlanta web site design
This way, you won’t have to remove highly competitive, but potentially lucrative terms from your list, provided that you make a concerted effort to perform link-building for the pages on which those terms reside.

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