This is where your website promotion campaign begins -- keyword selection. Learning how to research and identify search terms correctly will bring your site those most wanted visitors. How do you find out what keywords people are using to find your site? You can find this information in your log files. If you are unfamiliar with how to access your log files, ask your hosting service for more information. Most hosting services provide log file access along with a log file reader program that will generate a report listing your site's activity -- including a record of keywords that visitors are using to find your site.

Along with the keywords visitors are currently using to find your site, begin to brain-storm and list as many words and word phrases that you can think of that apply to your site and the business market you wish to target. The idea is to develop a list of keyword phrases, not single word search terms. Single word search terms are too competitive and your site will have little chance of getting a first page listing for a single keyword.

Selecting keyword search terms for your site may at first appear to be a straight-forward task of gathering terms you feel describe your business market. However there are two important considerations to keep in mind: First of all the search term must be a term people are actually using to search on and secondly the search term will convert better if it is highly targeted. Keep in mind that visitors will often find your site using terms that are at first less than obvious. For example if I sell real estate in New York an obvious term for my site might be New York real estate; a less obvious but highly profitable term for my site is luxury condos in Manhattan since in this case I specialize in selling luxury Manhattan condominiums. Both terms fit my business market -- however one term is targeted to my niche market -- and thus highly convertible (from site visitor to customer).

After you have compiled your list of potential keywords that describe your products and/or services, it is now time to do additional research to determine how many searches per day (if any) are completed for your search terms. The best places to do your research are Overture, Google and Wordtracker.

Once you have determined the key words you wish to use, the next step is to incorporate them into your site. Writing for the search engines is a bit different than writing for a specific target customer or marketing campaign. Along with providing relevant high quality content to your site visitors and compelling them to purchase your product, you must also be conscious of how the search engines will evaluate your site. The position of your key words on a page and how you use the key words within the page are very important for obtaining the best listings on the search engines.

Your web site should focus on developing an overall theme based on your main keyword phrase or phrases and contain a minimum of 10 - 20 pages. Start your optimization efforts with your home page including your keyword phrase at the very beginning of your body text (or body tag) for this page. Develop the remaining content on the page based on this key phrase but also try to use related key terms throughout the page if possible. Each optimized page at your site should contain between 200 - 500 words and should incorporate your key word phrase approximately 3 - 5 times within the body text. Be aware that repeating your key word phrase too many times will not only sound awkward and unprofessional to your site visitors, but may also be considered spam by the search engines causing your page to receive a lower ranking.
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