How to Know if Your SEO Keywords are Making Money
Copyright 2006 Mark Nenadic

As you likely know by now, there is a big differencebetween effective, quality website content, and searchengine optimized (SEO) website content that will obtain thehighest ranks in search engines and directories such asGoogle, Yahoo!, and MSN.

However, to apply SEO properly toyour website, you first need to know which keywords to use. Once you have them, you also need to know if thosekeywords are working for you, or if you will need to tweakthem to get better results.

After all, a keyword is onlyas good as the money it makes for you.The keyword itself is a certain word or phrase that someonewould type into a search engine or web directory in orderto find your website. The keyword you choose for any givenpage should describe that page in a way that a regular websurfer would search for it.

The keyword should be a directreflection of the content of that page.

They should nevercontain any random or additional words that have nothing todo with you, your business, or your website.

If they docontain these excess words, then you won’t obtain themaximum results from your SEO strategy.Among the most widely accepted keyword strategies is thatthe number of keywords in a website should never exceed21-22.

There are sites out there that have well over sixand seven hundred keywords, without any content to backthose keywords up. Even if they did have content for everyone of those keywords, there would be no point, sincesearch engines will ignore any keyword over their limit of22 words.Keywords are each counted as one word.

Key phrases, on theother hand, are also counted as one, no matter how manywords make them up. For example, if you owned a computercompany, a keyword could be “computers”. This would becounted as one word.

However, you could also have a keyphrase “discount computer company”, which would also becounted as one.Even though key phrases are each counted as only onekeyword, you should always keep them very short andstraight to the point, without any excess words or puff.To properly apply these keywords to your website, you firstneed to come up with a list of 21 or 22 keywords/keyphrases that will describe your website content, such asthe product or service you are selling. You then need towork them into your content, as well as into the sitedescription coding and any additional information yousubmit to the search engines upon registration with them.To identify the keywords, there are many different toolsthat you can use.

You can pull them straight out of theair, have friends and colleagues brainstorm with you, oruse one or two of many different softwares that areavailable for specifically that purpose.

One of the mostpopular among these softwares is the Overture KeywordSuggestion Tool. You simply need to tell it what your siteis about, and it will suggest a number of differentpotential keywords based on what has been searched forwithin the last past month.By making sure that you’re using the right keywords, you’remuch more likely to choose exactly the word or phrase thata web surfer might type when searching for what your sitehas to offer.

This is the entire point of SEO. When doneproperly, you’ll increase the number of visitors to yoursite, and will therefore experience increased sales. Yourwebsite will be more visible, more find-able, and moresuccessful, all by selecting the right wording.

Though itmay sound complex at first, once you get the hang of it, itdoes become much more routine. You must remember, though,that this is a time consuming process, and is somethingthat you will need to maintain for the entire life of yourwebsite.

If you don’t have the time or willingness todedicate to your website, be certain to hire a professionalto do it for you. It is definitely worth the extra fewdollars that it will cost.

The increased sales will payfor the SEO many times over.

About the Author:Mark NenadicMark is the director and face behind FifteenDegrees-Northhttp://www.15dn.com/ , where you will find articles andresources to help with SEO, marketing and Web design.