Keywords #1 – why keyword research?

When you have your own website, there is often the temptation to add all sorts of fancy “bells & whistles” to it, to tell the world all about you or your business. It’s exciting!!

But there is something else to think about : do your potential customers want all those bells & whistles? Do they care? They probably just want whatever information or product or service they came searching for in the first place – so keeping your site quite simple, easy to use and to the point has great benefits.

So how can YOU people to buy the stuff they need or want? You need to go through 4 simple steps:

1. Identify what they’re searching for - what pain or problem do they need solving?
2. Do your keyword research diligently : create a list of “money” keywords within your niche.
3. Create a website based on the money keywords – use them in your content, keywords & title tags.
   (Remember though, to write for humans, not search engines!)
4. Count your cash

It is simply a matter of understanding how people search, how Google and other search engines evaluate web pages and addressing these issues as you create a site.

One really useful tip is “helping people to buy”:

• If the goal is to sell lawn mowers through the ebay affiliate program (or any other online merchant for that matter) then you should ONLY create content based on lawn mowers.
• If someone wants to find a hard to get part for their “lawnboy” lawnmower do you think they care about flashing images, banners and cool looking graphics? No they do not!
  If they search Google and end up on your site you want them to be able to find exactly what they are looking for, quickly and easily.

Only add elements to your site that helps people to find what your site offers.

For example: if you’re selling lawnmowers do not add a link for people to sign up for an adsense account (or any other offer that is not a lawnmower offer). Your visitors are looking for lawnmowers … then give them lawnmowers, and nothing else.

The key point here, for anyone wanting to ensure they have good SEO, is point 2 right near the top:  Create a list of “money” keywords within the niche. How will YOUR customers be searching for the products or services you offer? Please yourself in their shoes for a moment & that can really help you determine how they would be searching for your solution to their problem!

Good luck!

Tracey