Choosing search key phrases

With millions of websites targeting almost every phrase, it is very difficult to rank high in search results for single words or popular phrases. You must identify less competitive phrases relevant to your business, then optimize individual pages for these. The aim is not just to get visitors to your home page, but to drive traffic to all relevant pages in your website.

How to find key phrases

Don't start with the obvious. Think laterally. Think phrases. Most people these days search using three or more words. For example, you sell Gifts. 'Gifts' returns 326,000,000 results. However, a single gift, such as 'make-up and manicure set' returns only 656,000 results, that's more like it. To quickly see how competitive your phrases are, visit Google and view the number of results.

If your phrases are too competitive, you will need to find alternatives. Don't just guess. Overtures keyword selector tool shows both alternative phrases and the number of searches performed on each in a previous month. Google's Keyword tool shows both alternatives and search trends throughout the year. These tools are free and very useful.

How good is the competition?

Once you have a list of key phrases, you should find out how good the competition is. You may have picked a competitive phrase, but if the competing sites all have a low PageRank, you may still have a chance.

Check out the page rank of the top competing sites using the free PageRank checker tool, or install Google toolbar to instantly see the PageRank of every site you visit.

Targeting competitive key phrases

If search engine marketing for competitive phrases is important, Pay Per Click (PPC) is the best short term solution. Google, MSN and Overture all offer a PPC service that should provide instant results.