Choosing the Right Keywords For Your Small Business

Keywords are vital for small business marketing success. It doesn't matter if you're going to use natural search engine traffic, search engine advertising, or any other means to direct traffic to your website. In the world of search engine marketing, keywords are the words and phrases users type in to find what they're looking for. Even if you don't plan on using search engines to drive traffic to your website, keeping keywords in mind when creating your website will help write solid copy. If your copy is focused on your customer, you'll convert a higher percentage of visitors who do end up on our website.

Using the right keywords will make or break your marketing system. Use the following tips and tools to help you select the keywords that will make your website profitable.

How to Do Basic Keyword Research

Doing proper keyword research before you begin building your website will stop you from wasting thousands of dollars and weeks of time testing markets that are unlikely to generate any money. The first test is to see if there are people searching for your potential keywords. A couple of free tools that I like to use are the Google AdWords Keyword Tool and Yahoo's Keyword Selector Tool (Note: Yahoo's tool is not supported anymore. The site may not load at times, but a refresh should usually do it. The site is also slow). Both of these are free and will give you the estimated search volume for the keyword you input, as well as related common search terms. Google's tool will also show you the amount of advertising competition you have.

When building your list of keywords, include related search terms only if it falls under the same focus as your original keywords. For example, if one of my main keywords is "Los Angeles Condo For Sale", I would also include keywords such as "Los Angeles Apartments For Sale," "Purchase Condo In LA," or "Condominiums For Sale In LA." I would be wary of including keywords such as "Purchase Home," "Land For Sale," "Condo For Sale In California." These keywords don't have the same focus as the original keyword. If you wanted to go for multiple markets, I suggest you create separate websites for each different market.

Analysis of Keywords and How They Relate To Your Niche

After you develop a list of potential keywords to target for your market, you need to spend some time to decide if each one will work. Here are some guidelines to think about before dismissing or accepting keywords for your small business. Keep in mind that there are always going to be exceptions. If you believe in a certain keyword, I encourage you to test that market to see if you can succeed.

A keyword that has a lot of competition is likely to be profitable.

Any keyword that has heavy competition probably means that somebody has found a way to make money using that keyword. Fortunately, a lot of people don't understand how to truly use Adwords or any search engine marketing effectively. The bottom 90% of all your competition for that keyword is probably irrelevant. Do a search on your keyword and look at the first results on the first page. Those are the players who have found a way to make the most money off of those keywords. Your goal will be break into this group of advertisers with your selected keywords.

A keyword that has no competition might not be profitable.

Be careful of keywords that have high search volume and no advertising competition. These keywords usually aren't specific enough or profitable enough to bid on. For example, you have to be careful when you bid on the word "free" when you're trying to sell something. Although there may be a high volume of searches, these visitors will be looking to get something without spending any money. This could work if your main source of income is advertising revenue, but won't work as well if you're trying to sell a product or service.

Another possibility is that this keyword represents a market that nobody has explored yet. It will be significantly less expensive to enter this unproven market than going into a proven, more established market. Just be sure to keep in mind that it's could be impossible to make money off that keyword using website marketing, no matter how great your product or service is.

A keyword that has low search volume can still be profitable.

Just because a keyword has a low search volume doesn't mean you should throw it out right away. If there are no other businesses competing, the keyword could represent a specialized market that nobody else can help.

A keyword with high search volume isn't necessarily profitable.

These keywords may not profitable if others aren't bidding on the term. The keyword may be too general, the profit margins might be too slim, or people might not be willing to spend money on a product in that category.

Follow these tips and it should give you a decent idea of what keywords you should focus on. There are some other keywords tools you could use. Some are paid and some are free, but you should be able to find your primary keywords with the free tools I mentioned. The majority of your traffic will be generated from 4-5 keywords anyway. Focus on those words and worry about the rest once you have your marketing system up and running.

Again, take a day to digest this and do your keyword research. If you want to move ahead, send me an email and I'll send you the final lesson. I can be reached at Alex@DesignLX.com. Otherwise, be prepared for your next item tomorrow.