In search engine optimization, Keywords are words or phrases users provide to search engines to locate information. Search engines examine page content to determine whether a specific page is relevant for a particular search word or phrase. Thus, effective keyword selection is one of the cornerstones of search engine optimization.

Each keyword is characterized by supply (number of search engine result pages) and demand (number of searches). The easiest way to improve search engine rank is to select keywords that have favorable supply-demand characteristics; that is, ones with a relatively high demand and a relatively low supply. It is much more difficult to improve the search engine position of a page on a high supply, competitive keyword.

Good keywords must be relevant to your product line, as well as your line of business. A #1 rank for “navy widgets” is worthless if you sell taupe widgets exclusively. A potential customer will find your page, quickly discover that you don’t sell any navy widgets, and promptly go elsewhere. In effect, the conversion rate for irrelevant search engine hits is very close to zero.

For more information on picking the right keywords to optimize your web site, and for doing search engine optimization, take a look at this FREE Tutorial: FREE Search Engine Optimization Tutorial

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 6th, 2006 at 5:52 pm and is filed under SEO, Teleseminars. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.