how to make easy money online with HubPages.com -2. Finding Good Keywords (search keyword)

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Search engine optimization used to be a big struggle. Getting up in Google was always difficult for me, and it was a real killer to my internet marketing success. There are a lot of things that I am good at in the internet marketing world (R)C aking a killer review page? I'm your man. MySpace marketing? In the bag. Bum market? Sure. Rank well in Google? Uhh... say what? There's one thing that I was just never good at, and it was getting my pages to rank well in Google. Now, you'd think that an experienced internet marketer like myself would have the basic knowledge of how to get a site up in the top rankings, but for me, it was all head knowledge. No matter how many backlinks I got, and no matter how optimized my page was, I was always fighting with Google.

Finding Good Keywords

Everybody always hears that it is important to do your keyword research before diving into a campaign. Few really understand what this process really entails. While still a newbie internet marketer, I thought this process was finding out what relevant keywords were getting the most searches and building a page around it. As you probably know, I was a little off.

A °good keyword° is not simply one that gets a lot of searches. Instead, there are several components to a keyword that is worth pursuing:

1. A medium to high number of searches.

2. Targeted surfers.

3. Low competition

4. Poor quality competition

Each of these ingredients makes up what constitutes a good target keyword. It's no use to be at #1 for a term that gets 100,000 searches a month if that search doesn't bring in the sale. The opposite is true, as well; you can have a very high converting keyword, but if there's no traffic, then you're out of luck.

In order to ensure the best success, you've got to do your research. Research includes understanding each of the components that make up a good keyword. Therefore, the following sections break down each of these ingredients into detail and explain how to make each of them work for you.

The more searches your target keyword gets, the better... most of the time. Most of the time, high search volumes result in a high volume of competition, although this is not always the case. Still, volume is important. It is not a good idea, obviously, to find the keywords with the highest volume a immediately attempt to rank for those, but it is a good idea to find out what people are searching for and build your campaigns accordingly. For a long time, internet marketers have used the Overture keyword suggestion tool to look up what people are searching for. Unfortunately, this is the best data that most marketers have at hand. Instea of using Overture's keyword tool, however, I use a free tool called SEO Book, which not only pulls results from Overture, but estimates the volume from Google and MSN. That way, you get a ballpar figure of what surfers are searching for across the board, instead of just what people are searching fo on Yahoo. SEO Book, like Overture, will provide good keyword suggestions for you to consider adding to you campaign. Below, you'll see some suggestions that were pulled for the term °keyword°:

In the case of each keyword, the results from SEO Book are several times the number of searches that Overture brings back. While SEO Book simply provides an estimation, one can easily overlook valuable keywords when only looking at Overture's results. If only using Overture's tool, there may be °keyword selector tool° that can easily be overlooked because of a low search volume. However, by seeing an estimate of all major search engines, you can find keywords that are often hidden gems. When it comes to search volume, I like to shoot for keywords that get at least 1,000 searches per month. If I'm just making a Hub on HubPages.com, I may settle for less, as the effort required is less than if I was to make a web page. However, in most cases, I keep my eyes open for keywords with a volume of at least a thousand searches.

Of course, if you are confident that a keyword will convert, but the search volume is under your target range, you can make an exception. In the case of each keyword, the results from SEO Book are several times the number of searches that Overture brings back. While SEO Book simply provides an estimation, one can easily overlook valuable keywords when only looking at Overture's results. If only using Overture's tool, there may be °low hanging fruit° that can easily be overlooked because of a low search volume. However, by seeing an estimate of all major search engines, you can find keywords that are often hidden gems. When it comes to search volume, I like to shoot for keywords that get at least 1,000 searches per month. If I'm just making a page on USFreeAds, I may settle for less, as the effort required is less than if I was to make a web page. However, in most cases, I keep my eyes open for keywords with a volume of at least a thousand searches. Of course, if you are confident that a keyword will convert, but the search volume is under your target range, you can make an exception.