Internet marketers often focus on trends in order to divine which keywords and phrases should be the focus when buying pay per click advertisements or building new site content. If you’ve been around the web or if you’ve been watching TV, you’ve probably heard that the World of Warcraft video game is one of the biggest games online with an online tidal wave of approximately 9 million subscribers. While I’m a former player myself, news about the game still piques my interest from time to time.

9 million. It boggles the mind. Even a slice of such a large customer base would make the day of most internet companies. On December 11th, 2007 a Warcraft licensed third party site opened called Figureprints. This site essentially makes a mini-statue of a player’s character for about $115. I’m sure that if even a slice of the WOW customer base purchases a figure print, this site will be quite successful.

In relation to SEO, the Figureprints site had about 1,800 reported links in Yahoo Site Explorer when it launched. After 16 days, they now have over 3,000. (I’m not sure why Google still reports zero links. /sigh ) While I’m not in a related industry, my mind buzzes with related topics that various industries could write about.

I see a bootstrap opportunity here where sites related to 3D printers and printing, model making, custom action figures, character statues, games, comic book blogs, and many others can improve or create rankings. Two examples that come to mind:

Printing: While you may not be able to become a Warcraft licensee, you may be able to bootstrap your rankings by explaining how the 3D printing process works. If your company has a CAD/rapid prototype/3D printer you have just about all you need to create and print up a non-Warcraft monster or hero, but from the same fantasy genre of trolls, knights and goblins. While doing this you can take pictures, capture some video on a camera phone or camcorder, and write up some color commentary about the process. This has the potential to build out to several pages of interesting text and imagery that could rank quite well over time. If you don’t have access to this type of printer, now is a great time to grab the yellow pages or start searching for a company to partner with.

Action Figures and Collectibles: There were mass produced Warcraft action figures that came before and after Figureprints. While it has been written that Warcraft has brought many first timers to the Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) game genre, will this have a similar affect on the niche action figure industry? There have been several companies that have produced custom action figures before. Any speculation on how this might change their outlook? There are also thousands of hobby sites where they creatively mash up legs, arms, torsos, sculpty and bits of plastic, in order to create custom made action figures. (Also know as action figure mods.) Any connections to explore there?

The idea of bootstrapping your SEO effort by hitching onto a related site or company’s idea can be quite powerful. The social aspect of talking about the subject in various forums, answering questions, and encouraging discussion around your videos, can create a positive buzz and links to both your site and the sites you discuss. If you are knowledgeable it can create legitimacy and trust in your site or service as well. While creating content around Figureprints and Warcraft may not be everyone’s cup of tea, there are certainly opportunities in other industries and around other topics if you keep an open mind. Good luck in maximizing your online marketing efforts!

The page that was normally well ranked for most MP3 related terms is: www.apple.com/itunes. However just about any of the sub pages from this section including www.apple.com/ipod/ipod.html would potentially make good pages to attempt to rank for MP3 related terms.

When you look at the source code for their iTunes page or just check the cached text in Google, MSN, Yahoo, etc. you find that they do not use the keywords “MP3″ or “player” any where on this page. Even thought they have used that term in the past.

On the other hand, Apple’s pages still rank well in Yahoo and MSN as these engines still place a high relevance rating on inbound links. But even in these engines, the textual content can make a difference. (Ask.com, appears to be taking a route more akin to Google.) Should this concern Apple? It should. According to a quick search of the Wordtracker.com service, Google has about 47% of all search engine traffic. I’ve seen other estimates that say Google is 60-80% of all search traffic.

I thought links were all we need for Google rankings?

If you still think that links alone can support your site in Google, consider the following Google rankings for the keyword phrase MP3 player:

680,000+ inbound links from non Apple.com pages is nothing to scoff at. Even if you think that perhaps Google might be devaluing some of the potentially paid or off topic links that point to the iTunes page, take out even 200,000 links and you still have a linking juggernaut. Discount all of those links and a single link from their main page to the iTunes page could push a lot of Page Rank weight to the iTunes page. But… again, for the keyword phrases related to “MP3″, Apple just doesn’t use the term and so, they are essentially telling Google through their optimization or specific lack of optimization, ‘we don’t sell MP3 Players and we don’t want to rank for them’.

There is a hole in your chart/theory! Or is there?

I know that some of you will say, “but Scott, look at number 8. Musicmatch.com doesn’t even use the keyword!”. That would be true, but Google considers “jukebox” to be a keyword that is similar to MP3. Really? Yep, that is semantic indexing at work. However the strength of this association is quite weak.

Here you see keywords in bold that have strong relationships to “jukebox” such as MP3 Player, MP3, and player.

Below you see keywords that have a strong relationship to “MP3“. But you will notice that the term jukebox is not highlighted by Google in bold. Thus indicating that the relationship between the two keywords is not all that strong.

And some of you will say “Why do I see MP3 in some of my Yahoo searches for this Apple page?”

It is because they use Yahoo’s paid Search Submit service. Essentially they have a bit more control over what text appears in the Yahoo search results, faster indexing and refreshes from Yahoo, and a few other perks. However it does not directly improve their rankings in Yahoo and does nothing for their rankings in Google.

Does Apple play MP3 files? Who cares. Should they use “MP3″ on their web pages?

Speaking to some of my evangelical Mac friends, it is true that a Mac does not technically “play” MP3s. However they do convert MP3 based music files, CDs, etc. into a format called AAC that can be used on Mac’s iPod hardware players. I know from personal experience that their iTunes software player either converts or plays MP3s as well. However whether it is converting them or playing them directly, to me, doesn’t matter. I can play them. The average person is in a similar situation online. They are looking for an “MP3 player” in Google, not an “AAC player”.

There may be some technical or licensing considerations preventing Apple from using the ubiquitous “MP3″ term on their site. Maybe they are trying to subtly encourage new/non-techie iPod owners to only use the iTunes music store by remaining a bit silent on the word MP3 and the ability to convert MP3s to something usable by their players. On their iPod and iTunes promotional pages they always use more general terms like “music files”, “music library”, etc. rather than talking about song formats. Even their help pages don’t really help you to understand if your existing MP3 library works with iPod or iTunes. I doubt that they simply forgot to use the term.

Lets go back to Wordtracker for a second. The keywords MP3 player and MP3 players are estimated to have 900 to 1600 searches in a 24 hour period. While I think this value is a bit low, what is potentially at stake? Lets combine the keywords and figure that 900 people could hit Apple.com in one day from a combined “MP3 player” and “MP3 players” search. Over the course of a month, that could mean 27,900 visitors to their site or roughly 328,500 visitors a year. What if 1% of those visitors ended up buying the average iPod at $199? That is an additional $55,521 a month in revenue or more than $600,000 over the course of the year. While this is all “in theory”, remember that there are also various other MP3 related searches that they are missing out on as well.

Summary and Suggestions…

Apple.com probably should consider their rankings loss for MP3 player and similar terms. They have one of the most popular music players on the planet and it can use MP3 songs, convert them to AAC, or whatever needs to happen. As some one who thinks in terms of search engines though, their pages are -not- optimized for MP3 or MP3 related terms. And that side of me thinks that they have a great opportunity to re-gain their Google rankings. No, they don’t have to go out of their way and start talking about “MP3″ all over the place. It would be easy enough to just add a sentence or two at the bottom of their iTunes page where it reads:

“Cars available on iTunes in selected countries. © Disney and Pixar. No celebrity endorsement implied. iPod games will not play on Apple TV. All rights reserved. TM & Copyright © 2007 by Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.”

Perhaps just a quick sentence/phrase/slogan like “Your MP3 tunes work on iTunes and the iPod music player.” Or add a short paragraph that talks about Steve Job’s recent announcement on DRM free music. Do you have recording of his speech? Um, podcast anyone? Post a descriptive text link that points to a free AAC copy of the speech as well as an MP3 copy. This will provide another instance of “MP3″ for your page. Certainly there is a creative, yet valid and logical way to squeeze MP3 onto your page in order to regain the MP3 related Google rankings.

For the rest of us, it will take more than just a few mentions of MP3 and a few links to rank on this term or others. There are literally hundreds of search engine factors to consider when optimizing a site to rank well. But when you are strictly focusing on the linking side of things, dealing with hundreds of thousands of legitimate links, a trusted domain, etc. many of those other factors can fade into the back ground. However whether you are a behemoth computer industry site or a mom and pop trying to rank on a few terms, some of the more fundamental SEO considerations are considerations that every site should keep in the forefront of the web and content design decisions.

A Short History of the Long Tail

The Long Tail approach to Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) owes much of it’s concept to traditional business and economics concepts. If you were to say it another way, it is niche marketing. Like early importers and exporters, if you can find many small under served niches, you can often bolster sales, sign-ups, lead conversions, etc. while your competitors go after the obvious, the more general, often most competitive of keywords and markets.
In 2004, the idea of niche marketing was reinvigorated when the term “Long Tail” was coined by Wired.com writer Chris Anderson. Essentially if you were to examine various business models like bookselling at Amazon.com, the iTunes.com music store, etc. you would find that they have success because of their deep catalogs of both popular hits and niche items. For brick and mortar retailers there is a cost associated with shelf space, seats in a theater, etc. which often means that retailers choose to stock or carry only the most popular and mainstream movies, CDs, video games, books, etc. Online retailers like iTunes can often succeed where the brick and mortars can not because they carry a large variety of hits and niche items, while a “hit” pop music CD can sell X amount of copies in 1 month, you might have 20 “underground” niche bands that sell as much or more than the “hit” CD in the same period. Because the cost of housing the extra items has reached or closely approached zero, iTunes has the potential to make much more than a traditional music store.

The Long Tail Approach to SEO In a Nutshell

Usually when someone talks about the Long Tail, they pop up this graphic to conceptualize the idea with the graphic below. However this approach to can be applied in various contexts:

- PPC: Applied to PPC, keywords on the left side are more expensive and have a lot of traffic associated with them. On the other side, there are numerous low cost keywords that if taken together, are actually fairly equivalent in success as a few major/popular keywords.

In the graphic below, several low cost/low traffic keywords are equivalent to a very costly, high traffic keyword:

If you really want “Dinosaur Dung”, an eBay seller might have it. In terms of cost, only those that really want this product are likely to search for it using terms like “dinosaur dung”, “dinosaur fossils for sale”, and similar Long Tail phrases. Because these phrases do not appeal to the more casual searcher, you have lower click through than a general term would have. You also have lower competition for niche keyword terms, so cost is low. In comparison, when a searcher types in the term “dinosaur”… What are they looking for? They could click on you advertisement because they are looking for dinosaur books, dinosaur museums, dinosaur bones, dinosaur cups and saucers, and numerous other items.

Below, a PPC advertisement on Yahoo’s site for a long tail keyword:

- Normal rankings: Similar to PPC, in regards to normal, non-paid page rankings, the keywords in the green/left side often are the most difficult to rank on but have a lot of traffic. I.E. “Real Estate” as a keyword has a lot of traffic for organically ranked pages but it might take you any where from several months to years to actually rank on this keyword because it is highly competitive with thousands of companies/sites/pages working to actively rank on this general keyword, you have millions more web pages that aren’t trying to compete but if a popular blogger or even your next door neighbor writes about how real estate is overprices/underpriced in their neighborhood on craigslist, their MySpace profile, etc. that is just one more page that is now competing for this keyword, intentionally or not. As you start looking at niche keywords, traffic drops significantly but if you put several niche targeted web pages together, several well optimized and well ranked pages can have very decent traffic similar to having one really well optimized and well ranked web page. However it won’t take you nearly as long to optimize on these niche keyword. Additionally these searchers are more likely to be ready to convert to a sale, download, sign up, whatever it is that your site is promoting.

If you need another way to think of the Long Tail, conceptually, is has been described to me as something similar to a wine glass. There is a huge mass of generalized searches and traffic in the top/bulb of the glass. As you get to the stem and base of the glass, you find that people narrow in on what they actually are searching for and traffic starts to fall off. Near the base, they organize their thoughts a bit and eventually perform a few more very narrow, searches as the hone in on what they really were looking for.
Here is an example that one might use if they are looking for a home for sale in a specific area of Portland, Oregon:

- Overall Marketing Strategy: The Long Tail can also be applied to overall marketing strategies. Think of it as covering all of your bases beyond the most obvious ones like TV, news papers, billboards, and radio. There are many places niche markets or opportunities that are underutilized.

Online, some companies decide to open up virtual stores in online game worlds like Second Life. I’m not sure if the advertisements are always appropriate but there are always companies willing to give it a try.

There are even odd niche opportunities like building advertisements that mimic online advertising in real life.

Beyond just putting up a website, taking part in some of the social search sites can help you cover more niches if done right.

If you are trying to gain market share, it may not be a bad thing to advertise on a competitor’s website as Microsoft does on Google’s site:

And while it may seem a bit odd at first, that some one like Microsoft would advertise on Google… When you really think about it, it makes sense. They advertise on TV. They advertise in print. Many web browser, cell phones, etc. have built in tool bars and search engines that utilize Google’s search engine. Thus if I do put in “adcenter”, because I’m consider the use of their technology, it is best if I see Microsoft as one of the first results organically or in PPC rather than a search result such as a forum post like this one. Microsoft should attempt to have the first conversation with a searcher in any format or venue.

Researching the Long Tail Keywords

As I have described above, the Long Tail is a method to help you cover many bases beyond the obvious ones. It can be quite costly to pay for top words like MP3 player, iPod, and other similar words if you sell these products, it can also be a long and uphill battle to compete for these terms in the organic/normal search engine rankings. So you will need to step outside of your normal mode of thought and think like a searcher. There are always serial numbers, model numbers, part numbers, industry terminology, slang, obvious terms, similar but less obvious terms, and other various other places including keyword research services to glean new keywords to work with. If you are trying to think like a searcher, check for any keywords searches that visitors perform on your own site. Ask a friend or family member to describe a product. Work with a local high school or college career councelor to temporarily hire students to describe products or write a few reviews. Go fishing in forums that are topically related to your products to see how people are describing and working with similar products.

Long Tail Summary

The Long Tail approach helps you to extend your reach. When it comes to PPC and organic search rankings, you can market in such a way that you no longer have to rely solely on the most obvious and competitive of keywords and phrases. When it comes to the overall philosophy of your business, you can diversify your sights to hit niches that may be under utilized by your competition and gain a bit of mind share.

At the beginning of any project, it’s always best to define the goals. In the case of keyword research, the goals are to attract qualified traffic to the web site and (in the case of ecommerce sites) to convert visitors into paying customers. Notice that the goal is twofold: the first part involves pleasing search engines, and the second part involves pleasing people. Successful search engine marketers perform well on both of these fronts.

Compiling an Initial Keyword List

The first step in creating a good keyword list for a web site is to assemble a rough list that can then be refined through a selection process. The initial list can be created using a variety of simple techniques:

• Evaluate your competitors’ web sites to get an idea of the kinds of keywords they have targeted. This can be done easily by looking at the source code of your competitor’s home page and studying the keywords contained within the Meta Keyword tag. If you have a copy of WebPosition software, the Meta keywords can be conveniently extracted from the source code of any web site.
• Based on your own knowledge of the web site topic, add any keywords you think might be relevant. Imagine that you are somebody using the internet to find information, and add the keywords you might type into a search engine.
• Use a keyword research tool like WordTracker to generate related keywords and phrases based upon an initial keyword search. Try several different keywords as a starting point, and you should find a broad list of related keywords.  
• Create new keyword phrases by combining keywords in the list into combinations that seem to make sense, and might plausibly be typed into a search engine. A spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel is useful to help create and organize these various keyword combinations.
• Search the major search engine like Yahoo!, Google, or MSN for the top keywords on the list to find web sites that are already ranking well for those keywords. Study these sites and look for new ideas for keywords as well as potential content for your own site.

At this point, the list is probably much larger than expected, and you are wondering which of these keywords are most likely to drive relevant traffic to your site. It’s time to refine the list by weeding out keywords that may attract the wrong types of visitors, or not generate much traffic at all.

Refining the Keyword List

Now that the initial list has been compiled, some additional research needs to be done. Using a keyword research tool like WordTracker, determine how many times each keyword has been typed into search engines. Keep in mind that these numbers indicate how popular keywords are, but the most popular words are not necessarily the best. First, remove any keywords from the list that have very low popularity numbers. Evaluate each of the more popular keywords by taking the following points into consideration:

• How much competition is there for the keyword?
  If the keyword in question has a million other web sites competing for the top position, it will be difficult to achieve good results. Often words that are very popular may be far too general to be of value. For example, if you are a real estate agent, you would not want to optimize for a general phrase like “real estate”, since there are so many competing sites and the phrase is so general it could refer to real estate anywhere in the world. You would be much better off using phrases that limit the search to the area you work in (”Oregon real estate” or “Portland Oregon real estate”). WordTracker will display the number of competing pages for each keyword, and also calculate a useful parameter called the Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI) which takes into account both the popularity and the competition for the keyword. Use this information to locate keywords that are popular, but do not have an overwhelming amount of competition. 

   

• Does the keyword address where the customer is in the buying process?
  The most relevant keywords are those that have a high liklihood of converting a visitor to a paying customer. Often, the keywords typed into a search engine reflect whether the searcher is ready to make a purchase, or whether they are simply looking for information about a topic. Be sure to include keywords in your list that will capture these potential customers. For example, somebody who types “digital camera prices” into a search engine is probably closer to making a purchase than the person who simply types “digital cameras”. You will find many variations of keywords related to your web site topic that provide clues about where the searcher is in the buying process. 

   

• Use a web analytics tool like WebTrends to gather additional information.
  If you have a web analytics tool available for your web site, then use the data it has gathered for referring URLs. The referring URLs will let you know what keywords people have actually typed into search engines to find your site in the past. Try to locate any patterns in this data, such as keywords that may relate to a current event for example. If your web site has a built in search feature that allows users to search your own web site for content, then analyze that information as well. The keywords that your own visitors type into your local site search engine are often valuable keywords that can be used within your web site content to attract visitors to your site.

Now that the keyword list has been refined to contain only the best keywords based on your research, it’s time to integrate these keywords into your content. This is where your knowledge of search engine optimization (SEO) and marketing will be put to use. First, use your SEO skills to place the keywords in the appropriate sections of the page. These include the Title tag, Meta elements, Header, Body, Links, and Alt text in your image tags. A tool such as WebPosition’s Page Critic is useful at this stage. It provides information about the keyword frequency, prominence and other factors typically found in other pages already ranking well in the search engines. By emulating the keyword statistics of high ranking pages, you are improving the liklihood that your page will also be ranked well on search engines.

Create Compelling Copy for your Web Pages

Knowing where to place keywords and at what frequency is only half the battle. These considerations are of course important to achieve high rankings in search engines, but it’s equally important to remember that your web site is there for the benefit of human beings. Good marketers realize that the style of language chosen often strongly affects a potential customer’s course of action. If you write good copy that appeals to your customers, then your web site visitors are more likely to become customers.

If you find that you’re having trouble using the keywords in the right context, then try creating new content that fits the keywords. Create resources that may not apply directly to the sale you are trying to make, but a potential customer might still find useful in some way. For example, if your online business sells gardening tools and supplies online, then you might consider publishing informational articles related to gardening. This kind of valuable content can attract visitors to your web site initially, and appeal to their positive feelings about gardening in general. If the visitor finds something useful on your web site, and in general has a positive experience navigating through the site, then its more likely that they will convert to a customer.

Conclusion

Conducting proper keyword research is a critical component of effective search engine marketing. Before spending time optimizing your web site content, be sure to do the necessary research to identify a list of keywords most likely to drive relevant traffic to your web site.

The guide will not only help you get the most out of WordTracker, but provides insights into how experts leverage keywords and WordTracker to keep their clients’ sites at the top of the search engine results pages.

WordTracker created a fictional company, Virginia Veg, and asked experts to provide real answers to the problems facing its CEO, Susan Webster. The result is an e-book packed with insight, tips, and techniques on keyword research that you can apply easily to your own website.

Contributors include some of the most recognized names in search marketing and web site optimization.

There has been a dramatic but subtle change over the past few years with regards to promoting websites via search engines. Rather than being two interchangeable terms, Search Engine Optimization is actually an element of Search Engine Marketing, with the other element being “Paid Search Media.” It is those site owners and managers that truly understand this, and utilize it on their site along with all of the elements involved in each, that are achieving success on the search engines at a reasonable cost.

Let’s define the terms before continuing.

• Search Engine Marketing: The act of marketing a web site via search engines, whether this is improving rank in organic listings, purchasing paid listings or a combination thereof, along with other search engine related activities. (Source: SEMPO.org) 
• Search Engine Optimization: The act of altering a web site so that is does well in the organic, crawler- based listings of search engines. Also called “SEO.” (Source: SEMPO.org) 

   

• Paid Search Media: Advertising programs where listings are guaranteed to appear in response to particular search terms, with higher ranking typically obtained by paying more than other advertisers. Also called “Paid Placement,” “Pay Per Click” and “Cost per Click.” (Source: SEMPO.org)

It is important to understand that there is no less value in performing Search Engine Optimization because of the rise in popularity of Paid Search Media and Pay Per Click (PPC) programs offered by companies such as Overture and Google (Adwords.) If anything, it has increased the importance of optimizing your web site, namely due to the fluctuating costs of PPC programs.

The following tips will enable you to take full advantage of Search Engine Marketing. They will also assist you in achieving your online goals as rapidly as possible, and at a very reasonable cost.

1. Understand your online business

There are a lot of business owners that believe their offline business is the same as their online business; that the two mimic each other. Usually, this is only partially correct. This is especially true when it comes to competitor analysis. Many times the companies you compete with offline are markedly different from the ones you compete with online and visa versa.

To begin understanding your online business, simply write a description of your company. Have your colleagues, family and friends do the same. If you own a brick and mortar business, ask your customers to describe your business for you. Most will be happy to provide feedback. You may find that many of the descriptions are similar, yet different.

Next, go online. Search for your competitors’ sites and pay careful attention to how they are promoting and positioning themselves in the marketplace. Use the information you’ve already gathered about YOUR company and refine it to ensure you are properly differentiating yourself. Take the time to integrate your own identity, as you now understand it, and based upon feedback from others.

2. Understanding your online customer

Frequently, your online customer’s profile WILL be similar to your offline customer. You should use this information when performing optimization to your website and when buying pay-per-click keywords.

It is important to understand that much like traditional, brick and mortar customers, there are different types of online customers. These customers will search very differently and can sometimes be segmented by gender, race, and income level. It has been proven that men search differently than women and further, older men and women search differently than younger men and women do.

Two excellent studies have been produced recently that discuss the different types of searchers. Those studies are:

• Enquiro’s Inside the Mind of the Searcher (free download registration required) is a first of its kind study covering the types of searchers using search engines, what search results caught their attention and what enticed them to click on results. 
• iProspect’s Search Engine User’s Attitudes (free download) is an in depth study that reveals the relationship between profession, age, education, race and sex and how that influence a persons’ searches.

These studies will provide you with valuable insight to help you understand your customer base better. Once you have a thorough understanding of how your customers search, you will be better positioned to apply that knowledge to choosing the right keywords.

3. Determining a successful conversion

If you were to ask most web site owners what they want from their web site they’d say “to make money”. That generally rings true even if they don’t sell anything on or through the web site. Understanding what the true purpose of your web site is the first step to determining what to deem a successful conversion. After all, conversions will determine the success or failure of your website as a business tool.

If your web site is just brochure-ware, or used primarily as a promotion tool, a successful conversion may simply be traffic. Conversion may be measured as getting a user to browse through your web site, then filling out a contact form, placing a phone call or downloading a PDF.

If you sell something through your web site then a successful conversion will more than likely be defined as a completed transaction, or “selling something.” Remember, your web site may even have multiple types of conversions.

It is impossible to determine the true success or failure of your search engine marketing efforts without first knowing what success is, as defined by setting standards of conversion for your site. Once you know what a success is, you can begin to track that success. Tracking is covered more thoroughly in Tip 5.

4. Researching, Choosing and Implementing Keywords

Researching, choosing, and implementing keywords can be one of the most daunting aspects of Search Engine Marketing. It is also one of the most important.

Researching Keywords

Now that you have a better understanding of your customer, your online business, and what constitutes a successful conversion, you can begin to develop the best keywords to meet your goals.

Fortunately, there are many well written tutorials and tools to help you succeed in researching, and choosing the right keywords. The August edition of Market Position has an excellent article on Choosing the Best Keywords.

This article provides you with the following keyword techniques:

1. Put yourself in the shoes of your target audience.
2. Target Niches.
3. Brainstorm for keywords in your category.
4. Choose only relevant keywords.
5. Understand that keywords can have multiple meanings

WordTracker is an excellent tool to conduct keyword research. It provides you with the ability to determine exactly what words are being used in search engines to find the products and services that you may offer. If you haven’t tried WordTracker yet simply download the free trial of WebPosition Gold 3 and click on the WordTracker icon.

Choosing Keywords

Once you’ve compiled a thorough list of keywords using WordTracker you must decide the ways in which you are going to use those keywords.

Unfortunately most web sites do not have enough content, or aren’t large enough to support all of the good, quality keywords you have found using these tools. Therefore, you should narrow your list. How?

You need to consider the following for each keyword on your list:

1. Does this keyword support my online goals?
2. Do I have the content to support this keyword? If yes, then is my page optimized for it?
3. Do I have to create content to support this keyword? If yes, then is it worth the creation effort or should I buy it through PPC?
4. Is it a seasonal word? If yes, then should I buy it through PPC or Optimize for it?

Pay Per Click keywords should be words that are seasonal, marginally related to your web site, or cannot be ranked for in a reasonable amount of time. PPC words will cost you more over a long period of time, so great caution needs to be exercised when participating in PPC programs. For an excellent PPC tutorial, see the WebPosition Gold 3 Page Critic.

Once you have created your final keyword list and have determined how those words are to be used through either PPC or SEO, then you can begin implementation.

If you have to build optimized web pages to take advantage of some of your selected keywords simply download the free trial of WebPosition and click on the Page Builder icon. With WebPosition, you can build and upload your optimized content all with one easy to use tool.

5. Tracking your rankings, website traffic and conversions

Now that you’ve completed the process of creating and launching your Search Engine Marketing program, you need to be able to determine if your efforts are succeeding. Of course, more online sales are an easy way to determine if your efforts are succeeding; however, there are many more metrics to analyze in order to get the most out of your efforts and money.

It is imperative that you be able to assess how your web site is ranking for the words you’ve targeted. You need to know, for sure, if those words are successful and are converting. You also need to know whether your SEO or PPC efforts are bringing you the most traffic and conversions.

Fortunately, WebPosition and WebTrends Analytics work together to provide you all the reports and answers. You can check your rankings across search engines and keywords, compare rankings to your actual traffic from those search engines and track conversions from your SEO and PPC efforts.