HOW TO CHOOSE THE WRONG KEYWORDS

Charles Lewis

Search engine optimization (SEO) is not a guessing game. Much like
the process of writing a research paper (or locating the right person
to do it for you), your SEO strategy must be thoroughly studied
and outlined before being put to action. Targeting the wrong
keywords can be a real waste of time, and has a great chance of
resulting in:

- Irreversible damage to scalp
- Broken keyboards and computer monitors
- Loss of voice
- Fire. . . and lots of it!

You are now going to learn how to choose the wrong keywords. In
doing so, you will be able to fully comprehend exactly how to select
the absolute best keyword or search phrase to focus on in your quest
for a top ten search engine ranking.

## STEP ONE - Target Keywords That Nobody Searches For

Targeting keywords that no one searches for is a rather simple
process. What you'll want to do first, is go to the Word Tracker
web site (http://www.wordtracker.com). If you do not already have
an account with them, use the trial.

Enter a keyword that is closely related to your business, and WALA
-- a hot batch of freshly baked keywords. Click on the separate
keywords, found on the left hand side of the page, and on the
right side of the page you will see a listing of how many requests
each one receives per month, as well as how many sites you are
competing with.

Now, it is of great importance that you scroll down to the bottom
of the page, and choose the keywords that receive the least requests
per month. Zero is a good number, but three to five is an acceptable
amount as well.

LESSON TO BE LEARNED: Make absolutely sure that people are
searching for what you are optimizing for. If you optimize your page
for something nobody searches for, then your efforts will all be in
vain.

## STEP TWO - Choose Keywords With Lots Of Competition

Did you notice that this nifty web site also shows you how much
competition you're facing?

That's right -- in order to choose the wrong keywords to focus on,
your secondary goal is to focus on those with the absolute maximum
amount of competition. Don't even bother with keywords which show
two, three, or even four-digit numbers of competing web sites. Choosing
these would almost ensure your success in achieving a decent ranking.

The keywords are listed in descending order, according to the number
of requests per month - and not according to the amount of
competition. Therefore, your goal here is to first choose the
least popular keywords, and then select those with the greatest
amount of competition.

LESSON TO BE LEARNED: The less competition you have, the
greater your chance of achieving a top ten position. There is a
good chance that 99.9% of the people you are competing with
don't even know what META tags are, so if there is very little
competition, then success is at hand.

An explanation of META tags and other search engine basics can
be found at http://www.mrfire.com/cgi-bin/a .cgi?searchengines

## STEP THREE - KEI Analysis? Go As Low As You Can Go!

Once you have placed a good amount of keywords in your basket, go
onto the final step: KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index) Analysis. For
now, all you need to know is that a keyword's KEI is based on a simple
competition versus popularity ratio.

* For a detailed explanation of this, go to
http://www.wordtracker.com/help/keihelp.html.

When choosing poor keywords, you should always shoot for a KEI of
0-30. Anything above that might give you a shot at a decent
search engine ranking, and since your main goal here is to
choose the worst keywords possible, you'll definitely want to
stay within these boundaries.

LESSON TO BE LEARNED: Don't settle for a KEI of less than 100.
Typically, I will not even attempt optimizing a keyword that has
a KEI of less than 200, simply because I know it will save a lot of
time if the best keyword is chosen right off the bat.

I've made the mistake of choosing the wrong keywords to focus on
more than once. The result was an enormous amount of wasted time
and energy, and was overall an extremely frustrating experience.

Until I discovered there was a service that could actually count the
number of requests and competition for each keyword, I was playing
Pin The Tail On The SEO Donkey. Don't make the same mistake that I,
and thousands of others have made over the years.

Do the research before optimizing your page for the search engines,
and you will reap great rewards.

About the Author

Charles Lewis is editor of "The Creative Marketer", a weekly
newsletter dedicated to delivering proven online marketing
techniques. To sign up and receive a free copy of his $39
Internet marketing strategy guide, click on the following
URL: http://www.coe-d.com/creative.html