Ask Joanne's eNews

What is keyword research and why should you care? Keyword research is the process of finding the best keyphrases to optimize your site for, to drive more search engine traffic to your website.

How do you begin? Start by thinking about how your customers might search for you. What might they search on? Initially, you should optimize your website for the basics - name, business name, specialty & location. But how about going beyond that?

Think of what problem you solve for people. This is usually not just a statement of what you do. It is more like what you can help with, solve, cure...

Once you have a starting list of what your keywords are, you need to do a little research to help expand your thinking and let you know what's "hot" in the market.

Keyword Research Tools:
My favorite for pay research tool: KeywordDiscovery.com

Free Tools:
Google's keyword Sandbox
Overture's Keyword Tool

Use any or all of the tools above to see other ways of looking at your keywords. Then, choose 2-3 keyphrases to focus on per page of your site. Use these phrases in the title, the content and the links on each page. This will ensure that your site is optimized for your most important keyphrases.

Another method of determining the best keywords for your site is to run a series of Google Adwords campaigns to track how often certain keywords are searched on and measure their effectiveness in turning web-searchers into customers for you.

For more information on keyword research visit Keyword Research at my site or write or call me for more information on keyword tools and Google Adwords.

If you know someone who might benefit from this information, please forward this email.