Hiring a SEO professional is a good idea. They own several thousands of dollars worth of software that take the mystery out of SEO. Do-It-Yourself (DIY) rarely produces the same results as working with the professionals, but it can help a small business get started. The fundamental aspect of any SEO campaign is the keywords.

Keywords determine where you end up on the top of the Search Engines Results Page (SERP). There are several steps to choosing the right keywords. The first step is finding keywords is to determine what you want people to do after arriving at your website.

• Affiliate/MFA sites want to pre-sell people and encourage them to click links.
• E-tail/eCommerce websites want people to select a product and buy
• Service providers want to build credibility, keep clients, and walk them through the sale cycle.
• Community/CMS want members who will stay.

Once a webmaster understands what they want their visitors to do, they can select 5 – 10 keywords that will bring their ‘target audience’ to their website. Not all web surfers use the same keywords. People who want to buy do not look for reviews. People looking for reviews do not want to sign up at a forum. This can make finding the right keywords a difficult task. However, there are a few steps that make it easier.

Step #1
Visit the competition and view their ‘source’ files. Harvest their keywords and build a list of 20 – 50 keyword phrases. Do not focus on the single keywords. A good SEO can land websites on page one of the SERPs for a single word, but it is highly unlikely that a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) webmaster will reach these.

Step #2
Type these keywords into the browser and see if the websites on page 1 – 3 belong to the competition. Cut any keywords from the list that do not appear to be used by web surfers who are looking for your product or service.

Step #3
Run the Keywords through a Keyword Popularity tool. Most of the more expensive SEO programs can do this for you. If you do not have a good program then try one of the free versions of Webtracker. Very few DIY webmasters need to buy a keyword service, just use one of the free services powered by Webtracker. They offer the number of daily searches used by a single keyword.

Step #4
Narrow the list to include only the keywords that have more than 75 keyword searches a day. Many DIY webmasters feel that 75 searches a day is too low, but remember, these are your target market. They are looking for your product or service.

This is much better than trying to rank in the top 10 SERPs for a keyword that has 1000 hits a day, and has several websites at the top supported by high-priced SEO companies. These tools steps should help you narrow a list of relevant keywords down to 10 – 20 good phrases. It may take some experimentation to find which ones result in the highest ‘conversion-to-buyer rates.