Keyword analysis systems for search engines

Awarded at Toronto "Ultra Advanced SEO Symposium" Nov. 2005.

The Internet is made up of words. Understanding the dynamics of words on the Internet is a critical aspect to Internet success.

Whilst it may sound obvious, words drive the Internet. Whilst a picture may be able to say a thousand words, pictures are of little use when it comes to Search Engine Optimisation. A search engine is not able to make a subjective decision about pictures on your web page, except to a severely limited degree.

A search engine however is far more easily able to identify what your webpage is about based on the words that are on the page itself.

It stands to reason that the more closely those words relate to the search query of a visitor to a search engine, the better the chances your web site will be referred by the search engine.

This is in its most simplistic form, what search engines do every day. It is not sufficient by itself to achieve good rankings on a search engine for specific search phrases but it is an important start.

If a simple product like a water heater is considered, we can see some of the many different phrases that are used by searchers for the words 'water heater'.

This is known as keyword research - since when designing a web page its common sense to design one for search terms that people are actually using, not what we THINK they are using...

For instance by way of example some research on 'water heater' reveals the following:

Competing websites for the keyword phrase rv water 2 5,020

portable hot water heater 3 1,490

portable water heater 14 941

rv water heater 13 902

and so on

The information provided on this table is critical to understanding Internet Marketing success and in being found by search engines. In this case, "portable water heater" has the most number of occurrences in a search engine over a 24 hour period, and it has relatively low competition (941 sites). However, "rv water tanks" is even better - 18 searches a day and only 139 competing web sites.

This kind of information is vital. Internet Marketing without this kind of knowledge is like shooting in the dark and is one of the reasons why most websites fail to attract visitors.

Knowing what is being searched for, and how much competition there is for these searches enables the development of a targeted web page that targets those search phrases with high number of search requests and low competition.