Would you like to know a cost effective way to increase the profitability of your online business? Are you getting a descent amount of traffic to your web site, but your sales are still low? Good keyword research is the key and should be the first thing done before a new web site is built.

Targeting the wrong keywords could spell disaster. I’ve seen web sites that did not have any relevant keywords in them. It is critical that the right keywords are used to construct every page of content as well as the navigation and meta-tags. When done right it could mean huge success!

Here are two examples of how good keyword selection can greatly impact the profitability of your website.

1. You’ve probable heard of people bragging about how they were #1 in Google or maybe you have heard some marketing company brag about how they can get you a #1 position in Google, Well guess what? Are you ready to hear a bold statement? All web sites will rank #1 or at least on the 1 st page of Google for some keyword or phrase. In most cases it’s just not for some word that the web site owner really wants to be ranked on.
   
   
2. On the contrary you have also heard about people that were ranked #1 on Google and were making major profits. The only difference between the first example I used and the second is the fact that the later example person used the right keywords, or keywords that that people were actually searching for.

One of the problems is that most people are more concerned with getting the name of their company, slogans or any other type of catch phrase they commonly use on their web site. The problem with this type of mentality is, no one knows the name of your company unless you have achieved national or large scale local recognition. If that’s the case then you’re probably not reading this anyway.

Tips to finding great keywords:

It’s not always easy to just brainstorm, even if you are really good at knowing what people will be looking for. Instead trying to brainstorm, try using keyword finer tools. There are several online keyword finders and tools. One of my favorites is found at the following link: http://tts4.com/overture. This tool will allow you to use a base keyword to find several other keywords and how many searches the word actual gets.

It’s always important to put yourself in your audience’s position. Ask yourself, what would I type in if I was looking for the products or services that I sell?

Consult thesauruses for words with similar meanings. Search engines are getting very smart and can tell if a website is really about a particular topic or if someone is deliberately trying to keyword spam. If a web site is about cars then it is good to have keywords like alternator, starter, belts, transmission, tires, etc... as apposed to car, car, car.

The last tip I have for this month’s article deals with “niches”. I always say if you can dominate every niche of a particular market then you will dominate the whole market. The advantage to targeting niche markets is that they are easier to rank well for. The con is that there are fewer visitors that search for the niche keywords. A niche market is the opposite of a broad national market.

• An example of a niche market would be “Little Rock Arkansas Web Development”
• An example of a broad national market would “Web Development”

There will be far fewer web development companies in Little Rock , Arkansas as opposed to the whole country using the individual phrase “web development”.

Tiger Team Solutions recommends the following Software for effective keyword research: http://tts4.com/keywordelite

If you are interested in learning more about keywords and how to find the good ones, or if you would like help with building an effective keyword list please call 501-228-4638 or use or visit our online contact form to email us: http://tts4.com/contact