So, what are keywords anyway? Little wonders if you really want to know. They are as important for the success of your website as the advertising and other promotional means. No keywords, no SERP.

Linking strategy is probably the most important SEO technique, but keywords follow closely. As a mater of fact, you could exchange as many links as you wish, but, without content, your website has no real value. Without keywords your website cannot be found. People use keywords to find information. They type into the search engines’ search bars different words and phrases hoping to find relevant answers. If you want web users to find your website you have to optimize your web pages for the keywords they use.

It’s not enough to write the keywords in your text, or in your keyword META tag. You need to use keywords everywhere: URL, page title, META description, META keywords, page copy, ALT attributes. You also need to think keyword density and where exactly on the page you should place them: headings, subtitles, first paragraph, last sentence, footers and so on. You have to bold some keywords, use others in text links, in lists and so on. Yet, all these aspects are easier than choosing the right keywords.

Choosing the Right Keywords

How difficult can choosing the right keywords be? Well, if you already know what people are looking for, it is not so difficult. However, if you don’t… you have a big problem. The first problem is that you are not going to be able to reach the right segment of your targeted market and the second is that you will fail to deliver the right message to the search engines. As people trust search engine results when they look to buy something online, your only chance to increase online sales is to be have a high ranking in the SERP.

When you choose your keywords you also have to think about high rankings and branding. What you choose has to be directly related to your products and your business name. Your keywords have to describe what you sell or your services. Some SEO experts recommend that you also add common spelling mistakes at your keyword list. I wouldn’t. If you run a serious business you don’t want it associated to any unprofessional artifice. So describe your products honestly, correctly and explicitly.

You’ll have a long list of keywords and phrases to start with. Unfortunately you cannot use all the keywords in a list for your SEO purposes. Choose the most relevant keywords and start from there.

To determine keyword relevancy you could use Wordtracker – a tool used by most of the SEO experts and gurus around the world. The free Overture keyword tool or the keyword generation tool provided by Google AdWords are perfect if you run a pay per click campaign.

Once you have the list of relevant keywords all you need to do is write the content of your website. Remember: relevant keywords bring value to your website, but you shouldn’t overdo it. Your visitors should be able to read your texts without even noticing you are using keywords. Do you think you can master this art? If not, hire a professional writer. Quality has its price.