Keywords are to search engines what catnip is to cats. It’s true. Keywords aren’t the only selector utilized by search engine algorithms to determine the ranking of your site, but they are a key component…no pun intended. Understanding keywords and utilizing them properly in your site’s content will help make your site successful, and that, my friend, is why we do this, is it not?

In order to understand which keywords will return the best results you need to do a little research. There’s a number of different ways to perform this research, and the good news is that none of them involve a lab coat…unless you want to wear one, and then who am I to question your personal style?

Trial and Error

Probably my least favorite method, but an effective one nonetheless, is to sit down at your computer, pull up your browser, and visit your preferred search engine. After that, plug in a series of words, one right after the other, that pertains to your offering. Pay close attention to the search results, both in the pay-per-click section and the organic listings. When you start seeing your competition’s sites popping up, well; that’s gold. Those are the keywords you want to write down because those are the keywords that are getting the results you want to mimic.

Don’t stop at single words either. Come up with phrases, word combinations, and synonyms—even misspellings—and run those through the search engine to see what places. Write those down too.

The Right Tool for the Job

Some search engines, and SEO companies, offer tools built to provide you with methods for checking your keywords and keyword phrases. One such tool (and perhaps the most famous) is GOOGLE’s Keyword Tool (<a rel=”nofollow” onclick=”javascript:_gaq.push(['_trackPageview', '/outgoing/article_exit_link']);” href=”http://www.google.com/sktool” id=”brownFont” alt=”GOOGLE’s Keyword Tool link”> http://www.google.com/sktool</a>). There are additional tools to be found. Just search for “keyword popularity tools,” or “keyword popularity,” or like phrases and your browser will light up. These tools, and others like them, are invaluable and should be used until you develop an addiction. There aren’t support groups for this sort of thing, but you’ll be able to justify it to your interventionists, I promise.

Write It—Use It

After you’ve done all of this research it becomes time to use what you’ve learned. You need to incorporate the keywords into your content, into your META tags, and in your content (did I already state that?). Make sure that you use the phrases that are most successful within the first few hundred words of your site’s content as most of the major search engines don’t crawl too deep into your content, but don’t overlook the rest of the page as some search engines still utilize the whole page for relevancy rankings.

Note: Even if you utilize landing pages (which everyone selling a product or service online should be using), you should be keyword conscientious in the creation of your capture phrases.

After working the keywords and keyword phrases into your content (varying it up page by page), you’ll want to apply your newfound knowledge to programs such as GOOGLE AdWords, or Yahoo!’s Search Ads, or any other number of programs out there on the market like this. The mistake you don’t want to make is to sit back and hope you’re successful in your first attempts with these programs and your keyword selection. Once you’ve implemented your words, you need to watch your statistics, modify your selection according to trends, successes, and ratios of return. You need to apply your budget scientifically and apply your research.

Maybe you want that lab coat after all.