So now to the Keyword research part of things. There are many ways to research keywords for your site. First off, though, it is probably good to remember what keywords ARE…Remember when you went to the library for the first time and they explained what the Card Catalog was? You could look under TITLE, SUBJECT or AUTHOR and find the information that you wanted.

Yoiu can do the same thing with Google or other search engines–except for one interesting twist. You can search on them using title subject AND author (in any combination of the above!). So here is how I do it:

1. Take a piece of paper and make three columns Title, Subject and Author and write down ANY keywords that you can think of that would apply to someone searching for your site. Include EVERYTHING.

2. Look for logical combinations of these keywords and make a lists of them.

3. You can use WordTracker.org sometimes to find the relative search traffic of each. They have a paid version, but i usually just use the free one.

4. a more accurate approach is to set up a pay per click campaign with Google Adwords or Yahoo and put all of the keywords in (all of them). Then simply look for the keywords that have the higest cost per click. These will be the ones with a) the most traffic and b) the highest CTR or click through rate –these are the reasons that people would bid on the terms, driving their price up. Logical huh?

5. Prepare a final list of keywords by priority. This is your target list of stuff you WANT from top to bottom.

Final note: This list will change! Over the years people’s patterns in searching real estate (for example) have changed quite  a bit. Using city MLS was very vogue back a few years ago, but is NOT so now. City REALTOR, is the same way. DO NOT guess…keep an eye on what works and stay up with the times. you will be rewarded.

Anybody want to throw in other thoughts or suggestions? Feel free! I love new ideas!