Keywords versus Keyword Phrases
Published September 3, 2010 | 
Let’s take a look at how one creates a keyword list with the example of a website selling real estate in Texas, where the immediately obvious keywords are items such as ‘property’, ‘real estate’, ‘Texas’ and ‘Texan’. These can also be combined into phrases such as ‘Texan property’ and ‘property in Texas’. In general, focus should be on ranking for keyword phrases rather than for keywords.
It is true that ranking well for ‘Texas’ will give a thousand times as much traffic as ranking well for ‘Texas Property’, but understand it would cost a 
hundred times as much investment to rank for ‘Texas’ as to rank for ‘Texas Property’ very simply because competition is many times more heavy for individual words then exists is for phrases. Additionally, most of the traffic for ‘Texas’ is for topics (such as Texas Revolution, Texas Flag, Texas Food) largely irrelevant to the business, so the majority of the traffic is of no value to the business.
Consequently, in most cases, you will achieve a much better return on investment by simply focusing on relevant keyword phrases or targeted keyword phrases, than by doing Search Engine Optimization for individual keywords.
A related point you need to keep in mind is that ranking well for individual keywords in no way means that a keyword will automatically rank well for phrases that include these keywords. 
For example, a site might rank well for ‘Texan’ (perhaps resulting in lots of traffic about ‘Texan Food’) and rank well for ‘Property’ (perhaps resulting in lots of traffic for ‘Australian Property’), without ranking well for ‘Texan Property’ (which is what we were after in the first place).
In fact, many targeted keyword phrases, are more often than not the best investments in terms of attracting website visitors searching for the precise product that you might be offering. So imagine if you are selling ranches in Texas you might find the best Search Engine Optimization investment is ‘Prestige Texan Property,’ whereas if you are selling run-down ranch houses to people looking for inexpensive seasonal homes they can fix up you might find the best Search Engine Optimization investment is ‘Cheap Texan Ranch Houses’. 
So admittedly, the actual amount of traffic for these lengthy phrases is most likely low, the probability of the resulting visitors buying is much higher than for the more general phrases, and the cost of Search Engine Optimization is a small fraction of the cost for more general phrases.
Of course there will be such cases when ranking for individual words makes more sense. Let’s look at a website which provides international property rather than property in just one country that may find it cost effective to rank for ‘property,’ and likewise, websites that focus on niche topics identified by a single word. However, the fact is for the majority of websites, keyword phrases are not only more cost effective, but also tend to attract the specific type of visitors that actually match the products being sold.
Selection of Primary Keywords
Published September 1, 2010 | 
It is not only important to know that keywords are important to your business, but it is also important to understand what aspects of keywords actually make them important to your business.
There are different variables or characteristics that keywords have to help the determination of whether or not the keywords are worth consideration as part of your Search Engine Optimization strategy, and only if keywords pass the primary selection tests can they be subjected to the prioritization variable tests. Considerations for primary keyword selection are:
• Keyword terms/phrases should have adequate search volumes
• Keyword terms that are chosen should be relevant
• Identified relative competition should be evaluated
If a keyword search term’s volume fails to meet sufficient levels, then it is simply removed from the list, and likewise, if it does not satisfy the relevancy criterion, it should also not be considered.
Finally, you must understand that primary keywords are simply the main keywords from which all variations on the keywords should derive, and your primary keywords should be focused on your particular 
industry and yet, not be too specific, while at the same time, the primary keywords should always be open ended enough so that secondary keyword phrases can be derived from them, and still include the primary keywords within the phrases.
Once identified, you want to make sure the primary keywords appear four or five times in your article in addition to the first paragraph of your article. The more you use primary keywords within limits, the better ranking the article will receive, but be careful, if you are submitting your article to an article directory, be sure to check their guidelines for their keyword use ratio.
Your SEO Foundation is Keywords
Published August 31, 2010 | 
If you haven’t noticed lately, people are changing some of their most fundamental habits over the past couple of years including the way people shop in the age of Search Engines. As people become more accustomed and comfortable with navigating the online eCommerce selections available, they are increasingly using Search Engines to help them find the products or services they are looking for. Of course to do this, they type keywords into Search Engine sites like Google, YouTube or Bing, and the Engines then in turn rank sites related to the keywords used based on relevance and authority.
Whether you are aware of it or not, your website is already set out targeting certain keywords, and Search Engines then extract these keywords from your on-page text, headers, page titles, inbound links and other components and factors. 
Most likely however, you might not in most cases have made a conscious decision to target those specific keywords, and even if you did, the likelihood exist that you might not be monitoring your rankings or have a sense of how good your chances are of ranking well for those keywords.
There are several variables that impact keyword selection. These variables can be divided into groupings including primary selection variables and prioritization variables. 
It is also important to remember and be aware that choosing the right keywords is often the difference between getting found in someone’s search and not getting found. Therefore as a result, keyword research is the foundation of an effective online marketing strategy.
Understanding Effective Use of Keywords and Key Phrases
Published April 15, 2010 | 
Most of us understand that for the most effective search engine optimization, you must use your keywords and keywords phrases effectively, but not everyone knows that for optimal effectiveness, you need to use different keywords and/or keyword phrases on each page of your website, and optimize each page for those keywords and/or keyword phrases that are most relevant to the content of that particular page.
Title Tags
- For the title tag, use keywords and/or keyword phrases as a descriptive title for each page.
- Use your most relevant keywords and/or keyword phrases in your home page title.
- To be the most effective, title tags should contain only keywords and/or keyword phrases.
Repeat the keywords and/or keyword phrases 2-3 times, but you have to make sure that the title makes sense, as an example for this page would be: Understanding Keyword Usage, Using Keywords and Keyword Phrases Effectively.
Meta Tag Keywords
- Place all relevant keywords and keyword phrases in your Meta tag….
- If possible, avoid using single keywords as they may be too competitive. Use keyword phrases instead.
- Don’t repeat your keywords more than 2-3 times to avoid offending some search engines.
- Separate keywords and keyword phrases with commas or spaces, not both, for example: keyword,keyword phrase,keyword or keyword keyword phrase keyword.
- Use common misspellings or miss-keyings. Ex: keywrod or keywird.
- Use different forms of keywords whenever possible. Ex: web site and website.
- Use singular and plural versions of keywords. Ex: website and websites.
- Use upper and lower case. Ex: Website and website
Meta Tag description
- Use your keywords and keyword phrases in your Meta tag description…..
- Repeat your most important keywords and/or keyword phrases a minimum of 2-3 times.
- The total length of your description tag should be no more than 20-25 words.
- Your description should make sense as this is what often shows up in the search engine results page, and this is your opportunity to persuade users to click through to your site so be sure your description is enticing and contains keywords and/or keyword phrases that will attract visitors.
Content
- Many search engines concentrate on the first 250 words of your text when looking for keyword relevancy and density so concentrate your keywords and/or keyword phrases there.
- Strive for 5-7% keyword density (5-7 keywords and/or keyword phrases per 100 words of text), and if your keyword density is much higher than this, your copy may not make sense AND the search engines may consider it keyword spamming.
- Use your most important keywords and/or keyword phrases throughout your copy but without sounding repetitious.
- Use your most important keywords and/or keyword phrases in your H1 tag, and to give more weight to your H1 tag, use only one H1 tag in your copy. (Your H1 tag should contain your most important statement so you shouldn’t need to use more than one H1 tag.)
- Use keywords and/or keyword phrases in your image ALT tags. For example your logo ALT tag should say something such as: ALT=”keyword logo image”.
META tags are not as important as they once were as most search engines are now searching your copy when looking for keywords and/or keyword phrases, therefore, it has become increasingly important to have the first 250 words of your copy be keyword rich.
Sometimes, it may be better to write your content first, then choose your keywords and/or keyword phrases from the content, and rewrite your content as needed, adding keywords and/or keyword phrases that pertain to the theme of the content, so in this way, you’ve chosen keywords and/or keyword phrases that are relevant to your content, instead of trying to write content to fit your keywords and/or keyword phrases.
Understand Keywords
Published March 22, 2010 | If you have already built a website, you probably know the importance of your keywords, and even if you are in the process of building your first site, you have probably heard a lot about them, and if you haven’t, you will, since keywords can make or break your website.
At the heart of the matter, you might find that in fact, you may build everything around your keywords with the understanding that they will lead you where you want to go, but if you choose the wrong keywords, rather than rising to the top of search engine rankings, your site will be left in the search engine dust.
Since you are reminded and realize it is a critical time to choose wisely, you can take a step back and put on your most creative cap, and should be able to come up with both unusual and profitable keywords. The idea here is to come up with words that will sum up the purpose of your page, while being unique enough that other webmasters aren’t using them in the same combination of the keywords that you choose, and with keeping that in mind, move to the more important idea and come up with groups of keywords, or phrases if you will, rather than single solitary words, with the reason being single words prove to be much more competitive and therefore much more expensive.
To give you some peace of mind, know there are tools out there that will help you with the process of choosing your keywords, and these tools can tell you what words are popular and which words and phrases people are actually searching for. 
Even better yet, these tools can also suggest alternatives, by researching what keywords or phrases are searched for, and these tools can many times also suggest alternatives for your consideration. By you researching what keywords or phrases are searched for, and how many results these keywords produce, you can greatly help influence not only the success, but increase the level of success of your Web marketing plan.
I would strongly suggest putting some significant time and effort into choosing these keywords, and in keeping with the axiom “you can do it now, or do it later,” a lack of time here can, and will result in a tremendous amount of work later on. Many a webmaster and webmistress have unsuccessfully tried to rearrange the wording on their site to work around their keywords, when in reality they have it reversed, and when this happens, you end up with wording that is very fragmented and definitely unattractive. 
Remember, if you choose your keywords wisely and let them be your strong foundation, you can then build from the ground up, and not worry about doing demolition work later.
Take your time and use the tools available to you to build a successful website, a site which will bring in traffic, attract backlinks (inbound links), and most importantly, that the search engines will love to visit many times every day. You can, ultimately, produce a relevant site that will work well, and can consequently generate a tremendous amount of traffic, so be good to your website and your website will be good to you.
It is a learning experience that will only make you stronger, wiser and more successful!