SEO Basics: How to Choose Keywords for Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

These are the basic steps you need to follow in order to select good keywords for your website's SEO campaign:

1. Brainstorm. What will people type into the search engine's search query box when looking for your product, service, or whatever it is you're about?  
2. Record. Write down all of the keywords and keyword phrases you can think of that are related to your theme (more than half of all search queries are three words or longer). This could be dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of keywords and phrases depending on your theme and the size of your website.
3. Synonymize. That's really a word; I found it in a thesaurus. And that's your next step... pick up a thesaurus or go to thesaurus.com, and write down as many synonyms of your keywords as you can.
4. Investigate. Check out your competitors' websites and find out what keywords they're using.
5. Evaluate. Use a keyword evaluation tool, such as Google's Adwords tool, to find out which keywords are searched most often.
6. Cull. Go through your keyword list and cross out the least relevant keywords, or the ones that hardly ever get searched. It's imperative that you try to determine which keywords and phrases will result in conversions and not just traffic. A keyword that brings herds of people to your website is pointless if none of them buy anything or join / sign up for your service.
7. Assign. Designate certain keywords for certain pages of your website.
8. Insert. When inserting keywords on your page for SEO, you must do so strategically. Search engines look at three things when it comes to keyword placement: Frequency, Density, and Distribution. Does your keyword appear enough times so that the search engines know that it's a keyword without going over the line? Does the keyword comprise at least 5% of your page's content? Is the keyword evenly distributed throughout the page? All of these things need to be taken into consideration to ensure the success of your SEO campaign.

Keywords are a huge part of Search Engine Optimazation. Be sure to get in touch with Mile High SEO of Denver if you need help in this vital area...we're keyword experts!