Matt from Washington asks:

What makes a good keyword phrase?

A good keyword phrase is one that is closely targeted to your product or service and reveals intent on the part of the searcher.

Thats a mouth full. Let me break it down for you:

When people do keyword research they often focus on keywords that are far too general. Lets say I have a site where I sell digital sheet music for classic rock songs. Here is a list of possible keywords:

Sheet music
Digital music
Lyrics
Music lyrics
Classic rock
Rolling Stones
and so on

There are a couple of problems with this keyword list:

1. They are only loosely related to my core productdigital sheet music for sale.

Take sheet music for example. Do you sell sheet music? Sure you do. But the sheet music you sell is very specific. Most people who are typing sheet music into Google are looking for something other than what you are offering.

Would it benefit you to target this phrase? If you got to the top of Google for this phrase it WOULD result in sales, but because it is only loosely targeted to your product it would likely not be worth the effort you would put in to get there.

2. They dont reveal intent on the part of the searcher.

Lets consider classic rock. When someone types that phrase into a search engine, they may be looking for the phone number of the local classic rock radio station, a way to download classic rock music or lyrics to a specific song.

These arent likely to do you a lot of good.

Heres how you can improve your search terms, decrease the competition you have to overcome and get more sales per visitor:

1. Look for keywords where intent is clear.

Lets look at the term lyrics.

While you DO sell lyrics, adding a few words to the term will help it be much more closely targeted to your product.

Classic rock lyrics
60s rock lyrics
Rock lyrics of the 70s

Can you see how these specific terms reveal what the searcher is looking for?

2. Target keywords specific to your product/service.

You should target the exact keyword phrases describing your product or service.

For example:

If you sell sheet music to the Rolling Stones Shes So Cold, then you want to make sure you have targeted all of the relevant keyword phrases:

Rolling Stones Sheet Music
Rolling Stones Shes So Cold
Shes So Cold Lyrics
Shes So Cold Sheet Music
Shes So Cold music
and so on.

Remember this rule: The more specific the keyword the less competition and the more sales you will make.

Take time to create very specific keyword lists and you will climb quickly in the search engine results and make a boatload of money.