If you’re not dreaming of keywords at night, you’re not optimizing enough. Keywords are the thread that runs through the entire SEO process from start to finish. Your keywords are the kernels of your site’s content. They’re embedded in your site’s important headers and HTML tags. If your domain name is apt, keywords are drilled into every incoming link because the domain name is spelled out in each link to your site. An appropriate domain name spreads the identity and purpose of your site through the Web.

Your content should be densely saturated with keywords. Your keywords are carried into Google’s search engine by your future customers and visitors, who are searching for your site as well as similar sites that might contain links to your site - links that spell out your site domain, which, ideally, contains core keywords. If you’re an AdWords advertiser, your site’s keywords probably form the basis of your ads and determine on which results pages your ads appear. In that case, Google users searching for your keywords find your site through your ads, further driving to your site visitors who are thinking about the same keywords you are.

Keywords are the battleground of Google marketing. You and your competitors are fighting for position on search pages resulting from keywords you have in common. Remember, Google is all about keywords, so your site should be all about keywords. keywords can actually form the basis of a business plan and even help determine the nature of a business, if that business will be marketed online. This concept might seem far-fetched - doesn’t the business come first, then the keywords which define it? Often, yes. But keyword-based marketing has become an imperative in the online space, especially for small businesses, and I am seeing sites and business plans created on a foundation of keywords. Keywords are not purchased - not even in Google AdWords, where the advertiser purchases a position, not a keyword. Keywords can be shared but a position cannot be shared. When you select keywords around which to build and market a site, you’re attempting to secure position on the search page, in competition with other "owners" of the same keywords. All this notwithstanding, you should feel as if you own your keywords and that they will propel you to dominance in your field.

Keyword Research

Wordtracker is one of the most popular keyword assessment tools on the Web. Nearly everybody who optimizes has used Wordtracker at least once. This interactive gadget looks at your keywords, shows related keywords, and displays a table displaying the relative popularity of keywords. This much technology brought to bear on simple keywords might seem like overkill, but keywords are too important to treat casually. In addition to choosing keywords (which, by itself, is not necessarily easy), you should assess their competitive value - and that’s exactly what Wordtracker does. Evaluating keywords means assessing two factors: popularity, or the frequency with which they appear, and competition, or the number of sites using them. (By "using them," I mean using the keywords in any fashion and any context, not just in the site’s meta tags.)

Wordtracker covers both bases by suggesting keywords related to your core terms and by evaluating the suggested keywords you select. (In Wordtracker, a keyword means either a word or a phrase.) Wordtracker is a paid service, charging by the day, the week, the month, a 3-month period, or a year. You can concentrate your keyword research into a 1-day or 7-day blitz, without committing to an ongoing subscription.