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Keywords are the starting point for effective websites. Right. Websites, web pages, PPC campaigns (Google Adwords) are built around keywords. But what do we mean by Keywords?

The term “Keyword” has two meanings depending on whether you’re :

• Search for something
• Writing a webpage

From the perspective of an Internet searcher a keyword is the word or words used to search for something. For Example if you were searching for a information about cruise holidays you would go straight to your favourite search engine & enter:

cruise holidays or cruise holidays Caribbean, cruise holidays Med, cruise holidays cheap etc

These are the keywords from the perspective of the searcher.

Notice that even though we have used the term keyword the searcher usually enters more than one, 2-3 word searches are the most common.

From the perspective of an Internet publisher i.e. some one who creates web site or writes web pages a keyword represents the topic or theme for a web page/website. For example if you were going to write an article on Mediterranean cruises then the page keyword would be Mediterranean cruises, & the page content would all be focused on that.

Keyword Research?

Keyword research is about finding out what Internet searches are actually searching for. Are they searching for:

cruise holidays or cruise holidays Caribbean, cruise holidays Med, cruise holidays, Mediterranean cruises cheap, Romantic Mediterranean cruises etc

You do not want to make a website or write a webpage on Romantic Mediterranean cruises, if no one, or very few people search for them.

Keyword Research Tools

There are number of tools available for keyword research, however the main ones are :
Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool- Overture is a free tool & can be often used directly from the overture web site or through many derivative programs.

Wordtracker - is commercial software specifically developed for keyword research. They do offer a free limited trial version on their website.

Keyword Selection

Keyword research will produce a list of keywords. However the next & most important step is keyword selection. This involves deciding which keywords are the best ones to use. This isn’t simply choosing the most popular! There’re other criteria to evaluate like ..

• which are easier
• which keywords are more profitable
• which keywords will generate more clicks.

Stephen Cope is a freelance trainer & webmaster. You can find out more about Keywords & how they’re used in SEO & PPC at his site dedicated to affordable SEO & PCC consultant/Training Services for small businesses.

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