You need to take your keyword research very seriously as it is the foundation of your entire on-line marketing campaign. If you start to optimise and promote phrases that people are not using, you will not get the visitor numbers you need to succeed.

You can analyse your own statistics to see how people have found your site and then build on those phrases. There is powerful software available that can suggest terms in your niche and provide estimated visitor numbers and competition analysis.

Look at your competition and see what they are trying to rank well for.

When conducting your keyword research you need to have an integrated balance of research and ‘buying’ phrases.

Keywords should be thought of as phrases rather than single words. They are the words people use to find your site on the Internet. These words are typed into a search engine which then brings up a list of websites related to that phrase.

Not all keywords, however, are worth the same to a company that is marketing itself on-line.

Some keywords are used for research purposes, while others are used to make purchases. Clearly ‘buying’ phrases will be of more interest to you if you are selling products on-line.

Pay Per Click (PPC) is an advertising tool used on the Internet. There are a number of companies offering this service but the best known at the moment are Google, Yahoo and MSN.

They all work in a similar way and allow the advertiser to create a small advertisement which is then displayed next to the search results when specific keywords are used or on partner sites related to the product or service you are selling.

The main advantage to the advertiser is that you only pay when someone clicks on your advertisement and visits your site. You are also able to impose strict budgets that enable you to control your advertising spend.