i-Search Engines

The next thing you need to do before settling on the keyword terms is check the competition for each term. The Wordtracker tool I mentioned above has a tool for that but I prefer to go straight to the horses mouth - Google. I take each keyword term, type it into Google and click the search. If you see that there is several million to several hundred million other sites competing for that keyword term, you may want to pick another instead. For sure you don't have to but the more competitive your terms, the longer it will take to get top search listings.

Welcome to the first article in a series on do-it-yourself search engine marketing (DIY SEM).

Create a narrow targeted keywords list that you think identifies your site properly. Check Yahoo's Overture (searchmarketing.yahoo.com) or WordTracker (www.wordtracker.com) for ideas on selecting keywords. You can find out the effectiveness of your keywords. In WordTracker for instance, you can input your keyword to see how often people have searched for it. It also tells you how often a term is searched and how many pages appear for that term.