Search Engine Optimization For Dummies, 5th Edition

Chapter 6

Picking Powerful Keywords

In This Chapter

Thinking up keyword phrases

Using the free Google Keyword tool

Using Wordtracker

Sifting for the right keywords

I was talking with a client some time ago who wanted to have his site rank well in the search engines. The client is a company with annual revenues in the millions of dollars, in the business of, oh, I don’t know . . . staging rodent-racing events. (I’ve changed the details of this story a tad to protect the guilty.)

I did a little research and found that most people searching for rodent-racing events use the keywords rodent racing. (Big surprise, huh?) I took a look at the client’s Web site and discovered that the words rodent racing didn’t appear anywhere on the site’s Web pages.

“You have a little problem,” I said. “Your site doesn’t use the words rodent racing, so it’s unlikely that any search engine will find your site when people search for that.”

“Oh, well,” was the client’s reply, “our marketing department objects to the term. We have a company policy to use the term furry friend events. The term rodent is too ...