Before you embark on any search engine optimization campaign you have to know your keywords. What are your keywords? Keywords are the words people enter into a search engine to try and find your products and services. For example_ If you're selling baseball equipment some of the keywords you may want to optimize for are "baseballs", "bats", and "catcher's gear". The idea being that when people look for something like a baseball bat your site will show up in the results for that search.

Typically every business owner has an idea about which keywords their customers might use to find them online. However not all people think a like and there is a good chance there are some words you aren't thinking of - and also there is a good chance some of the words you are thinking of are not being searched for as often as you think. So once you have assembled a short list of the words you think are important you'll need to cross-reference them with a keyword search tool. And since Google controls over 85% of all online search results I recommend using the Google Keyword Suggestion Tool.

Tip_ You can find the Google Keyword Suggestion Tool by going to Google.com and search for the word "keywords". The search tool should be the top result.

The Google Keyword Suggestion Tool can be used in two different ways. You can either enter the keywords you think people might enter to find your products and services or you can enter your website URL. and Google will use the content of your page to try and suggest the most relevant keywords. I prefer to enter my own keywords because I think I know the relevancy of the keywords to my website more so than Google. Google also cannot read anything which is not text on a web page and therefore cannot make keyword suggestions based on images. There may be an image of a product on my page my visitors would view as being highly relevant that Google simply cannot see.

In tomorrows blog I'll explain exactly how you can use the Keywords Suggestion Tool statistics to really hone in on your most likely customers.

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