When it comes to getting search engine traffic to flow to your site, keywords are extremely important. When search engines crawl through the Internet, they will index the keywords used on your pages. Keywords are the terms or phrases that your potential customers use when they search for your product or service. When someone performs a search online using the keywords featured on your web page, your page will come up in the search results.

It is important to use keyword phrases that attract a stream of targeted customers, not just traffic from scattered places. A goal would be to have each page of your website using different keywords that are specific to the content found on that page. If you use the same keywords on each page, it will limit the amount of traffic that flows to your site.
To determine your keywords, think of your target market. What type of industry are you in? What does your website focus on? What kind of audience are you trying to attract? Do you sell a product or service, and if so, what kind of person is in the market for it?




You can make a list of keywords for each topic that your website will cover.
It is a good idea to perform a little keyword research to verify the keywords people are using. Everyone is different and certain regions of the same country have different words for the same thing. Using a keyword tool will allow you to see the keywords people are using and can give you a glimpse of what your competition is using, too. Wordtracker offers a free trial of their service, and it is very simple to use. Simply enter a keyword or phrase and the keyword analyzer will show you the most popular terms for that keyword. For instance, if you performed a keyword search on the word “holiday” you would be able to see whether people were searching for “holiday meals”, “holiday customs”, or “holiday vacations” and so forth.

After you have determined your keywords, you can include them in your page title and content. Search engines are sophisticated, so you’ll want to keep everything sounding very natural. For instance, if your site is about healthy eating, using those two words over and over again will be redundant. If you have an article featuring information about adding whole grains to a healthy diet, instead of naming the page “healthy eating”, you can title your page “health-benefits-of-eating-whole-grains”. It will sound more natural, and it will still feature your keywords.

By doing keyword research ahead of time, you will be able to fill your site with content that your target market is looking for. Once your traffic increases, you should find that your sales also increase.