subject: How To Achieve Home Business Success Using The Internet - Selecting Key Words For Your Website [print this page] The purpose of this article is to explain to anyone in the process of creating a website, how to select key words to attract visitors to the new site.
You have decided to create your own website with the goal of using it to generate revenue. This is an excellent plan and one which, if done properly will succeed. It could even go on to generate some really significant revenues. The web constitutes a vast market for almost anything you can think of and if you design your site properly then you can access this huge resource. You will be able to count yourself among those who have achieved home business success using the internet.
A fundamental part of getting your site to generate revenue is to attract traffic to it and the process of doing this starts with selecting an appropriate collection of key words. These words are used by search engines to flag your site when anyone searching for the type of service you provide, conducts a search. The success of your site is going to depend on how well it ranks in the search results of the big search engines. This is such an important aspect of web commerce that an industry known as SEO (Search Engine Optimization) has been created. Key words are those words any surfer would enter into a search engine to find what they are looking for. SEO is the body of knowledge which exists to help you select the right words for your particular business.
The two factors to be aware of when embarking on this process are:
1.The number of websites already indexed by search engines with your key words.
2.The number of times your key words are searched for.
The objective is to select keywords which are on as few websites as possible (ie minimize 1. above) but which are often searched for (i.e. maximize 2. above) You do this by determining the numbers on the web. Search for your key words on Google and note the number of page matches it reports. Note also the sites which come up on the first three pages of the search. These are your potential rivals. This gives you a feel for the measure of 1. above. To get a handle on the measure of 2., you need to go to WORDTRACKER'S FREE KEYWORD SUGGESTION TOOL (find this site with Google). Enter your key words and select "Hit Me" on the menu. The site will generate a list of up to 100 related key words with an estimate of their daily search volume (a powerful thing) Compare the first count with the second data and you will know which key words to select.
One method to ensure that you select good key words is to be as specific to your business as possible. If you are supplying trout flies for example dont use "fishing" as a keyword. This is far too broad and will result in your site getting lost amongst thousands. If you were to use "Trout Flies for Deep, Swiftly Flowing Water" this is far more specific and will result in only potential customers turning up on your site. If you need to target local business then be specific about the area you are in. For example "Fly Fishing Supplies in Winnipeg" will bring your local customers right to your site and to your door. If you select wisely, each page of your new site will be geared to achieve high rankings on the search engines.
The Internet contains some powerful tools to assist you in choosing key words. The first of these is KEYWORDS ANALYSER. This is software which runs on your computer. Punch a key word into this program and it will generate a list of search queries for these words, the number of searches, search results and search/result ratio. This tool can also be used for reducing costs for pay-per-click advertising down the road. KEYWORDS ANALYSER can also display Google AdWords bids for your key words. This is going to be useful to you as you grow the business and become familiar with the arena. The second tool is WORDTRACKER'S FULL DESCRIPTION SERVICE. This is an online service which gives a better picture of actual search activity statistics. This too is a tool that you will grow into as you progress. You can subscribe to WORDTRACKER'S for a week, a month or a year.
I hope this article has been useful in providing you with some context and suggestions around the critical area of key words. Use the information to help you to build the best site you can and add your name to the list of successful people who have achieved business success using the Internet.
