Selecting the Best Keywords for your Website

First, a short review of what we've already covered in past EWA issues regarding key words.

Two key terms you should be familiar with:

Search volume refers to the number of times any keyword is searched. You're looking for key words with high volumes because those are the ones a lot of people are searching on. They're popular. In a past EWA, I likened high search volume key words to busy street corners when selecting the location for a brick-and-mortar store. You want key words that get high traffic.

How do you determine the search volume of any key word or phrase? Go to Wordtracker.com (at http://www.wordtracker.com) and enter in any keyword or phrase. You'll see the number of searches per month.

Keyword difficulty refers to how many websites use any given keyword or keyword phrase. You don't want a very high difficulty score on your keywords. Why? It will indicate that you would have stiff competition from other websites using that same keyword.

You can use the SEOmoz keyword difficulty tool (at http://www.SEOmoz.com) to determine level of difficulty.

Key thought: You want your key words to rank high in volume but relatively low in difficulty score. That way you'll be offering what a lot of people want but relatively few are supplying. In the world of websites, that's a competitive advantage.

Another fact: We may often think of keywords as single words, but they are usually combinations of keywords, called keyword phrases, rather than individual key words.

Okay. Let's assume you have come up with a list of key words you want to use in your website content. Should you use them all? Not necessarily. You may want to finesse your key word phrases. Here are a few best-practice rules you can follow in choosing the best ones:

Method 1: Try using longer, more specific keyword phrases. For example, not just cars, but used cars; and not just used cars but foreign used cars. To quote The Yahoo Style Guide, a good resource in these matters, "The smaller your website and the fewer the links pointing to it, the more likely you are to need longer keyword phrases for optimal success." Another example: a doctor (a high volume term) might consider localizing with the town where he or she practices; for example, "doctor in Richmond, VA"; or even better, "general practitioner doctor in Richmond, VA," or "GP in Richmond, VA."

Method 2: Use a high-volume keyword together with a low-volume (high difficulty) key word in a single phrase to achieve a balance of volume and difficulty. For example: If you're selling science lab protozoa you might combine the common word, "free" with the less common term "protozoa." In the same way for a very different website, you might combine the high volume term "quality" with the higher difficulty term "dessert toppings" to create the keyword phrase "quality dessert toppings."

Method 3: Always consider what page you're on when deciding what key words should appear on it. Put your highest volume keywords and keyword phrases on your homepage. Put individual subject keyword phrases on your category pages. For example, a used foreign car parts website might optimize the entire site for "used foreign car parts," but it might optimize the BMW parts page with "BMW used foreign car parts" as a keyword phrase.

Next Month: How to clean up and pare down your web writing for optimal SEO results.