Keywords: The 1st Step Towards Making Money Online

Step One: Select a topic and generate a keyword (KW) list about the topic

What are keywords?
Here's a simple keywords definition: A keyword is a word or phrase that people use on search engines to find what they are looking for. For example, someone looking for information on "cats" may use a variety of keywords to find the specific information they are looking for. "Cats," "cat facts," "cat," "cat declawing," and "cat health" are just a few words and phrases that people type into search engines. The words and phrases that people use are recorded as keywords.

If you write an article for your website, you want to use keywords in the article. Why? If you include keywords on your website articles or blog posts, the search engines are more likely to recognize those keywords and include your website in search results. Therefore, people who are searching for information related to your website might see your website in their search results.

Once upon a time, people with a little HTML knowledge could "cheat" and include keywords in metatags for the website without having the actual keywords in the text that shows on the website. Search engines have gotten smarter. While these tools are still being used, the content of the website has become much more important.

I've written numerous articles on several websites that are consistently in the top 5 Google results. Being placed high in the Google results is important since it vastly increases the chances of your website being seen by people doing the search. Imagine the difference of being on page 1 of the Google results as opposed to page 50. Not many people even go to page 2 of their search results.

Selecting a topic for a website is not that difficult. First, jot down a list of things that interest you. They could be academic interests, medical topics or diagnoses, hobbies, skills, etc. Then, take your list and go to Wordtracker's Free Keyword Suggestion Tool. There, you can sign up for a free trial and do some free keyword searches.

You may do more than one keyword search for each possible topic on your list. Start by entering a word or phrase that best describes the subject. For example, if "psychology" is on your list, enter "psychology" in the search field. Wordtracker will generate a list of keywords. Copy the list and paste it onto a blank MSWord document.

Then, try some different phrases related to your first subject word or phrase. For the "psychology" example, you might want to try "psychological theories" or "mental illness." Copy and paste list of keywords onto your Word doc.

From this list, you will be able to make a top list of keywords. The Wordtracker results show how many searches are performed for each of the keywords. The most searched keywords for your topic are the ones with the highest number following the word or phrase. After you have gathered a long list of keywords for the first possible topic, start a new Word document with keywords for the next possible topic. Do this for all your possible website topics.

One thing to keep in mind-- all keywords are not created equal! I will discuss how to choose the best keywords to include on your website in the next post. The most searched keywords are not necessarily the best when you are starting a website!