Finding the right keywords for your website is the first step for successful SEO. Once you have taken the time to develop a full list of keywords to use for your website, you may be facing thousands of keywords. Many times, this type of research can take your website in numerous directions. Picking out the right keywords is like picking out the right ingredients in cooking. The wrong combination can make a difference to the search engines and not backing up keywords can result in penalties. For the first time website developer or the business owner hoping to create an effective website for their business and to compete against the ever expanding web, there is no doubt that having the right keywords matter. However, the task of paring down your keyword options to find just those that are vital and effective for your website can be a big task itself. You have to identify what your website is all about. For instance, if you are selling beauty products; therefore, you must consider keyword related to beauty products.

There are two different types of keywords you want to incorporate in your website.

The first type is the long tail keyword, a keyword set of 3 or more words. These are the keywords that are easy to rank because of less competition. For example, instead of using the words “electric guitar” you would use the words “cheap electric guitars” or “good electric guitar”, which are long tail keywords to increase the chance of ranking. If chosen and incorporated correctly, your website can rank these type of keywords in the first month.

The second type of keyword short tail keyword. This type takes longer to rank, but usually has much more search volume. When picking out a short tail keyword, you want to be sure it’s not impossible to rank, meaning you don’t need several years of work, as well as 20 people on the job to rank first page for it.

The goal in creating this type of chart is to give you more information and comparison tools to help you to choose the keywords that are going to achieve your goals for the website. There are many different terms out there and sometimes it is not uncommon to have 10,000 or more keywords that could relate to the website. However, that does not mean that you should use all of those words. Rather, you want to compare your options by traffic, relevancy as well as conversions to make decisions

When conducting research about SEO and keyword uses, there are many things to consider. You likely want to choose keywords that contain a good variety of the most popular keywords related to your website. That only makes sense since this is what ultimately will determine if your website is going to fit the needs for your clients and visitors. However, hitting those top keywords may simply not be enough to get you on the top ranking for the search engine results pages. How could this be?

Too Much Competition

The more common that the keyword you choose is, the more websites are likely targeting that keyword. Let’s explain. Website owner A decides to build a website about car parts for his business. He conducts research and fines that the word used car parts is one of the most commonly typed keywords into the search engine. He bases the website off that word. The problem is, there are dozens if not thousands of more website owners doing the same thing. The competition for used car parts is going to be significantly higher which means that he will work extra hard, and likely spend a great deal more, on building a website that is listed in the top search engine ranking pages.

In this particular situation, it may be best for the website owner to look at other keywords, including those keywords that are less likely to be the ones that website developers are using. Perhaps instead of the top 10 keywords, he focuses on 100 to 110 on the list of keywords he has. While the upper keywords are still used, including the lower keywords may mean better results.

You may not get the results for the used car parts term, because of the competition for it, but you are more likely to rank well for the lesser used keywords and have better results this way. Most website owners will want to target keywords that span the range. Rather than focusing on just a handful of keywords, they may focus on more and that way have a bit of something for everyone.

When conducting your keyword research, it is important to consider not only what your clients and website visitors are looking for, but also what your competition is doing. Take into consideration what all of the keyword options you have are before you choose those top ranking keywords.

Pick out keywords for every title page of your website and the content of it. Try to stay within a keyword range per page. Remember, Google ranks the pages, not the whole site itself.