Using keywords to help find your niche in a competitive market is a "must". Make certain the keywords you identify really tell your potential customers what it is that you are offering. If you are selling a certain kind of widget having a particular characteristic, look for keywords that describe this characteristics that people might be interested in. The more precise you can be, the better your chances are of finding the angle for you to enter the market place. By using too general of a keyword, you will have too much competition. It becomes very difficult to be listed high enough in search results for anyone to see you, let alone to be listed within the top ten search results for that keyword.

Most keyword-search software tells you how many searches have taken place for each particular keyword that you enter. Depending on which keyword software you use determines whether you need to use a multiplier to obtain a more accurate look at the number of searches done for that keyword.

An example of this is results from Overture. For Overture results, multiply the results anywhere from 5 to 7 times. I use 5, which gives me a conservative number to work with. The more searches that a keyword has, the more popular that keyword is.

There is more to look at than just the total number of searches a keyword has had for that month. Determining how many web pages are competing for the same keyword is also necessary. If there is too much competition, it becomes a very hard niche to have any kind of presence. Most keyword software gives you what the competition is for each keyword that displayed in their results box. Obviously, a higher number of searches and a lower number of competitors give you a better chance of being listed within the top ten spots on the search engines.

What is the effectiveness of your keywords you have chosen to use on your website? More information is needed to determine this. This is where KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index) comes in to play.

KEI is a mathematical algorithm formula developed by Sumantra Roy to determine the probability of successfully using a keyword to grow a business. Here is how it is calculated: square the popularity of a keyword and multiply it by 1,000. Now divide that number by the number of sites that shows up in AltaVista for that keyword.

Very few keyword-searching programs actually use this formula. Although, in my experience, keyword software programs that do use it have proven to be invaluable in finding niches and narrowing them down to products that the consumer is looking for. When you are looking for your keywords while using software with a KEI, as a rule of thumb, look for keywords with a KEI number over 100 with less than 1,000 pages of competition. The number of competing sites is a very flexible number, and you can adjust it up or down depending on how well you know your particular niche. The higher the KEI number is over 100, the higher the effectiveness of that keyword. The lower the number of competing sites, the easier it is going to be to get your web pages ranked among the top ten sites, if not number one. Another consideration is how many searches in a month the keyword had. In this case, the higher the number the better. If this number is too low, it will not be worth your while to use that particular keyword.

What you are looking to do here is to take your top three keywords and add together the number of searches they received for a month. This gives you some idea of what kind of traffic is possible by using those keywords. Rank your keywords in order of importance. This helps you maintain focus on your primary goal.

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Copyright 2006 Larry Lang All Rights Reserved. Lang Enterprises Inc.
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