The axiom “content is king” is true enough, but without great keywords in your content, to get you ranked high on the search engines, no one will find you or your content. Research and selection are the most critical first step for any one who wants to own a profitable website. Keywords should have some competition, be targeted to your niche, and be optimized for the traffic of people looking to buy. I’ll go over the basics as an entire book can be written on these 3 steps.

I remember the first time I usedGoogle and saw huge search results and thought, “WOW, I’ll use that. ” At that time I had no idea how to account for competition when selecting keywords. Competition is good. It tells you there’s is a viable market but too much and you’ll never get on the search result’s first page. The solution is to find search terms that are searched often but don’t have massive competition. You want to avoid double-digit results (in millions). A quick way to see competition on Google is to look at the results on the blue bar below the search box. If you’ve got anything below a million pages then you’re doing extremely well.

Our type of sites are niche sites and it follows that right keywords laser target our niche’s seekers. The general ones are nothing but a starting point to find a group that targets your niche. Let’s look at the marketer who wants to build a profitable website selling dog training products. Put “dog training” in Google and you get 31 million results. Anyone who thinks they can start a profitable website and get on the first page with that kind of competition must have an angel on their side or reeeeeeaaally deep pockets.

You have to play smart if you want own a profitable website. Think about it and you’ll realize “dog training” isn’t a niche market. It’s a market unto itself built of tons of niches, like “house training a dog” or “training a guard dog,” etc. Now put “training family dog” in Google. You get 3.7 million results. You got a better chance to get high on Google with that keyword, it increases your chances of getting search engine traffic, and make money.

Doing the research is going to take time, but once you get started you begin to see patterns that help you choose better search terms. Remember that we’re doing this to make money with a website, so the question you have to ask yourself now is: Are these people buyers?

Not all traffic is created equal. Traffic to the search page where you sit doesn’t necessarily translate in to traffic to your site. You want people looking to buy. Now put “training family dog DVD” in Google. 2.3 million results. This time the person searching is looking for a DVD. Methinks they’re looking to buy a DVD showing them how to train the family dog.

If your not selling a DVD but you site is related to dog training, you can leverage the search phrase by writing an article about dog training DVDs and use your usual article marketing and social bookmarking practices for traffic.

With a little research and strategy you can get your own profitable website in the face of people want to buy. Take a look at Niche Marketing On Crack, which turbo churches niche sites incredibly fast and easy. I own it and recommend it.

One last thing…if you want to see what people put int search engines when they went to your site get an accout at http://hittail.com/. It’s free and they have a paid for version. You should also use a keyword tool Wordtracker, Overture, and Google Sets, are all free. Wordtacker has a paid version as well.

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