By : Daniel F O'Connor
You know how when you look for something on Google, Yahoo or the other search engines, you get two sets of results? The ones on the left are the "natural" or "organic" results. They aren't paid for and their ranking comes from the algorithms of the search engine you're using. The more important and relevant to your search a website is, the higher up it will come in the rankings.
What you get on the right are the paid-for, or Pay-Per-Click (PPC) results. If you're advertising on a search engine, your ranking will be determined by your site relevance, the relevance and quality of your ad to the search, and the amount of money you are prepared to pay for a click.
In both cases, the search engine will decide the result rankings based on the search terms - or keywords - you have entered. It's therefore very important if you're thinking of using PPC to promote your site to try to anticipate what sort of keywords people will be looking for and work towards them.
All very well, you might say, but there are only so many ways to describe your site and what it does, surely? Maybe you're a little short of inspiration? Can't think of any new keyword combinations?
Don't worry, to every problem there is a solution (unless you happen to be responsible for creating Jar Jar Binks; there's no coming back from that one). Google Adwords have a keyword tool that's free to use and will give you relevant suggestions on keywords to consider. Here's how it works:
* Put in your "seed" keywords - for example, "marketing copywriter"
* Fill in the random characters field they put in to deter misuse of the site
* Press "Get Keyword Ideas"
Hey presto. A whole list of new suggestions. For the keywords I entered above it gave me over 100 new ideas.
Another way of getting new keywords is to enter the URL of your own site instead of the "seed" keywords. The Google site will then analyse the page you entered, find out what it's about, and suggest keywords relevant to the content of your site. No thinking required!
Not all of the suggestions will be completely relevant to what you want, but a lot will be. What's more, the keyword tool lets you know how much competition you can expect if you were to advertise using those keywords, so you can plan out how much you'll be prepared to spend. All in all, a pretty useful thing to know.
Check out Daniel F O'Connor business blog at http://www.daniboy.com/blog/
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