What's The Big Deal About Keywords?

Keywords can spell the difference between the life and death of your web site. Let's look at an example to illustrate this point.


Suppose you decide to build a web site around cats. You have two cats, Fluffy and Muffy, whom you absolutely adore. You decide you're going to share all those wonderful ways you've discovered to spoil your little darlings. Over the years you've developed a habit of referring to your cats as "felines" so you decide to name your web site "Feline Kingdom".

You plan your site and create some pages on feline food, feline habits, feline jewelry and so on. You even create an e-book called "Living With Felines". Once you've organised your domain name and hosting, you upload your pages and e-book to your site.

But the months slip by and hardly anyone visits your site. You can't understand it. You've done so much work; the site looks fabulous and the information is top quality. Yet you hardly have any visitors, let alone make a sale. What went wrong?

The problem is simple. Your fellow feline lovers are typing in different keywords when they search for information on their favorite animals. They search for 'cat food', 'cat habits' and 'cat jewelry'. By using the word 'feline' instead of 'cat' on your web pages, you've made sure they will never find you. You've effectively cut yourself off from your market.

How To Use Keywords

Keywords are used in two ways. When you first research a topic, it's essential that you find out if any keywords pertaining to your subject are popular. You need to know if enough people searching for your subject each month to make it financially viable. So if 10,000 people looked for 'cats' during the past month, there's a good chance that at least a small percentage of those might be interested in purchasing your e-book.

The second use of keywords is more specific. When you do your initial research and the indications are positive, you create a list of popular keyword phrases that include your main keyword. For example, if your subject is cats and the keyword 'cat' is very popular, you make a list of phrases like 'cat food' and 'cat habits' that were also popular over the past month. Then build some of your pages around these phrases.

To learn more about how to do keyword searches, sign up for our free Internet marketing e-course, How To Make Money Online—Step By Step.