If you have an Internet-based business or intend to have one, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is crucial.  While comprehensive SEO can be a very sophisticated, there are some simple and very inexpensive techniques to “get noticed” by the search engines especially in your local market.

Keywords is one of these important subjects.  Internet search engines (SEs) catalog or index web pages by keywords.  Every web page has visible text which every visitor sees when that page pops up on his or her screen.  Words that are repeated and words that relate to the page title and headlines are categorized by the SEs as “keywords.”  When a person searches on one or more of those keywords in Google, Yahoo, MSN, or some other SE, the SE lists your web page in the “hits” or results.

Then there are the non-visible listings of keywords.  Every web page has a “meta-tag” feature called KEYWORDS.  This is in the HTML code of the page and is not visible to the person viewing your page but is visible to the Internet search engines.  They find this KEYWORDS list and save it associated with your pages. 

This is something your web designer will understand, though it is easy for anyone to learn to do.  Whether or not you wish to learn to enter the keywords into the KEYWORDS section of your web pages, you at least need to be actively involved in making your keyword lists.

Your keyword lists should contain every keyword associated with your business or at least the web page under consideration.  For example, if your web site has to do with products for baseball enthusiasts, you will not only want to list baseball, but sports, bats, gloves, bases, catchers’ masks, cleats, and so forth.  If you have a link that lists scores or team standings, you will also want to include the term scores, plus the local cities/towns and team names.

How do you decide what are all the related keywords?  You go to resources that show you what keywords searchers on the Internet are actually searching on.  Some of these services are available by subscription, but there are some good ones that are free.

Here’re two very good free SEO Keyword tools.  Used in combination, they are very powerful.

From Google:
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

And this one is very comprehensive:
http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword/

Work with them and you will find your promotion of your Internet business will be much more effective and easier.

To your business success!

Paul Elliott
Marketing With Unbelievable Guarantees!™
http://www.MarketingSuccessBlueprint.com/blog

© 2008, Paul Elliott, All rights reserved world wide.