Count Your Keyword Currency in a Bad Economy

In these tough economic times, people are turning to the Internet to find great deals on products and services. Take a look at Amazon.com’s earnings. There a lot of changes you can make to help your website or blog rise in search popularity. However, refining your use of keywords may be one of the best places to start because, keywords are the currency of the Internet.

You actually help place a value on that “keyword currency” every time you use a search engine like Google. Your keyword search, and more than 200 million other searches each day combined to determine the value of each and every keyword. Some keywords or keyword phrases are amazingly popular like “Paris Hilton”. Others are relatively obscure, say for example, “Zafu and Zabuton”.

Before you write your website or blog post find your keyword theme — your keyword niche. A keyword theme is a group of keywords and keyword phrases that center around one focused idea. You will probably find greater success with search engines like Google if you work with keyword phrases rather than keywords. Instead of “shoes”, consider “red running shoes”.

Also remember, if you feel the burning desire to write about a popular keyword phrase like “Paris Hilton”, your voice probably will not be heard. Find a “keyword niche” that is just right for you. Write your content and form your sales pitch around your chosen keyword theme. These keywords will be your bread-and-butter.

Here is a great tool to help you discover the value of your keywords and keyword phrases as compared to other keywords and keyword phrases. Check it out — Google Insights for Search. Just type in your keywords and Google insights for Search will show neat graphs plotting the popularity of your various keywords in relationship to each other and over time. You also get a map that shows you relative popularity of keywords geographically. See how your keywords will work in Kenya, Japan, or Pakistan (practical for some and entertaining for others).

Recently I wrote an article about stress and relaxation. So which is the more popular keyword “stress” or “relaxation”? After a little research with Google Insights for Search I found that “stress” is far more popular; so I wrote my article about “stress” rather than “relaxation”. Curious, how the popularity of this keyword drops during the summers and has a sharp drop mid-December each year. Are your keywords — website or blog post, seasonal? This would be good to know so that you can plan your advertising and promotions.

When you write, be sure to put your keyword or keyword phrase in the title. Repeat it again once or twice in the opening paragraph is well. Search engines look for keywords in the larger type on the page like titles. They also look early in the article like the first and second paragraph. Do not try to stuff your article full of the keyword thinking that will help. Search engines are smart and will give you a poor rating. Just write great content that focuses on your keyword theme.

Try Google Insights for Search as you are planning your next Internet writing project.

Learn more about the author, Aaron Gaul.