If you run a search query, you know that even the most unique of search terms will result in thousands, if not millions of search results. Truth is, there are so many websites on the Internet, it is almost impossible to fathom. As an online business owner, one of your most important jobs is figuring out how to move your website up that long list of websites to the first page of results. Because most surfers will only look at results listed on the first page, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has become a booming industry. The technique of keyword search engine ranking is perhaps the most important aspect of optimization.

The trick is figuring out what keywords your potential customers will use to find you and determining how unique those words are. Ideally, the keywords you select to improve your rankings will be relevant and unique enough to make your website stand out. For example, your product may be face cream. If you sit down to brain storm your list, you may come up with something like: “face cream”, “anti-aging cream” and “moisturizing face cream”. It is true that many people searching for your product will use these words. The trouble is they are so common that everyone selling face cream will likely have selected these words and terms as their keywords. As a result, your website will be contending with many thousands of other sites. The key is finding words that are relevant but won’t be used by so many of your competitors.

There are several excellent tools available on the internet to help you improve your keyword search engine ranking. Google’s keyword tool may be the most popular, but WordTracker and Spyfu have nice tools as well. Using our “face cream” example and the Google tool I can easily determine that, on average, over 2000 people use that search term each month. Google, and other keyword analyzer tools, will also provide you with a list of related keywords for you to choose from. For example “best anti-aging face cream’ has 125 searches each month.

You may think that the lower the number of searchers, the fewer visitors you will have. This isn’t actually true. Most searchers will input a generic term first, face cream, and will get a list of websites. After looking at the top two or three, they will perform a more specific search such as anti-aging face cream. This process will continue until they have found the product they are interested in. Our term, “best anti-aging face cream”, may not get as many hits, but the hits it does get will be from motivated potential clients that will be easier to convert because it is more targeted.

Choosing words for your website that will improve your keyword search engine ranking is as much an art as it is a science. To be truly successful at picking keywords you have to understand how people think and what they might do to find you. By combining that creative thinking with the data supplied by a good keyword analyzer, you are likely to develop a list of keywords that will help increase your rankings and visibility.

Contact us and we can help you develop a strong keyword list for your business that will surely bring you more traffic and sales.