Before the rise of the internet as a marketing tool and it was only a marketing tool before it became a market place that has its own set of rules, the traditional marketing tools were never able to use the power of keywords.
If we look at the traditional advertising mediums we would understand how difficult it is till this day to give the power to the customer to search or to choose the ads that he/she wants to see.
Yet there was only one medium which got close to the keyword concept which is the hard copy directories. In such directories we would find in the table of contents a certain categorization that would use keywords such as type of product, industry, etc. Still even with this medium, it was the producer of the directory that decides which keywords you can search for.
Today the internet not only created the power of keywords but it also handed this power totally to the customer. It is the customer who decides which keywords he/she wants to choose, and the advertiser would need to do huge efforts to appear and show his/her business according to the customer's search terms.
The power of keywords is used in most of the internet marketing tools, such as:
1- Search Engine Optimization
2- Link Directory submission
3- Article writing
4- Pay Per Click
5- AdSense
6- Link exchange
7- Even Posting in Forums
The huge power of keywords has the final say in the success or failure of your online business. You could have the best product and a great sales process from beginning to end, but if your keywords selection is not well studied that could mean the end of your online business.
If you have the financial resources you can hire experts to do this task for you, but if you are starting an online business with a limited budget then not only you will not be able to afford the services of such experts, but also you will not have all the time in the world for trial and error.
You will need a tool that has two main features; first it should be inexpensive and second it should give you immediate feedback.
In this article I would give you a list of suggested steps that you can follow which will give you the following benefits:
1- To be able to start your business as fast as possible.
2- To accommodate for your limited budget.
3- Get quick feedback.
The suggested steps are as follows:
1- Keyword research: There are various tools that you can use to research keywords that could be the most suitable for your business. Of course the ideal goal is to find a list of keywords that have minimum competition with high search volumes. Since this is not an ideal world then you should come up with keywords that can be as close as possible to this ideal goal.
2- Check your competition: You can take a look at your competition and see what keywords they have constructed they websites around. Depending on your general strategy and the type of competition, you can choose either to along with the same keywords as your competition, or decide to go as far as possible from them and target a different niche.
3- Construct your website around the keywords you have finally decided on.
4- Concentrate all your marketing activity around these keywords
5- Put aside a portion of your marketing budget for Pay Per Click
6- Use Adwords as the amount of traffic there will be able to give you immediate feedback.
7- Learn the ins and outs of Adwords before stepping into it. Again, do not get into Adwords before teaching yourself all there is to be learned. I would advise you to get Perry Marshall's e-book on this topic.
8- Test the keywords that you have selected.
a. If the outcome is satisfactory then you do not need to change any of the previous work you have done on your website and other marketing activities.
b. If the outcome is not satisfactory then you need to continue your keyword research and Adwords trials until you find the list of keywords that would bring you the traffic and sales that you require. When you do find these keywords, go back to all your previous marketing activity starting at your website content moving down to all your other marketing activities to accommodate for the new keywords.
c. Now that you have found the list of keywords that can bring you the quality of traffic that you desire, you can expand in different ways:
i. Target other niches within your industry. ii. Build other online businesses.
The Power of Keywords cannot be explained in one article, but I hope I was able to give you a good flavor and an understanding of the importance of positioning your online business through the selection of keywords.