SEO Campaigns and Keyword Selection

The backbone of every successful search engine optimization campaign is choosing the right keywords that relate to your business. Researching and applying the right keywords will increase the amount qualified web traffic to your site from the search engines. Focusing on the wrong ones will target the wrong people, making converting visitors into buyers a sales nightmare.

There’s more to keyword selection then just choosing the terms that are most often searched. Any good Internet marketing campaign will include a variety of high-, medium-, and low-traffic search terms that clearly describe the objectives and content of your website.

How do you pick the right keywords for your SEO campaign?

Three Steps to Keyword Selection

There are three steps that will help you choose the right keywords for your website:

• Think like your customers – If someone had to find your site on Google, what words or phrases would they use? Look for words you think your customers would use to describe your product or service. If your eCommerce website belongs to a specific industry, avoid using jargon.
  
  
• Research your keywords – There are many keyword tools that are available to research keywords for your particular domain. These tools can not only provide suggestions, but also reveal its popularity and competitveness. Below you’ll find a list of the most popular keyword tools online.
  
  
• Be specific - Your keywords should not be overly broad. The more descriptive and specific your keywords the more qualified traffic you’ll receive. Using targeted keywords or a particular search phrase will increase your chances of appearing on atop the search results.

Keyword Selection Tools

Of the many online keyword tools that exist, the ones below provide a good idea of what keywords are being used to find products and information related to your business.

Yahoo’s Overture Keyword Tool is perhaps the most well known tool. It shows you how many times a word was searched for during one month, and offers variations of that keyword. However, the Overture Keyword Tool doesn’t make a distinction between plural/singular words.

Google AdWords Keyword Suggestions is perhaps the best online tool at the moment. While they don’t supply numbers, the tool does offer variations and synonyms of a keyword.

The Keyword Generator at MIVA offers results for what Europeans use most to search.

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