Three Tips to Improve Your Keyword Research

Not all keywords bring shoppers to a website. Every e-Tailer needs to research keywords to learn which give the best results. I am going to use spyfu to help you get started. Here are some tips that will help improve the effectiveness of your website’s keywords.

Tip #1: Use Accurate Keyword Phrases

First, do not assume that a keyword phrase that drives the top traffic numbers equals the best sales. Sometimes a keyword that is overlooked, will result in the best results. For example, most DIY webmasters overlook the obvious:

1. Buy web advertising
2. Buy business cards
3. Find ad agency

These keyword phrases may only generate 500 Click-Throughs a month. But, they may result in 20 sales. The keyword phrase ‘ad campaign’ may bring 10 000 visitors to a website, and generate 2 sales.

Tip #2: Use Full Phrases

Picking keywords has a lot to do with human behavior. The average online shopper hops from website to website. By the time they are ready to buy they are tired of hitting unrelated websites. They stop using the generic websites “ad agency,” “Low cost ad agency” and start using longer, more specific keyword phrases. Choosing these can increase the number of visitors who chose to make a purchase.

At this stage of my campaign I am now researching keyword phrases such as:

1. Whats the best way to advertise my business
2. Best way to advertise my business

I used Google’s traffic tool to see if the competition had much traffic. They had very little traffic, but that did not deter me. I was looking for shoppers, not surfers.

I also used: SEOBOOK’s Keyword Tool This tool brought me a few dozen actual searches.

There are two benefits to the second tool. Some of these searches are actually redirect pages. They can give you a great place to advertise.

Insider Secret: If the Google has less than 8 companies on the ad bar, then you’ve found a winner, both for PPC campaigns and Organic. Google has a ‘suggest’ tool that lets you test keywords at: http://labs.google.com/suggest/faq.html

Tip #3: Search Engine Placement

Search Engine Placement in the top 10 is the only way to increase buyers.

Using the top keywords make it difficult to rank on page one on the search engines. It also makes it almost impossible to start a web-based ad campaign for under a couple hundred dollars a month.

The first step is to test the keywords you find in your research. Look for ones that are clicked often, but may not have a lot of competition. Testing the keyword is easy using any free ‘keyword traffic tool.’ Just type the keyword phrase with quotes around it into your browser. Don’t forget to test Google, Mamma, Yahoo, MSN, Alexa, and a few of the other top search engines.

The best location is surrounded by businesses that offer the same product or service. It is also on a page which is full of articles – but no product. This is especially true on an article page that pre-sells your product. In the end of my research I found my competitors using the keyword:

1. Advertising Design
2. Hire small business ad agency

I also noticed that my competitors favored article advertising over anything else. Keywords are the key to success. The right keywords can help a business excel where others have failed.

Changing Face of Online Business

The internet is playing a vital role in the evolution of business. The globe is shrinking. Even businesses that sell products can ship to Europe as easily as they can ship to a company down the road. The question in front of today’s business owners is not ‘what has changed,’ but ‘what hasn’t changed.

The old rules do not apply anymore. The Walt Disney Company tried to establish the Go Network as an Internet portal to cross-promote its content and services online. Many pessimists draw a correlation to the failure of Go within days of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved America Online’s (AOL’s) acquisition of Time Warner. Others state that Disney’s cross-promotional strategies and its inability to establish a brand name for the portal contributed to the Go Network’s failure.

These good explanations would impress any BS professor.

A more recent example involves South Park’s battle to return their show to Canadian audiences. The short version of the story starts with Canadian writer’s associations refusing to allow South Park Studios onto Canadian television. While the moguls battled in court, the South Park boys decided to make millions on the internet to pay off the Canadians. A perfect example of the fact that ‘it takes money to make money’ does not work on the net.

This does not mean that millions cannot be made. Look at the founders of Youtube and Facebook. Both of these empires were built on the Kitchen table by techies who couldn’t get a job in the real world, no offense meant. Now corporate America is chasing them with the fervor of the paparazzi asking for the secret.

A decade ago, it was possible to use university marketing strategies to build an online empire. But, things change. In fact, it is possible to say that everything has changed without being challenged.

Thriving online has become a struggle for survival. “money doesn’t generate money.” Today it many gurus claim that success lies in the talent of communicators who can write for the ’10 second attention span.’ Other gurus believe the secret lies in ‘interactive widgets’ that seem to put the power in the hands of the end-user. Still, a vast majority of small business owners are left asking, ‘exactly who are these gurus, and can I find them if Disney and South Park Studios can’t?”

That question does have a definitive answer: Yes. The reason that companies such as Disney struggle is, in part, blamed on the fact that the average internet-genius went mad when stuck in an 8’ x 8’ cubical. They chose starving to death over working for Corporate America.

Whether this is right or wrong, the fact is, many of these gurus are working from home, building empires, and contracting their skills to the small business community.