After some deliberation, I’ve decided to write a series about how to research and use Google keywords. Quite frankly, I was unsure whether to share this information. But I don’t think something so simple should be reserved for a circle of web “gurus” who happened to stumble upon it, when everyone else could be benefitting. So I’m going to explain the research and use of Google keywords in the most straightforward way possible, for anyone who wants it. Eventually I’ll boil it down into a more formal “course” format, and put it up here as a pdf, but for now let’s just get it out there.

This series will be intended for the non-techie audience, so I’ll explain the terms I use in detail, in case you’re not familiar. If you are a tech type, please bear with me while I define them for the rest of the class. However, you may just learn something you don’t know, so try and stay awake.

Ready, class? Then we’ll begin.

“Write about what you know.” It’s one of the most often repeated axioms of blogging, and writing in general.

Unfortunately on the web it’s not that simple. If “what you know” is something 10,000,000 other people are writing about too, no one will ever see your writing, and your efforts will be only for your own enjoyment.

You can be proud of your efforts all day long, and sit back enjoying your beautiful handiwork, but at some point it feels pretty empty if no one else ever sees it. And if you’re trying to promote a business of any kind, attaining an audience is the difference between putting food on the table and hitting the bread line.

First the bad news: Even if what you’re writing about only has a handful of competitors for people’s attention, if you come up at the bottom of Google’s search results, you’re out of luck. You simply will not get in front of an audience. If you’re writing the best site ever about “excellent wines of France”, but everyone is searching Google for “great French wines”, all the expertise in the world won’t put you at the top of the search results and get people to see your work.

Now the good news: with a little research into Google keywords, you can make some minimal adjustments and vastly improve your search engine performance.

The basic concept here is to find out what your desired audience is looking for, and make sure you show up right in front of their face when they do.

So why “Google keywords”?

Though I’m using the brand name “Google”, this really refers to any search engine. Google simply happens to be the ubiquitous tool at this point in time, so I’m using it as a term of convenience. But you can be sure that if you’re successful optimizing for Google keywords, you’ll have little difficulty in Yahoo, MSN Live, or anywhere else.

OK, why “keywords”?

Everything that happens on the web is driven by keywords. They are the fuel the Internet runs on. Unless you happen to simply jump from link to link and never use a search engine, you’re using keywords every time you open a browser. And so is everyone else. If you want a whole lot of those eyes on your page, the best way is to optimize your site’s Google keywords. I’ll explain them in depth as this series continues, and we’ll pick them apart pretty thoroughly.

How is this different from SEO?

I said this was for non-techies, so your question is out of line, buddy. However, SEO (search engine optimization) is part of the method I’ll show you, but we’ll be going further. We will use aspects of SEO, but in some ways we’ll be doing the opposite: reverse-engineering SEO, if you will. 

OK, before we get too far into buzzwords, let’s end class for today. Before leaving your desk, please note that this post is exactly 700 words long, and that I’ve used the term “Google Keywords” exactly seven times. The significance will become evident as we continue.

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