We all do it, it's just that most people don't realise what they're doing.

When we type something into a search engine such as Google, MSN, Yahoo, etc because we're looking for something, we're typing in keywords.  These can be single keywords such as 'flowers' which will bring up thousands and thousands of sites offering flowers, multiple keywords such as 'red roses' which will narrow the search down to those sites offering the specific flowers that we're really interested in, or conceptual keywords such as 'romance' which will bring up not only flowers but any site related to the theme of romance.

Search engine optimization is simply a way of building your website in a way that it will be found by the different search engines so that when people type in their keywords, your site will be amongst the first to be listed in the search results. We all know that very few people look beyond the first few pages when they're looking for something on the internet, and we're easily bored if we can't find what we're looking for straight away.

There are a number of ways that you can improve your chances of achieving the magical high listings in the organic (free) google search results, and a number of different methods of search engine optimization. You can have the best website possible and the best product imagineable, but it's never going to make you a penny if no-one can find it. This is where good keyword use can help, and there are a few simple rules that will make all the difference to your marketing campaign.

First of all, whenever you create a web site, an article, a Squidoo lens, a Hub Page, a pay-per-click advert; in fact pretty much anything that you're creating on the internet, you'll be prompted to add keywords. Some give you unlimited space for keywords, and others will limit you to only a few, or to a certain number of characters. This is where you must apply Relevance. Think like a prospective customer. If you're selling gardening tools, would you use a conceptual keyword like 'nature'? You could of course, but your wheelbarrows and hoe's might be gathering dust for a long time. You might also consider using quotation marks in your keywords, such as "ladies gardening gloves" so that it will only appear in search listings to people who type in that specific phrase - this is very useful for driving qualified leads to your site since only those interested in ladies gardening gloves would type in that phrase.

Next, optimize your web site by making sure that the meta tags (another name for keywords and descriptions) and titles use keywords that you have used in the body of your web pages. Again, this goes to Relevance, because common sense says that if you've got a whole page about anti-ageing cream, this should be reflected in the title tag rather than something vague like 'visit our website for skincare products'. Unfortunately, however, this is often missed, even by website professionals. So the formula here is to pick out some of the most appropriate words or multiple words from your page and use them in your meta tags and titles.

Finally, don't spam your keywords. Make them Relevant. It's very easy to throw in a whole load of keywords that have some vague connection to your product, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the search engines will put your site high up in the listings of all those categories. In fact, you may even be penalised, because modern-day search engines don't like keyword-spamming, or using unrelated keywords.

These are very simple procedures to put into place, and only take a little care and thought, but they're Free to implement, and could make boatloads of difference to the success of your campaign.