Most webmasters know that Adsense generates a sizeable source of additional advertising income. That is why most of them use it to go after high paying keywords. They have with them the lists that tells what the keywords are and have already used various methods of identifying them. And yet, after putting up these supposed-to-be high paying keywords into their pages, the money they expected to come rolling in is not really coming in.

What is it that they are doing wrong?

Having the pages is with the proper keywords is one thing. But driving visitors to those pages is another matter and often the factor that is lacking.

The thing is, to get visitors to your high paying keyword pages, you need to optimize your site navigation.

Stop for a moment and think about how visitors are using your website. After a visitor has landed on a certain page, they have the tendency to click on another page that sounds interesting. They get there because of the other links that appears on a page that they initially landed on. This is site navigation. It is all about enabling visitors to move about your site. And one way of maximizing your Adsense earnings.

A typical website have menu links on each page. The wording on these links is what grabs a visitor’s attention and gets them to click on one of the links that will take them to another page of that website. Links that have “free’ or “download” are oftentimes good attention-grabbers.

This navigation logic can also be applied to driving traffic to your high paying pages. There are some websites that are getting a lot of traffic from search engines, but have low earnings. The trick is to try and use come cleverly labeled links to get the visitors off that pages and navigate them to the higher earning ones. This is one great way of turning real cheap clicks to real dollars.

Before you begin testing if this same style will work for you and you website, you need to have two things. Something to track and compare and some high earning pages you want to funnel your site traffic to. An option is to select a few of your frequently visited pages. This is ensuring fast result to come by.

Now, the next thing to do is think of ways to get visitors viewing a particular page to try and click on the link that will take them to your high earning pages. Come up with a catchy description for that link. Come up with a catchy and unique description for the link. Think of something that people do not get to see everyday. That will trigger their curiosity enough to try and see what that was all about.

You can also use graphics to grab your readers’ attention. There is no limitation to what you can do to make your link noticeable. If you are after the success of your site, you will do everything it takes just to achieve that goal. Just be creative. As far as many Adsense advertisers are concerned, there are no written and unwritten laws to follow regarding what they write. Just as long as you do not overstep the guidelines of the search engines, then go for it.

Also remember that it is all about location, location and location. Once the perfect attention grabbing description has been achieved, you have to identify the perfect spot on your page to position that descriptive link to your high paying page.

There is nothing wrong with visiting other websites to see how they are going about maximizing their site navigation. “Hot pages” or “Most read” lists are very common and overly used already. Get to know the ones that many websites are using and do not try to imitate them.

Another way of doing it is to try and use different texts on different pages. That way you will see the ones that work and what does not. Try to mix things around also. Put links on top and sometimes on the bottom too. This is how you go about testing which ones get more clicks and which ones are being ignored.

Let the testing begin. Testing and tracking until you find the site navigation style that works best for you site.

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Adsense is considered as one of the most powerful tool in a website publisher’s arsenal. It enables a person to monetize their sites easily. If used properly, it can generate a very large and healthy income for them. However if you are not using them rightly and just maximizing the income you squeeze from it, you are actually leaving a lot of money on the table. Something all people hate doing.

How you can start earning money with Adsense can be done easily and quickly. You will be amazed at the results you will be getting in such a short period of time.

Start by writing some quality content articles which are also keyword incorporated. There are a lot of people given the gift of being good with words. Writing comes easy for them. Why not make it work in such a way that you will be earning some extra cash in the process.

There are actually three steps to put into mind before you begin writing your ads and having an effective Adsense.

Keyword search. Find some popular subjects, keywords or phrase. Select the ones which you think has more people clicking through. This is actually a keyword selector and suggestion tool that some sites are offering to those who are just their Adsense business.

Writing articles. Start writing original content with keywords from the topics that you have achieved in your search. Take note that search engines are taking pride in the quality of their articles and what you will be writing should keep up with their demands.

Quality content site.  Build a quality content site incorporated with Adsense ads that is targeting the subject and keywords of your articles and websites. This is where all that you’ve done initially will go to and this is also where they will prove their worth to you.

The proper positioning of your ads should be done with care. Try to position your ads where surfers are most likely to click on them. According to research, the one place that surfers look first when they visit a certain site is the top left. The reason behind this is not known. Maybe it is because some of the most useful search engine results are at the top of all other rankings. So visitors tend to look in that same place when browsing through other sites.

Some of those who are just starting at this business may think they are doing pretty well already and thinking that their clickthrough rates and CPM figures are quite healthy. However, there are more techniques and styles to generate more clicks to double your earnings. By knowing these techniques and working them to your advantage, you will realize that you will be getting three times more than other people who have been previously doing what they are doing.

Finally, Adsense has some excellent tracking statistics that allows webmasters and publishers to track their results across a number of site on a site by site, page by page, or any other basis you wanted. You should be aware oft his capability and make the most of it because it is one powerful tool that will help you find out which ads are performing best. This way, you can fine tune your Adsense ads and focus more on the ones being visited the most rather than those who are being ignored.

Another thing you should know. Banners and skyscrapers are dead. Ask the experts. So better forget about banners and skyscrapers. Surfers universally ignore these kinds of ad formats. The reason behind this is that they are recognized as an advert and advert are rarely of any interest that’s why people ignore them.

To really start making money with Adsense, you should have a definite focus on what you wanted to achieve and how you will go about achieving them. As with any other kind of business ventures, time is needed coupled with patience.

Do not just ignore your site and your Adsense once you have finished accomplishing them. Spare some time, even an hour, making adjustments to the Adsense ads on your sites to quickly trigger your Adsense income.

Give it a try and you would not regret having gotten into Adsense in the first place.

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For the last couple of months, Google Adsense has dominated forums, discussions and newsletters all over the Internet. Already, there are tales of fabulous riches to be made and millions made by those who are just working from home. It seems that Google Adsense have already dominated the internet marketing business and is now considered the easiest way to making money online.

The key to success with Adsense is the placing of ads on pages that are receiving high traffic for high demand keywords. The higher the cost-per-click to the advertiser, the more you will receive per click from your site. Obviously, it does not pay to target low cost-per-click keywords and place them on pages that do not receive hits.

With all the people getting online and clicking away everyday, it is no wonder why Google Adsense has become an instant hit.

For some who are just new to this market, it would be a blow to their pride knowing that their homepage is buried somewhere in the little ads promoting other people’s services. But then, when they get the idea that they are actually earning more money that way, all doubts and skepticism is laid to rest.

There are two major, and clever, factors that some successful webmaster and publishers are learning to blend together in order to make money easier using Adsense.

1. Targeting high traffic pages on your website. If you check on your logs, you will discover that many of your visitors are taking advantage of the free affiliate marketing resources and ebooks that you are offering on your site. In simple words, your ads are working effectively and are generating more clicks. It also means more money for you.

2. Placing Adsense links on pages that are producing little, or better yet, no profit. By placing Adsense on a free resources page, you will reduce the amount of potential customers being lost to other sites. Tricky, but effective nonetheless.

When learned to work effectively, these two factors are actually a good source of producing a minimal amount of revenue from a high traffic page. Many people are using this strategy to pick up some extra and cash with Adsense. This is also especially rewarding to informational sites that focus their efforts on delivering powerful affiliate link free content to their visitors. Now they can gain a monetary return on their services.

With the many techniques that people are now learning on how to make the easiest money by their Adsense, it is not surprising that Google is trying everything to update and polish their Adsense in order to maintain their good image.

The possibility of adding is 2nd tier in Adsense is not impossible. With all the people spending more time in their Adsense now and still more getting into this line of marketing, there is no doubt about the many new improvements yet to be made. Imagine the smiles on the faces of the webmasters and publishers all around the world if ever they sign up for sub-affiliates and double or even triple the amount that they are already earning.
The one particularly handy money-making feature that is available with Adsense now is the ability to filter out up to 200 urls. These gives webmasters the option to block out low value offers from their pages as well as competitors to their websites. Talk about taking only those that are advantageous and discarding the ones that seem “useless”.

With Google Adsense, the possibilities are limitless. Yet there is also the possibility of someone taking advantage of the easy money process that this internet marketing is doing. If you think more about it, these negative factors may force Google to break down and thrash Adsense in the process. If that happens, people would have to go back to the old ways of internet marketing that does not make money online as easy as Adsense.

For now, however, Google Adsense is here to stay. As long as there are people wanting to earn some easy cash online just using their talents, the future ahead is looking good. Besides with all the strict guidelines that Google is enforcing over Adsense, it will take awhile for the Adsense privileges to be spammed and even terminated.

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Your website’s ranking on search engines is a vital element
of your overall marketing campaign, and there are ways to
improve your link popularity through legitimate methods.
Unfortunately, the Internet is populated by bands of
dishonest webmasters seeking to improve their link
popularity by faking out search engines.

The good news is that search engines have figured this out,
and are now on guard for “spam” pages and sites that have
increased their rankings by artificial methods. When a
search engines tracks down such a site, that site is
demoted in ranking or completely removed from the search
engine’s index.

The bad news is that some high quality, completely
above-board sites are being mistaken for these web page
criminals. Your page may be in danger of being caught up in
the “spam” net and tossed from a search engine’s index,
even though you have done nothing to deserve such harsh
treatment. But there are things you can do - and things you
should be sure NOT to do - which will prevent this kind of
misperception.

Link popularity is mostly based on the quality of sites you
are linked to. Google pioneered this criteria for assigning
website ranking, and virtually all search engines on the
Internet now use it. There are legitimate ways to go about
increasing your link popularity, but at the same time, you
must be scrupulously careful about which sites you choose
to link to. Google frequently imposes penalties on sites
that have linked to other sites solely for the purpose of
artificially boosting their link popularity. They have
actually labeled these links “bad neighborhoods.”

You can raise a toast to the fact that you cannot be
penalized when a bad neighborhood links to your site;
penalty happens only when you are the one sending out the
link to a bad neighborhood. But you must check, and
double-check, all the links that are active on your links
page to make sure you haven’t linked to a bad neighborhood.

The first thing to check out is whether or not the pages
you have linked to have been penalized. The most direct way
to do this is to download the Google toolbar at
http://toolbar.google.com. You will then see that most
pages are given a “Pagerank” which is represented by a
sliding green scale on the Google toolbar.

Do not link to any site that shows no green at all on the
scale. This is especially important when the scale is
completely gray. It is more than likely that these pages
have been penalized. If you are linked to these pages, you
may catch their penalty, and like the flu, it may be
difficult to recover from the infection.

There is no need to be afraid of linking to sites whose
scale shows only a tiny sliver of green on their scale.
These sites have not been penalized, and their links may
grow in value and popularity. However, do make sure that
you closely monitor these kind of links to ascertain that
at some point they do not sustain a penalty once you have
linked up to them from your links page.

Another evil trick that illicit webmasters use to
artificially boost their link popularity is the use of
hidden text. Search engines usually use the words on web
pages as a factor in forming their rankings, which means
that if the text on your page contains your keywords, you
have more of an opportunity to increase your search engine
ranking than a page that does not contain text inclusive of
keywords.

Some webmasters have gotten around this formula by hiding
their keywords in such a way so that they are invisible to
any visitors to their site. For example, they have used the
keywords but made them the same color as the background
color of the page, such as a plethora of white keywords on
a white background. You cannot see these words with the
human eye - but the eye of search engine spider can spot
them easily! A spider is the program search engines use to
index web pages, and when it sees these invisible words, it
goes back and boosts that page’s link ranking.

Webmasters may be brilliant and sometimes devious, but
search engines have figured these tricks out. As soon as a
search engine perceive the use of hidden text - splat! the
page is penalized.

The downside of this is that sometimes the spider is a bit
overzealous and will penalize a page by mistake. For
example, if the background color of your page is gray, and
you have placed gray text inside a black box, the spider
will only take note of the gray text and assume you are
employing hidden text. To avoid any risk of false penalty,
simply direct your webmaster not to assign the same color
to text as the background color of the page - ever!

Another potential problem that can result in a penalty is
called “keyword stuffing.” It is important to have your
keywords appear in the text on your page, but sometimes you
can go a little overboard in your enthusiasm to please
those spiders. A search engine uses what is called
“Keyphrase Density” to determine if a site is trying to
artificially boost their ranking. This is the ratio of
keywords to the rest of the words on the page. Search
engines assign a limit to the number of times you can use a
keyword before it decides you have overdone it and
penalizes your site.

This ratio is quite high, so it is difficult to surpass
without sounding as if you are stuttering - unless your
keyword is part of your company name. If this is the case,
it is easy for keyword density to soar. So, if your keyword
is “renters insurance,” be sure you don’t use this phrase
in every sentence. Carefully edit the text on your site so
that the copy flows naturally and the keyword is not
repeated incessantly. A good rule of thumb is your keyword
should never appear in more than half the sentences on the
page.

The final potential risk factor is known as “cloaking.” To
those of you who are diligent Trekkies, this concept should
be easy to understand. For the rest of you?cloaking is when
the server directs a visitor to one page and a search
engine spider to a different page. The page the spider sees
is “cloaked” because it is invisible to regular traffic,
and deliberately set-up to raise the site’s search engine
ranking. A cloaked page tries to feed the spider everything
it needs to rocket that page’s ranking to the top of the
list.

It is natural that search engines have responded to this
act of deception with extreme enmity, imposing steep
penalties on these sites. The problem on your end is that
sometimes pages are cloaked for legitimate reasons, such as
prevention against the theft of code, often referred to as
“pagejacking.” This kind of shielding is unnecessary these
days due to the use of “off page” elements, such as link
popularity, that cannot be stolen.

To be on the safe side, be sure that your webmaster is
aware that absolutely no cloaking is acceptable. Make sure
the webmaster understands that cloaking of any kind will
put your website at great risk.

Just as you must be diligent in increasing your link
popularity and your ranking, you must be equally diligent
to avoid being unfairly penalized. So be sure to monitor
your site closely and avoid any appearance of artificially
boosting your rankings.

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The methods employed to increase your search engine
rankings may seem like rocket science to you, so you have
probably avoided dealing with this issue. I am here to tell
you - the time has come to face your website! A high search
engine ranking for your website is so essential that if you
have the slightest desire to actually succeed in your
business, there is no way you can continue to avoid this
issue.

At least 85% of people looking for goods and services on
the Internet find websites through search engines such as
Google, Yahoo, and MSN. The idea of optimizing your pages
for high search engine rankings is to attract targeted
customers to your site who will be more than likely to make
a purchase. The higher your page comes up in search engine
results, the greater the traffic that is directed to your
website. That’s what search engine optimization is about.

You can immerse yourself in all the technical information
available online to figure out how to optimize your web
pages to achieve higher rankings. Or you can look at a few
simple items on your pages, make some small adjustments,
and most likely see improved rankings quite rapidly. The
first item you should examine is the title bar on your
homepage.

The title bar is the colored bar at the top of the page.
Look at the words that appear there when you access your
home page. To increase search engine rankings, the words on
your homepage’s title bar should include the most important
keywords or phrases, one of which would include your
company name.

Then click on all your links and examine the title bars on
the pages you access. Each title bar on every single page
of your site should contain the most important keywords and
phrases taken from the page itself. However, avoid very
long strings of keywords, keeping them to six words or
less. Avoid repeating keywords more than once in the title
bars, and make sure that identical words are not next to
each other.

The next item to put under your microscope is your website
content. Search engines generally list sites that contain
quality content rather than scintillating graphics. The
text on your site must contain the most important keywords
- the words that potential customers will be typing into
search engines to find your site.

Aim to have around 250 words on each page, but if this is
not desirable due to your design, aim for at least 100
carefully chosen words. If you want to achieve a high
ranking on search engines, this text is essential. However,
the search engines must be able to read the text, meaning
that the text must be in HTML and not graphic format.

To find out if your text is in HTML format, take your
cursor and try to highlight a word or two. If you are able
to do this, the text is HTML. If the text will not
highlight, it is probably in graphic form. In this case,
ask your webmaster to change the text into HTML format in
order to increase your search engine rankings.

Next we come to what is called meta tags. I know this
sounds like something out of science fiction, but it is
really just simple code. Many people believe that meta tags
are the key to high search engine rankings, but in reality,
they only have a limited effect. Still, it’s worth adding
them in the event that a search engine will use meta tags
in their ranking formula.

To find out if your page is set up with meta tags, you must
access the code. To do this, click the “view” button on the
browser menu bar, and select “source.” This will pull up a
window revealing the underlying code that created the page.
If there are meta tags, they usually appear near the top of
the window. For example, a meta tag would read: meta
name=”keywords” content=. If you do not find code that
reads like this, ask your webmaster to put them in. This
may not do much for your search engine rankings, but any
little boost helps.

Lastly, we come to the issue of link popularity. This is a
factor that is extremely important in terms of search
engine rankings. Almost all search engines use link
popularity to rank your website. Link popularity is based
on the quality of the sites you have linked to from your
links page.

If you type in “free link popularity check” in a popular
search engine, the search engine will then show you what
sites are linked to your site. In the case that there
aren’t many sites linked up to yours, or that the sites
that are linked up have low search engine rankings,
consider launching a link popularity campaign. Essentially,
this entails contacting quality sites and requesting that
they exchange links with your site. Of course, this
requires checking out the rankings of the websites you want
to link up with. Linking to popular, quality sites not only
boosts your search engine ranking, but it also directs more
quality traffic to your website.

Search engine rankings are extremely important for a
successful Internet marketing campaign. Before you go out
and hire a search engine optimization company, try taking
some of the simple steps listed above, and see if you can’t
boost your rankings yourself. Don’t ever ignore this
all-important factor in Internet marketing. Remember, the
higher your search engine ranking, the more quality
customers will be directed your way.

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Search engines are the gateway to the Internet; they are
the first tool that potential customers use to find the
products and services they need. This is why link
popularity is so imperative. If the customers do not find
your website, you have no possibilities of making any
sales.

You’re probably wondering what the blazes is popular about
a link! Well, in a word - plenty! Link popularity refers to
the ranking assigned to your website by the search engines,
and it determines the ranking your page gets when keywords
are entered into a search engine. So, you’re probably
wondering, how do I make my link popular?

Search engines are discretionary, giving status and ranking
to sites that have links to their pages from related,
quality sites. It’s a simple formula, but a very important
one. Google created the system, and now virtually all the
most popular search engines employ it to rank your web
pages in their indexes.

The more commonly used your keyword is, the harder it will
be to achieve link popularity, but without achieving this
step, it is almost certain your site will never rank highly
on any search engine. But don’t be discouraged; there are
tried and true ways of achieving link popularity using the
most competitive keywords.

There are a few things you should be aware of. The first is
that just linking up with a large number of other websites
will not achieve link popularity. In fact, it may have
quite the opposite effect. This is particularly true when
pertaining to websites that are nothing more than “link
farms” - pages containing line after line of indiscriminate
links. Search engines may aggressively discriminate against
your website if you are associated with a link farm, so
steer clear of them!

The next thing to bear in mind is the quality of the site
you are linking to. Never link to a page you have
reservations about your visitors seeing. The last thing you
want your website to appear as is indiscriminate and cheap.
Linking to sites of poor quality will only lessen your link
popularity, if not completely destroy it.

So let’s get to what you need to do to achieve supreme link
popularity and improve your rankings to stellar status on
all the popular search engines.

The first step, and the fastest way to get your foot in the
door, is to get a listing in a popular directory, such as
Open Directory Project and Yahoo. If your site is
business-related, you will want to be listed on Yahoo, and
despite the fact that it will cost you around $300 a year,
it will be money well spent. If your site is
non-commercial, the listing will be free, but it will take
time and follow-up to actually get it listed. Open
Directory is gives you a free listing whether you are
business-related or non-commercial, but be prepared to make
a lot of follow-up inquiries before you see your site
listed.

You are aiming to get listed in the highest level of
appropriate category, and this just takes some common
sense. For example, if your company ships Alpaca wool from
an Alpaca farm located in the middle of Nowhere, Tiny
State, do NOT submit your listing to “Retailers from
Nowhere, Tiny State.” BIG MISTAKE! All you have to do is
look a little deeper - and submit your listing to the “Fine
Alpaca Wool” category. You will not only associate yourself
with culture and quality, but you will be listed in a
national category.

The next step after you have attained directory listings is
to locate other quality sites that will increase your link
popularity. Try to find sites that are in some way related
to yours, so not only will your link popularity increase,
but your customer base may also be expanded. You want to
avoid your competitors and look for sites that are useful
to your site’s visitors. Let’s look at the Alpaca Wool site
example. Linking up to a site that sells knitting supplies
would be helpful to your visitors, and the chances of the
knitting supply site wanting to link up to your site are
also greater. By linking to a related site that will be
relevant to your website’s traffic, you are increasing both
of your site’s business prospects - and both of your sites’
link popularity.

Not all sites want to link to other sites, so you will have
to do some research when you are looking for possible
linking partners. Google is an excellent starting place for
your search. Make sure you enter keywords that you think
quality customers will also enter to find your own site.
Remember, your criteria are quality, highly ranked,
non-competing websites that have a links or resources page.
Go to these sites and objectively assess them. Look at the
quality of the product, the graphics, and the ease of use.
Then check out the other sites they are linked to, and
determine if your own site would fit in with the crowd.

When you decide you have found a good prospect, you must
set out to woo them. The first thing to do is to add a link
on your own links page to their site. This is an essential
first step; it shows good faith, and ups your chances
significantly of their reciprocity. After you have added
their link, you must contact the webmaster of their site.
Since this is almost always done by email, you want to make
sure it is immediately clear that your message is not junk
mail. This requires that you tell them right off the bat
that you have added a link to their page on your site. A
hook like this almost always insures the reader will read
on.

Next, be sure to be flattering and let them know how much
you appreciate their website. Make sure you emphasize that
you have actually visited their site, and that their site
is not just a random pick. Give them the address of your
links page, and ask them to check out the link for
themselves. It’s a good idea to mention that they will not
only benefit from the increased traffic your website will
direct their way, but you will also increase their link
popularity. Briefly, explain why link popularity is so
essential, but do this in a sentence or two so you don’t
sound like a professor! Finally, tell them you would
greatly appreciate if they would reciprocally add a link on
their own links page to your website.

Go through this process with as many appropriate sites as
you can find, bearing in mind the criteria of quality and
non-competitiveness. After you have emailed all relevant
sites, be sure to check these website frequently to see if
they have added a link to your page. Give it about a month,
and if no link appears, try another charming email. Then
give it another month, and if your site is still absent
from their links page, it’s time to remove their link from
your own links page. The only time you want to pursue a
link further than this is if you believe a site is crucial
to your link popularity and your business needs. Just
remember to keep all your communications complimentary and
cordial.

Then set up a schedule to check your ranking in search
engines frequently to see if your link popularity has
improved. This is not achievable in the blink of an eye. It
will take some time and a good deal of work. There is no
way around the labor-intensive quality of improving your
link popularity, which is why search engines regard it with
such importance.

By the way - make sure you have a beautiful, streamlined
site or you will never persuade anyone to link up to you.
Be prepared to keep plugging away at this process, as long
as it takes, until you achieve link popularity stardom!

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Search engines are the vehicles that drive potential
customers to your websites. But in order for visitors to
reach their destination - your website - you need to
provide them with specific and effective signs that will
direct them right to your site. You do this by creating
carefully chosen keywords.

Think of the right keywords as the Open Sesame! of the
Internet. Find the exactly right words or phrases, and
presto! hoards of traffic will be pulling up to your front
door. But if your keywords are too general or too
over-used, the possibility of visitors actually making it
all the way to your site - or of seeing any real profits
from the visitors that do arrive - decreases dramatically.

Your keywords serve as the foundation of your marketing
strategy. If they are not chosen with great precision, no
matter how aggressive your marketing campaign may be, the
right people may never get the chance to find out about it.
So your first step in plotting your strategy is to gather
and evaluate keywords and phrases.

You probably think you already know EXACTLY the right words
for your search phrases. Unfortunately, if you haven’t
followed certain specific steps, you are probably WRONG.
It’s hard to be objective when you are right in the center
of your business network, which is the reason that you may
not be able to choose the most efficient keywords from the
inside. You need to be able to think like your customers.
And since you are a business owner and not the consumer,
your best bet is to go directly to the source.

Instead of plunging in and scribbling down a list of
potential search words and phrases yourself, ask for words
from as many potential customers as you can. You will most
likely find out that your understanding of your business
and your customers’ understanding is significantly
different.

The consumer is an invaluable resource. You will find the
words you accumulate from them are words and phrases you
probably never would have considered from deep inside the
trenches of your business.

Only after you have gathered as many words and phrases from
outside resources should you add your own keyword to the
list. Once you have this list in hand, you are ready for
the next step: evaluation.

The aim of evaluation is to narrow down your list to a
small number of words and phrases that will direct the
highest number of quality visitors to your website. By
“quality visitors” I mean those consumers who are most
likely to make a purchase rather than just cruise around
your site and take off for greener pastures. In evaluating
the effectiveness of keywords, bear in mind three elements:
popularity, specificity, and motivation.

Popularity is the easiest to evaluate because it is an
objective quality. The more popular your keyword is, the
more likely the chances are that it will be typed into a
search engine which will then bring up your URL.

You can now purchase software that will rate the popularity
of keywords and phrases by giving words a number rating
based on real search engine activity. Software such as
WordTracker will even suggest variations of your words and
phrases. The higher the number this software assigns to a
given keyword, the more traffic you can logically expect to
be directed to your site. The only fallacy with this
concept is the more popular the keyword is, the greater the
search engine position you will need to obtain. If you are
down at the bottom of the search results, the consumer will
probably never scroll down to find you.

Popularity isn’t enough to declare a keyword a good choice.
You must move on to the next criteria, which is
specificity. The more specific your keyword is, the greater
the likelihood that the consumer who is ready to purchase
your goods or services will find you.

Let’s look at a hypothetical example. Imagine that you have
obtained popularity rankings for the keyword “automobile
companies.” However, you company specializes in bodywork
only. The keyword “automobile body shops” would rank lower
on the popularity scale than “automobile companies,” but it
would nevertheless serve you much better. Instead of
getting a slew of people interested in everything from
buying a car to changing their oil filters, you will get
only those consumers with trashed front ends or crumpled
fenders being directed to your site. In other words,
consumers ready to buy your services are the ones who will
immediately find you. Not only that, but the greater the
specificity of your keyword is, the less competition you
will face.

The third factor is consumer motivation. Once again, this
requires putting yourself inside the mind of the customer
rather than the seller to figure out what motivation
prompts a person looking for a service or product to type
in a particular word or phrase. Let’s look at another
example, such as a consumer who is searching for a job as
an IT manager in a new city. If you have to choose between
“Seattle job listings” and “Seattle IT recruiters” which do
you think will benefit the consumer more? If you were
looking for this type of specific job, which keyword would
you type in? The second one, of course! Using the second
keyword targets people who have decided on their career,
have the necessary experience, and are ready to enlist you
as their recruiter, rather than someone just out of school
who is casually trying to figure out what to do with his or
her life in between beer parties. You want to find people
who are ready to act or make a purchase, and this requires
subtle tinkering of your keywords until your find the most
specific and directly targeted phrases to bring the most
motivated traffic to you site.

Once you have chosen your keywords, your work is not done.
You must continually evaluate performance across a variety
of search engines, bearing in mind that times and trends
change, as does popular lingo. You cannot rely on your log
traffic analysis alone because it will not tell you how
many of your visitors actually made a purchase.

Luckily, some new tools have been invented to help you
judge the effectiveness of your keywords in individual
search engines. There is now software available that
analyzes consumer behavior in relation to consumer traffic.
This allows you to discern which keywords are bringing you
the most valuable customers.

This is an essential concept: numbers alone do not make a
good keyword; profits per visitor do. You need to find
keywords that direct consumers to your site who actually
buy your product, fill out your forms, or download your
product. This is the most important factor in evaluating
the efficacy of a keyword or phrase, and should be the
sword you wield when discarding and replacing ineffective
or inefficient keywords with keywords that bring in better
profits.

Ongoing analysis of tested keywords is the formula for
search engine success. This may sound like a lot of work -
and it is! But the amount of informed effort you put into
your keyword campaign is what will ultimately generate your
business’ rewards.

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