Picking Keywords to Optimize For

Many SEO firms will proudly display search times that they are number one for, and more often than not these terms are so random and obscure that nobody even bothers to search for them. Does that represent a talented and fine display of SEO prowess? No, it shows that they probably got randomly ranked for some even more random keywords.

When you are looking for keywords to optimize for you need to find and pick the ones that actually get searches. The easiest way to tell this is through some very helpful tools:

http://www.pixelfast.com/overture - see the number of searches done in a typical month for keywords that you input. This really helps give you an idea of potential traffic.
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools - a variety of useful tools to help you determine search volume, keywords, related keywords, etc.

If your website is about cats, it’s unlikely that you’ll attain top-5 rankings for the term “cats” without a lot of money spent and time invested. However, you may be able to attain good rankings for related terms that still receive traffic, such as “how to feed cats” or “how to wash cats”. Being top-5 for a few good keywords will net you plenty of free natural traffic, and it will be much easier top optimize for those keywords than it would be to try and get rankings for “cats”.

Remember that your focus should be on your return on investment (ROI) and your ability to generate traffic with specific keywords. If a keyword receives 1,000 searches a month, being number one in the search engines will gain you 80% of that traffic.

Picking Keywords to Optimize For

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