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Research effective keyword phrases. Many business people get their hearts set on a pet
keyword phrase....without doing any research about whether it is an effective search engine
keyword phrase to target! Generally, an effective keyword phrase is one that
a) many people search for
b) has a low amount of competition, and
c) fits your specialized business niche.
For example, consider the phrase...office furniture. This is a highly competitive phrase.
On June 7, 2006, this keyword phrase yielded over 101,000,000 competitive pages at
Google. And further research reveals that this phrase received 3,654 searches since
April 8, 2006.
So if your goal is to target the phrase ?office furniture?, you need to be realistic. You are
facing enormous search engine competition to gain about 60 daily visitors.
Given this low competition/search ratio, a smart marketer will research more highly niched
phrases that will net a better return.
For example, the search phrase ?used office furniture texas? yields 12,200 competing sites:
and 408 searches in a 60 day period.
Less traffic; but also less competition. Research shows that the long tail of search
keywords yield a better conversion to sales. Think of it this way: if you are selling car
parts on your site, would you rather have a visitor come to your site who is looking for
"car parts" or for the search term "2003 Honda Accord Main Relay"? The term "car
parts" may generate more traffic, but it is traffic that is less likely to convert to a sale
than a very specific search term.
Bottom line...Research your niche market and tightly target your keyword phrases. You
will want to get traffic from hundreds or thousands of search terms, not just a few.
Bonus Research Tools 
Two incredibly helpful, do-it-yourself online research tools:
Wordtracker ? You can test drive their free keyword effectiveness tool, or you can buy a day
pass (less than $9 US) to conduct more thorough search engine research. The paid
program even helps you brainstorm keyword phrases that you might not otherwise consider.
Google Trends ? New from Google Labs, this online research tool lets you enter keyword
phrases so that you can better understand their seasonal popularity (i.e., searches for
?tulip festival? peak in the spring, and decline during the other seasons). You will also gain
a better understanding of your markets: the free tool also reports the top ten cities, regions,
and languages for your search phase. Further, you'll see how breaking news stories might
affect search trends for your keyword term.
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