How to Find and Use Keywords and Adwords

Member

By Its Just Ellen
User-Submitted Article

Article Rating:

(14 Ratings)

Keywords

We hear about keywords and adwords, we read about them, we try to incorporate the right keywords in our articles, we know that how we get paid is linked to the keywords, which are linked to pay per click advertising as well as Google advertising. Whether it is eHow, websites or blogs, keywords and Google adwords are important concepts to understand, to research and to use. The are basic to SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

computer
ISP

Step 1

Understanding keywords: keywords are the words you enter into search engines to find a topic. They may be a word, a couple of words or a specific phrase or name. According to Google, the average Google query now consists of 4 words (a keyword phrase). They are the terms people type in to find your article. Keywords are the stuff of real word searches. These keywords should not be confused with the 3-5 keywords eHow asks for when you complete an article. They may be the same ones, but depending on your article size you can have several more keywords. The ones eHow ask for are used to determine the 'Related Ads' (other eHow articles) in the upper right of our articles.
Step 2

Understanding Google adwords: Adwords are a Google advertising product. Advertisers choose (and pay for) which words should trigger their ads to appear on web pages; and hopefully lead consumers to click on their product. These ads may appear on a Google search page or next to and below our articles on eHow. When the reader clicks on the advertisers product ad, the web site (publisher) earns so much per click. Adwords are the realm of PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising and CPC (Cost Per Click).
Step 3

Understanding how we make money: If we want to make money from our eHow articles, we need to use the right keywords to attract people to our articles. That is, we need to use keywords in our articles that a person would enter into a search engine. If these keywords are also Google adwords, they will find advertisements they are interested in on our page, and will hopefully click on it. The more the advertiser has paid for the adword (cost per click), the more we make as a pay per click (however, we do not get the CPC rate, we get the PPC rate).
Step 4

Google Adword is the program many use to determine which keywords in an article have a higher cost per click and which have a higher competition for that keyword. The higher the competition and the higher the cost per click, may result in a higher pay per click for us. However, if a term is very competitive (high competition), it will be hard to rank for that word. The traffic will be driven to high-traffic websites. You may want to consider using keywords that are less competitive (some search engine optimization sites recommend around 20,000).
Step 5

There are other free tools that will provide key words, and 1 that will also tell you what time of year different search terms are more used. SEObook.com has a very good SEO tool which actually compiles several of the others. Use the link under resources to go to the SEO Books Free KeyWord/Adword/SEO tool. Enter the keyword or keyword phrase (with quotes around it) into the box and click submit. Wait a few minutes and scroll down to see the results. You will see several columns of information. All are worth looking at, but I want to point out a few of special importance.
Step 6

There are 3 columns that tell you the estimated daily number of times that keyword or keyword phrase was used in Google, Yahoo and MSN. Two columns give you the suggested search word alternative for Google and Yahoo. A couple of other columns only work if you are an advertising member of Google adwords.
Step 7

The most interesting information to me is from the column called Google Insights. This tool allows you to enter 2 or more keywords (or keyword phrases) and then filter by months or years to see which is more prevalent when. It provides information on search engine inquiries over time. In December a two word keyword phrase may rank higher as 'One Two;' and in June rank higher as 'Two One.' Something to check out if the order of your keywords can be reversed.
Step 8

Most tools by WordTracker are fee based; however they do have one you may want to use before you decide on what to write your next article about. You enter a keyword and it tells you what questions people are searching for related to it. This will also help you to use the keywords in the title. This link is also below in resources.
Step 9

Keyword density is another consideration. You want your keywords to appear often enough to be picked up, but not so often that it effects the 'readability' of your article; or worse, turns the search engines against you. I am still searching for good information that defines this more, so if you know of some, please leave a comment.