Keywords are simply single words or multiple word phrases that people use to find your products or services on the Internet.

Step 1: Identify Keywords

The first step involves identifying the industry and then focusing in on the specifics. For example if you own a bike shop your keyword groups could include "mens bicycles", "childrens bicycles", "cycling helmets", etc.

Step 2: Find Your Keywords

Next you need to check your initial thoughts with what is actually being searched for on the search engines and rank them by their popularity (number of searches per month).

You can use the free Google Keyword Tool to find out more about the behavior of your target audience including what they call things, the way they identify particular subjects, and how broad or precise their search normally is. More precise terms are three or more words long. These keywords are known as long tail keywords and generally will convert into orders or enquiries better.

Another keyword tool that is useful but not free is Wordtracker. They publish a list of the top search terms of the last year. Looking through this could help to identify high traffic keywords that are relevent to your target market. There are also keyword lists organized by subject.

Step 3: Select Your Keywords

Copy all relevent keywords and search counts into a spreadsheet using a program such as Open Office Calc or Microsoft Excel. Examine all the keywords to ensure they are highly targeted to your website. Delete any that are irrelevent.

Ideally you should have a manageable number of keywords to begin with. Then you can begin testing them either using SEO techniques or PPC which I will discuss in other articles.

I highly recommend that if you are selling a product or service you look for what I call "buyer keywords". These are keywords that show a commercial intent from the searcher. So if you are marketing an online food delivery service a good keyword would be something like "order food online". The words "order", "buy", "purchase", "cheap" etc. are all signs that the person typing those keywords into the search engine is in a buying frame of mind.