Keywords

Keywords are the words people type into a search box when they’re looking for something online.
The search engine uses the keywords to decide which web pages to deliver in the results pages.
That’s why keywords are crucial to your online marketing – use them in your web site copy and you
can rank well on Google, Yahoo, MSN or any other search engine, ignore them and your pages will
rarely be found.

Wordtracker analyzes millions of searches every day and builds up a complex database of the
keywords people use when they search. Subscribe to Wordtracker and you won't have to guess what
your best keywords are, you'll be able to see what your best keywords are.

With the help of some of the world's best experts, we'll show you in simple, jargon-free language
how you can start moving your business up the search engine results pages.

You can start to become a keyword expert by exploring the categories below:

Keyword Basics
If you know nothing about keywords this five part series is the place to start. You'll learn how search
engines work, you'll discover how to explore the network of keywords that your target markets use in
the keyword matrix, how to prioritise those keywords and use them in your website copywriting.
Finally, we'll introduce you to using keywords in your inbound links.

Keyword Research
Keyword research is the process of finding out the words and phrases that your potential customers
use online. We're all creatures of habit and what we type into the search boxes isn't random, it's
influenced subconsciously by our language and culture. Our searches follow certain patterns, we
share the same types of words, we're influenced by news stories and the latest buzz or fashion.

Wordtracker's research results will give you thousands of keywords results - all real searches made
by real people, relevant to your products and services.

Keyword Analysis
The thousands of keywords results you get from your keyword research are full of surprises and
opportunities. To get the most from these results you need to analyze and prioritize them in terms of
the traffic they can produce and the competition you will face. Wordtracker has the tools to make
your keyword analysis simple and productive.

Keyword Strategy
Once you've researched and analyzed your keywords, you need a keyword strategy to get the best
search engine results. The foundation of your strategy is a list of prioritized keywords, organized in
themes corresponding to the needs of your target markets.

This gives you a focus for writing your web content and implementing your online marketing.

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Keyword Creativity
Keyword creativity is the processing of using keyword research to stimulate keyword creative
thinking. The insights gained from keyword research give you more knowledge not only about your
prospects' search behaviour, but also their needs and the language that they use. This is fertile ground
for designers, writers, marketers, public relations professionals, journalists and publishers.

Top Keywords
What are the top keywords on the web - the ones that attract the greatest volume of searches?
Knowing these keywords can be fun: who's the most popular, Paris or Britney? YouTube or
MySpace? BBC or CNN?

But they also have a serious side. The top keywords give you clues to what's happening on the web
and that extra bit of insight could give you the edge. You can track the zeitgeist with Wordtracker.

A full list of keyword categories follows...

 keyword basics
 free keywords
 keyword analysis
 keyword creativity
 keyword research
 keyword services
 keywords marketing
 keyword strategy
 keyword tools
 search engine keywords
 top keywords
 keyword resources
 keyword research in the UK

Keyword Basics Part 1: How Search Engines

Work
by Ken McGaffin, 24 November 2006

One of the most frequently asked questions from website owners is, "Why can't my site be found on
Google?" They know it's important to appear in search engine results but they just don't know why it
doesn't happen to them.

Key points
 The Spider software crawls the web looking for new pages to collect and add to the search
engine indices.
 The Index software catches everything the Spider can throw at it.

They may well be in awe of the 'black arts' of search engine optimization or puzzled by the
complexity of it all. If they're unlucky they will have paid out money to some snake oil salesman
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guaranteeing to get them to the top in 48 hours - and been sorely disappointed with the lack of traffic
that results.

Most search engine optimizers are highly ethical, professional people but they do tend to keep their
cards close to their chest.

The big secret is there is no big secret

It's true: the 'big secret' of search engine optimization is that there is no big secret.

It is all about understanding what is going on, followed by the hard work and attention to detail that
are common to many business activities.

This article is about understanding what is going on inside a search engine. It is just under 800 words
in length but that is more than enough to give you what you need to know, albeit in simple terms.

Inside the guts of a search engine

For simplicity's sake, let's say there are three pieces of software that together make up a search
engine - the Spider software, the Index software and the Query software.

If you understand what these three do, then you have the foundation for getting your website to the
top of the search engines.

Here's what the three types of software do:

The Spider software 'crawls the web looking for new pages to collect and add to the search engine
indices'.

This is a metaphor. In reality, the spider doesn't do any 'crawling' and doesn't 'visit' any web pages. It
requests pages from a website in the same way as Microsoft Explorer, or Firefox or whatever
browser you use requests pages to display on your screen.

The difference is that the spider doesn't collect images or formatting - it is only interested in text and
links AND the URL, (for example, [Link] from which they
come: it doesn't display anything and it gets as much information as it can is the shortest time
possible.

A spider loves links because they lead it to other web pages that have the things that it loves, guess
what? Text, links and URLs!

The Index software catches everything the Spider can throw at it (yes, that's another metaphor). The
index makes sense of the mass of text, links and URLs using what is called an algorithm - a complex
mathematical formula that indexes the words, the pairs of words and so on.

Essentially, an algorithm analyses the pages and links for word combinations and assigns scores that
allow the search engine to judge how important the page (and URL) might be to the person that is
searching.

And of course it stores all of this information and makes it available.

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The Query software is what you see when you go to a search engine - it is the front end that
everybody thinks of as a search engine - familiar ground at last. It may look simple but it presents the
results of all the quite remarkable search engine software that works away invisibly on our behalf.

The main feature of the query software is the box into which people type their search terms.

Type in your words, hit search and the search engine will try to match your words with the best web
pages in can find through searching the web.

But this too is a metaphor and perhaps the most important one.

The query software doesn't search the web - it checks the records that have been created by its own
index software. And those records have been made possible by the raw material the spider software
collects.

What you need to understand about search engines

That is it. What you need to understand is that the search engine has done all the hard work of
collecting and analysing web pages, BUT it only makes that information available when someone
does a search by entering words in the search box and hitting return.

The words people use when they search therefore determine the results the search engine presents.
So search engine optimizers want to know the words people use when they search - we call them
keywords - that might sound fancy but keywords are only 'the words people use when they search'.

And that's what Wordtracker provides. Use keywords in your website copy and you will prosper:
ignore them and your online business will surely perish.

Keyword Basics Part 2: Discovering The

Keyword Matrix
by Ken McGaffin, 28 December 2006

A simple method for expanding your lists of profitable keywords. The secret of writing great online
copy is simple: use keywords - the words people use when they search - in your copy.

Key points
 If you use the words people use when they search in your copy, page titles, descriptions and
links, then you’ll score well in search engine results and more people will find your site.
 The language you use will be appropriate to your audience. And as any seasoned direct
marketer will tell you, speak to people in their own language and they will be more likely to
buy from you.

The reasons for this are twofold:

1. If you use the words people use when they search in your copy, page titles, descriptions and
links, then you’ll score well in search engine results and more people will find your site.

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 2. The language you use will be appropriate to your audience. And as any seasoned direct
marketer will tell you, speak to people in their own language and they will be more likely to
buy from you.

That of course begs the question, "How do you find your best keywords"?

Most people either just guess or do perfunctory research using one of the many free keyword tools
that you'll find online.

But if you want to succeed online, you've got to spend enough time and energy finding out the words
your customers really use when they search. You'll need not just 20-30 keywords, you'll need
hundreds - and many of the most successful online companies will have thousands of keywords.

The keyword matrix is a simple methodology that allows you to build a comprehensive keyword list
using the Wordtracker database. Here are the 3 steps involved: you can also download the Excel
spreadsheets we generated for this example - this gives you almost 5,000 relevant keywords using
the full version of Wordtracker and 85 relevant keywords using the free trial version.

Step 1 - Start with a common word or phrase that is

appropriate to your business
Start simple. Your starting point does not need to be clever or creative. All you need is a common
word or phrase relevant to your business - Wordtracker will help you find clever keywords later.

So in the example above, a good starting point would be the word 'chocolate'.

Using the keyword researcher at Wordtracker, you can find 1000 keywords that all contain the word,
'chocolate'.

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Excellent. So far, so good. Now all you have to do is rush off and optimize your web pages for those
phrases, right?

Wrong! That is what most people will do and as a result they will miss out on some very powerful
keywords that are not immediately obvious.

Time to move on to step 2 and get inside the keyword matrix.

Step 2 - Find words that are related to your original keyword

Here the task is not to find relevant keywords that contain the word 'chocolate': in fact, it is just the
opposite - to find relevant keywords that do not contain the word 'chocolate'.

Go to the related keywords feature on Wordtracker and enter the word chocolate. Wordtracker now
searches 100 websites that score well on search engines for the search 'chocolate' and extracts the
phrases that those sites use. From that you'll find relevant keywords such as truffles, cocoa, fudge,
confectionery, gifts, gourmet and so on.

Scan the list of related keywords and pick the ones that YOU feel are relevant to your business. Your
input is required: Wordtracker is not a machine that churns out a list of keywords that will
automatically bring you a fortune. If that was so, everybody would get the same results. Rather,
Wordtracker is a tool that allows you to find your best keywords.

So from the list of related terms you might pick truffles, cocoa, fudge and candy.

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Step 3: Use the related words to generate many more relevant
keywords
Essentially, this repeats step 1 for each of the related keywords that you have chosen. Take each of
your chosen related words and enter them into the keyword researcher in turn.

By following this methodology, you can quickly generate hundreds of relevant keywords that reflect
the subtleties – and niche markets – within your marketplace.

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Here’s what your final matrix may look like:

Final words
The average person will do their keyword research once and then forget about it.

But that is the way to get average results. Effective keyword research is an ongoing process and to
get outstanding results you must work at it regularly.

Successful keyword researchers will:

1. Regularly check your keyword counts on Wordtracker - they can go up and down over time.
2. Continue to add more keywords to your matrix. The more effective keywords you have, the
more profitable your online business will be.
3. Monitor how well your keywords do. Performance will always be a mixture of:
o Keywords that bring good traffic and good conversions (these are the words people
use when they are in buying mode)
o Keywords that bring you good traffic but poor conversions (these are the words
people use when they are in research mode)
o Keywords that bring low traffic but great conversions( these are the words that
represent buying behaviour in niche markets).

Overall, there will be a mix of such keywords in any comprehensive keyword matrix.

In the next issue, we'll look at how you can pick the most competitive keywords from the sample
matrix that we have developed for 'chocolate' and how you can use those keywords in your web site
copy.

Keyword Basics Part 3: Choosing Your Best

Keywords
by Ken McGaffin, 22 February 2007

You know how sometimes you make a list of say, three things and then by the time you get to the
end of the list, you remember that there’s something you really must include and your list of three
becomes a list of four.

Key points
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  Include the most popular keywords in your website copy
 Use the most popular keywords along with 'qualifiers'
 Look for niche keywords or markets that others haven't yet found

Well, that's happened to me with this series of three articles – I need to squeeze in another. So this
article will be about choosing your best keywords from the many that can be generated using
Wordtracker. The next article in this series will look at how to use your best keywords to create high
ranking pages.

So how do you choose the best keywords, the ones you should concentrate on first?

In part 2, The Keyword Matrix, we developed two spreadsheets for chocolate and related terms, one
of 85 search terms using the free trial and one of over 5000 terms using the full version (you can
download both spreadsheets from the previous article).

The spreadsheets gave a prediction of the daily searches for each term:

The 'predict' figure is the first metric you should look at. High scoring keywords will be the most
popular words in your marketplace - the words people use when they're searching for your products -
so 'gifts' for a luxury chocolate site, 'cheap flights' for a travel site.

But of course there is a problem. Because the keywords are so popular, lots of sites will use them.
You will face a lot of competition and much of that competition will be good at search engine
optimization.

An experienced SEO will welcome this challenge and will apply skill and hard work over a number
of months to compete effectively. But a novice SEO will find it virtually impossible to compete for
these highly popular keywords. What then should the novice do?

Strategies for a novice SEO

I think there are three strategies you should follow:

1. Include the most popular keywords in your website copy, even though you may not rank
well for them. Your customers will expect to see these keywords, and search engines will

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 take note of them. By including them, you lay a foundation for the long term - slowly but
surely as you add more content, your rankings will rise.
2. Use the most popular keywords along with 'qualifiers', either geographic or sector
specific. So while it might be difficult to rank well for 'chocolate gifts', it is not such a
challenge to rank well for 'chocolate gifts Buffalo' targeting a geographic area or 'corporate
chocolate gifts' targeting the business sector.
3. Look for niche keywords or markets that others haven't yet found. Such keywords have
the magic combination of being relatively popular searches, but having little competition.
Wordtracker provides a measurement for this - KEI or keyword effectiveness index. Many
SEOs adopt this niche keyword strategy: John Alexander and Robin Nobles explain the
approach in detail in this excellent article - An Ingenious Way to Use Wordtracker.

Wordtracker provides you with a number of metrics to help in these strategies. You can see them
here in the full version (similar metrics are available with the trial):

Here's what each of these terms mean:

 Searches is the number of times the exact keyword appears in our sample of people's
searches.
 Predict is the number of times over a 24-hour period that the exact keyword will be searched
for over all engines.
 Google is the number of results that Google will return for the exact search term in quotation
marks (you can also choose other search engines).
 Google KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index) is a calculation of the "effectiveness" of each
keyword, taking into account the predicted searches and the number of competing pages.

So let's look at our three strategies again using Wordtracker metrics.

1. Include the most popular keywords in your website copy. This means including the
keywords that have a high 'predict' figure into your keyword strategy.
2. Use the most popular keywords along with 'qualifiers'. Look at the Google competition
figure. If this is too high, add a qualifier to the keyword. So, instead of optimizing for
'chocolate gifts', optimize for 'chocolate gifts Buffalo'.

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 3. Look for niche keywords or markets that others haven't yet found. Pay close attention to
the Google KEI column. By clicking on 'Google KEI' at the top of the table, Wordtracker
will sort your entire list in descending order of KEI.

As with all things in search engine optimization you have to use a mixture of solid data AND human
intelligence. Keyword research is not a simple one-off task. You will achieve much more if you
investigate the tools, think about what they tell you about people, and develop your own ideas and
methodologies.

A final tip to expand your keyword list

Today, if I did a search for 'chocolate gifts' on Wordtracker, I'd get a predict figure of 192. But that
score is for the exact keyword phrase on its own - it does not count people's searches that include
'chocolate gifts' along with other words.

To find these additional keywords do this search in the full version of Wordtracker: Keyword
Researcher

The results will show a prediction of 386 for phrases that contain 'chocolate gifts' - almost twice as
many as for 'chocolate gifts' alone.

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Please keep those comments coming. The next article in this series will look at how to use your best
keywords to create high ranking pages.

Keyword Basics Part 4: Using Keywords In

Website Copywriting
by Ken McGaffin, 4 April 2007

So you've done all your keyword research and you've found the best keywords for your website.
How do you use these keywords to improve your website copywriting so that you rank well on the
search engines and attract the type of customers that you are after?

Key points
 From the keyword lists you have chosen for your site, pick a primary and a secondary
keyword that you’ll want to rank well for with the article.
 Write the title of the article making sure that you include the primary keyword in the title.
 Write the description tag using both the primary and secondary keywords.
 Write the first paragraph which should be a summary of the overall article and should include
both primary and secondary keywords.
 Map out the structure of the article, writing headings and subheading that each contain
keywords.
 Think about the internal and external links that you might point people to. The linking text
should be keyword rich.

Example of good website copywriting

Well, let’s start with an example of a well-written and highly ranked website in a competitive sector
– digital cameras. I’ll go to Google and do a search, say for “digital camera”: at the time of writing,
here are the results:

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See how the titles of the top organic searches all include the search term ‘digital camera’. The words
that appear in the title are completely within your control: the title tag is the most important place to
put your primary keyword.

So the top organic result comes from [Link] who have succeeded against 63 million
competing pages – a great performance. So what can we learn by following the link?

Let’s have a look:

Look at how the keyword ‘digital camera’ has been used in the title, the heading, linking text and the
body copy.

This is a well optimized page. But have a closer look at the title – it contains another important
keyword, ‘digital photography’. This keyword is also used well in the website copy:

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So how does this page perform for the search ‘digital photography’? Does the page rank as well as it
did for ‘digital camera’?

Here are the results from Google:

Top again with over 24 million competing web pages. A very nice piece of work and one you should
try to emulate. The person writing this copy really knew what they were doing.

Using keywords in your web copy

Here are the steps I’ll go through to create a piece of web copy.

1. From the keyword lists you have chosen for your site, pick a primary and a secondary
keyword that you’ll want to rank well for with the article.
2. Write the title of the article making sure that you include the primary keyword in the title.
You can also try to fit in the secondary phrase but if you find it hard to do so and still
maintain good English, then don’t worry about the secondary keyword in your title. I try and
keep the title to around 50 characters in length.
3. Write the description tag using both the primary and secondary keywords. This should
describe what the article is about and should be around 200-250 characters long.
4. Write the first paragraph which should be a summary of the overall article and should include
both primary and secondary keywords. If you’re not sure about how to do this, have a look at
my first paragraph here or study good newspaper writing. You’ll find that journalists tend to
summarize the story in the very first paragraph.
5. Next, map out the structure of the article, writing headings and subheading that each contain
keywords. Not only does this help you write good search engine copy, but it focuses your
mind on what you really want to say and the quality of your writing will improve. In this
article, for example, here’s the structure I’ve followed:
o Using keywords in website copywriting
o Example of good website copywriting
o Using keywords in your web copy – 6 steps
o Improving your website copywriting skills
o Internal and external resources to link to.

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 6. Finally, think about the internal and external links that you might point people to. The linking
text should be keyword rich.

Improving your website copywriting skills

This article has given you some tips and a step-by-step process to follow. However, you’ll get
nowhere unless you put some of this advice into action and then see what happens to your search
engine traffic. Then build on what works and discard what doesn’t.

My favorite definition of an expert is “someone who has made more mistakes than anyone else”. So
don’t be afraid – get writing, get publishing, measure what happens – and then do it even better next
time.

KEYWORD EFFECTIVENESS INDEX (KEI)

Sumantra Roy, a respected Search Engine Positioning specialist from [Link] has
kindly allowed us to incorporate his KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index) into Wordtracker.

The KEI compares the Count result (number of times a keyword has appeared in our data) with the number of
competing web pages to pinpoint exactly which keywords are most effective for your campaign.

In a nutshell: Look for the keywords near the top. The higher the KEI, the more popular your keywords are,
and the less competition they have. Which means you have a better chance of getting to the top.

The article below is a much more detailed look at the KEI and why we have decided to use it.

DETAILED EXPLANATION

The KEI is a measure of how effective a keyword is for your web site. The derivation of the formula for KEI is
based on three axioms:

1) The KEI for a keyword should increase if its popularity increases. Popularity is defined as the number
present in the "Count" column of WordTracker. This axiom is self-explanatory.

2) The KEI for a keyword should decrease if it becomes more competitive. Competitiveness is defined as the
number of sites which a search engine e.g. AltaVista displays when you search for that keyword using exact
match search.

Exact match search means that a search engine searches for only those sites which use the keyword exactly
as typed in by the user. It is the equivalent of entering:

''quiz shows online''

Partial match search means that a search engine also searches for sites which contain the individual words of
the keyword but not necessarily occurring together or in the order typed in by the user. It is the equivalent of
entering:

quiz shows online

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Partial match search presents a distorted picture of the competitiveness of a keyword because when you
optimize your site for a particular keyword, you are actually competing with sites which have used the keyword
exactly as typed in by the user.

So to clarify, competitiveness is defined as the number of sites which a search engine displays when you
search for that keyword using exact match search, that is with quotes surrounding the term. Rather than those
web sites returned when entering the phrase only partially, that is without quotes.

Note: When you select KEI Analysis, quotes will be added temporarily to each of your search terms for the
purposes of the search.

3) If a keyword becomes more popular and more competitive at the same time such that the ratio between its
popularity and competitiveness remains the same, its KEI should increase. The rationale behind this axiom
requires a more detailed explanation. The best way to do this is to take an example:

Suppose the popularity of a keyword is 4 and AltaVista displays 100 sites for that keyword. Then the ratio
between popularity and competitiveness for that keyword is 4/100 = 0.04.

Suppose that both the popularity and the competitiveness of the keyword increases. Assume that the
popularity increases to 40 and AltaVista now displays 1000 sites for that keyword. Then the ratio between
popularity and competitiveness for that keyword is 40/1000 = 0.04.

Hence, the keyword has the same ratio between popularity and competitiveness as before. However, as is
obvious, the keyword would be far more attractive in the second case. If the popularity is only 4, there's hardly
any point in spending time trying to optimize your site for it even though you have a bigger chance of ending
up in the top 30 since there are only 100 sites which are competing for a top 30 position. Each hit is no doubt
important, but from a cost-benefit angle, the keyword is hardly a good choice. However, when the popularity
increases to 40, the keyword becomes more attractive even though its competitiveness increases. Although it
is now that much more difficult to get a top 30 ranking, spending time in trying to do so is worthwhile from the
cost benefit viewpoint.

A good KEI must satisfy all the 3 axioms. Let P denote the popularity of the keyword and C the
competitiveness.

The formula that we have chosen is KEI = (P^2/C), i.e. KEI is the square of the popularity of the keyword and
divided by its competitiveness. This formula satisfies all the 3 axioms:

i) If P increases, P^2 increases and hence KEI increases. Hence, Axiom 1 is satisfied.

ii) If C increases, KEI decreases and hence, Axiom 2 is satisfied.

iii) If P and C both increase such that P/C is the same as before, KEI increases since KEI can be written as

KEI = (P^2/C) = (P/C * P). Since P/C remains the same, and P increases, KEI must increase. Hence, Axiom 3
is satisfied.

Note that the formula for KEI is not unique. In fact, this is one of the nice things about the KEI. If, instead of
using 2, you use any power of P greater than 1, the resultant formula will also satisfy the 3 axioms. For
example, (P^1.5/C) and (P^3/C) both satisfy the 3 axioms. The exact power of P that you choose depends on
how much emphasis you want to give to the popularity of a keyword viz-a-viz its competitiveness. Higher the
power of P in the formula, higher will be the emphasis on popularity. If you are very confident about your
search engine positioning skills, choose a higher value for the power of P. If you are not that confident about
your search engine positioning skills, choose a lower value for the power of P (but the power should still be
more than 1). Thus, the KEI can be adapted to your skill level! Feeling confused as to which power you should
choose? Stick to 2. It maintains a nice balance between both popularity and competitiveness.

Please note that Wordtracker defaults to 2 (P^2/C) as described above.

The Keyword Effectiveness Index was invented by Sumantra Roy. Sumantra is one of the most respected and
recognized search engine positioning specialists on the Internet. For free articles and tips on search engine
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positioning, subscribe to the 1st Search Ranking Newsletter by going to
[Link]

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