subject: A Guide to Good Keywords [print this page] A Guide to Good Keywords A Guide to Good Keywords
So you're looking for good keywords, but what makes a keyword good? If you start writing for indiscriminate keywords in the hopes of making it to the top of the search engines, you will be sadly disappointed. In this article I will present for you the 4 key components of a good keyword and how to come across them.
Relevancy
Too many times, people with target a keyword that doesn't have anything to do with what their product or service is. If you are writing on the keyword "fish tanks", but you're selling super glue, you will have difficulty selling your merchandise because you are not using a relevant keyword.
It is crucial that you consider what your target audience is searching. Consider what you'd expect to see if you were the one searching for that keyword. Once you think you know what someone wants when they search for a specific keyword, provide it. This allows you to step into the mind of your audience and provide a solution to their problems. Good keywords are related to what you have to offer and what your reader wants to see.
Traffic Comes from Good Keywords
Why would you spend time writing and creating a page that is based around words that no one is searching? Surely, you wouldn't, and that brings me to my next subject. Good keywords have a lot of searches every month. Google has a convenient free keyword tool that can help you find how many monthly searches are made for any keyword or phrase.
Have You Seen Your Competition?
It would great if all you needed to do was find a keyword that had a lot of traffic, but unfortunately, that's not the case, because there are only 10 spots on the front page of Google. You must consider what kind of competition you have. The competition for a good keyword is either few in number or weak in strength.
To find out how many competitors you have, search for your phrase with quotation marks around it. At the top of your results will be the total number of pages competing for that exact phrase. If you can find a phrase that has lower than 50,000 pages competing, you have found a good keyword with low competition.
Your competitors' strength possibly will be a more challenging to find, but the tools are available. You simply need to understand what you're looking for. One factor is the age of the competitor's site. This can be found by using any 'WhoIs' site and simply typing in your competition's url.
Another important factor to check is the number of backlinks your competition has. The more backlnks they have to both the page and the overall domain can be found at http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com.
Lastly, check out the competition's keyword positioning. Did they place the keyword phrase in all the right places? It should be in the page title, header, url, and description. You can easily find these when you look at your keyword results page (Google bolds the placement of the keyword). Keep in mind, good keywords will have fewer and weaker competition.
Good Keywords Pay
Someitmes people are searching for phrases just to gain information, or browse, while other times people are search phrases with the intent to buy. If you don't look at the commerciality of your keyword, you could risk spending time on a word that no one uses when they're ready to buy. Realistically, good keywords are used by people with their credit cards handy.
Thankfully, this can be easily found. Using the free Google keyword tool again, you can use the "estimate cost per click" column. This will show you the average cost being paid to appear on the search pages for that keyword for the sponsored spots. The higher the cost for the phrase, the more competition by sponsors, the better the keyword is for conversion from browser to customer.
All 4 of these components are critical when choosing good keywords. Remember to pick words that are relevant to your offer and what your target reader is searching. Check to be sure your keywords are actually being searched. Evaluate your competition to see if you have a realistic chance to make it for that keyword, and be sure the sponsors are using your keyword so you can be sure the people using it are ready to buy.
