Keywords?

Once we get past the initial obstacles in our path to success we only find ourselves faced with even more obstacles. They are just a little more advanced. One of the most misunderstood aspects of internet marketing is keyword selection or keyword research. This is the process of deciding which keywords you will target with your blog.

Keywords are what searchers type into Google (or some other search engine) in order to find the information they are seeking. It is of the utmost importance that you target the right keywords with your blog and marketing campaign. If you fail to target the right keywords (like most of us did when we were new) then you will put lots of effort into your blog for nothing. Picking the wrong keywords can result in not getting traffic to your blog or, even more of a killer, getting traffic to your blog but not converting that traffic in to sales.

There are top level keywords and long tail keywords. Top level keywords are quite broad. Something like "credit cards" or "musical instruments" or perhaps "make money online" -these are all quite broad. Someone could type in 'musical instruments' for any number of reasons. These broad, top level keywords generally have lots of searches per month. Lots of traffic to be had if you can harness it. The problem with top level keywords is that they are extremely tough and frankly out of reach for most newbies.

On the other hand a 'long tail' keyword is actually more like a phrase. Something like "musical instruments for sale in Malaysia" is a long tail keyword. These are the kinds of keywords a newbie should target. They have much less competition because they have much less traffic. Yet that is exactly what make long tail keywords a practical choice. It is relatively easy to score a page one ranking for a long tail, and the longer the better!

It is not just about targeting the easiest and longest keyphrases but instead targeting keyphrases that are 'buyers' keyphrases. Tell me, what kind of traffic would you prefer at your site which sells gardening tools? Traffic that comes from people searching "gardening" or traffic that comes from people searching for, "cheap gardening tools"...if you picked the latter then you would be picking the money keyword.

The more specific the search, the more ready the buyer is. They have already done their research and are ready to purchase. Words like cheap, discount and any geo targeted search are almost always money searches. By money searches I mean the folks doing the searching have their credit card in their hands and are fully intending to buy.