Keywords to Choose to Improve your Google Ranking

Keywords are words or phrases that people use when they look for information using the search engines. For this reason, it is essential that you use powerful keywords when writing your article for the internet. By using the right keywords, your write-up is guaranteed a good ranking in the top page results of search engines.

So how do you find the best keywords for your article? You may find it a challenge but it is worth the effort. First off, do some brainstorming around the types of questions your customers and target market ask you.  What are the 3 most common questions you are asked and what keywords stand out.

These common words your target audience and customers use in conversation will also be what they will use when they search for information on your products or services. So make sure to include these words when writing your article. Just don't go overboard -  avoid using too many of these keywords in the body of the article or you may even be penalized by the search engines, as they'll tag you as deliberately trying to manipulate your search ranking.

If you’re writing content for a particular business, think about the keyword combinations your customers will use when they look for a certain product or service. For example, if you’re into selling jewelry, you can focus your write-ups on the different types of jewelry such as bracelet, necklaces and rings.

To get more concrete results, do your own research first on the keywords you intend to use for your article using the search engines yourself. For example, if you’re writing on “Ways to deal with stress,” you can try entering the phrase dealing with stress in Google’s search box and the results will show you how many websites are competing against you. Try using different phrases or a combination incorporating more words (known as a "long tail keyword") and see the results.

Some keyword phrases that are very competitive so you might like to avoid those or your article or website may get lost in the rush. You can see if there’s stiff competition for the keywords you’re targeting if you do a search and the page results statistic on Google shows thousands or even millions of hits for other relevant sites. It’s better to have a mix of keywords -- both popular and unusual words for your content.

You can also use your server log files to learn about keywords used by people. Normally, when a visitor goes to your site after using the search engine, the words they typed are recorded in your server log files.

Other tools, such as Google Analytics, will also reveal this information to you as will many other tools that are f.ree on the internet. Or you can try some of the paid tools such as the Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery.

After gathering the keywords relevant to your site, narrow them down your list to your top three or four keyword strings. Then use these keywords as your guide when writing articles and content for your website or blog.

By Wendy Moore
Copyright 2009 Savvy Web Women Pty Ltd