What is a Key Phrase?

What is a Key Phrase and why is it important? A key phrase is a set of words that a potential customer types into the search engines (such as Yahoo and Google) when looking for your services or products. A poor key phrase is one that few people type into search engines or one that is used on so many other websites that you have no chance of being listed on the first page of the search engines. A good key phrase is one that a lot of potential customers use and where you can achieve a first page ranking. Such a key phrase will bring a lot of visitors to your website, visitors who are looking for what you have to offer and are likely to become customers. Sound good?

An example - Sara's Bakery

To see how to select good key phrases let's take the hypothetical example of Sara. Sara owns a chain of bakeries that provide fresh fruit pies. She has decided to sell her pies through her new website. Before she builds her site, she investigates the best key phrases to draw new customers to her site.

Developing a list of potential key phrases

Sara starts by asking her friends, family and her customers what phrases they would type into the search engines to find pies that could be delivered. Her customers include individuals, other bakeries and grocery stores nationwide. By using Overture's Keyword Suggestion Tool she develops a large list of potential key phrase ideas. This website also tells her the number of searches actually conducted last month using those key phrases.

Determine number of competing websites

Using the complete list, she then uses WordTracker to show how many competing websites there are in the different search engines. She verifies number of competing sites by typing her list of potential key phrases into each of the search engines.
Wordtracker

Four million websites for "pies"!

The results show that some of the most searched for phrases are "pie", "apple pie", "strawberry pie" and "cherry pie" in that order. In the Google, four million Web Sites are already indexed for the word "pie". There are also several thousand sites already indexed for "apple pie", "strawberry pie" and "cherry pie". When someone types "pie" into Google, they will see a list of about four million websites.

If Sara invested in optimizing her site for the Google database she would have a very small chance of appearing in the listings for Google because there is so much competition. Her time and efforts are better spent elsewhere.

Opportunities in Yahoo!

Although there is a lack of opportunity in Google, there are great opportunities to be listed in Yahoo! by submitting to the Yahoo! directory. In addition recent reports show that Yahoo! sends more visitors to websites then any other search engine. The most searched for phrases are "pie", "apple pie", "strawberry pie" and "cherry pie" in that order. There is almost no competition in the Yahoo! directory for "apple pie", "strawberry pie" and "cherry pie".

Sara includes these key phrases in the description that she submits to "Yahoo! Express" to include her listing in the Yahoo! Directory. She uses the Title: "Sara's Bakery" and the Description: "Bakery fresh apple, strawberry, and cherry pies delivered"

(Please note that Yahoo! has changed since this was written and the directory submittal is no longer recommended - SH 11/11/02)

Pay-per-click

She also takes advantage of opportunities on pay-per- click sites to get prominent listings on major search engines. I will discuss these in the October " Tip of the Month".

Success!

Within a week of submitting her title and description, Sara's listing was reviewed and accepted by Yahoo! Her site appeared on the first page of Yahoo! when a potential customer searched for "apple pie", "strawberry pie" or "cherry pie" and her business increased dramatically. Although she hadn't offered "strawberry pies" before investigating Web- based sales, she saw the demand and was able to increase sales in each of her bakeries as well as on the Web by adding strawberry pies to her product line.

Because Sara identified the best key phrases and determined where the best opportunities were, she made the best use of her time and got the most visitors to her site for the least amount of effort and expense. We'll discuss how to make the best use of all these visitors in upcoming newsletters.

Successful clients

You will not find Sara's Bakery listed on Yahoo! because she quickly sold her successful firm and retired to the South Pacific islands of Vanuatu. No really, she is a hypothetical example, but this case is representative of real situations for successful clients.

Read more about how we can help you be so successful!

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