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I am a huge believer in keyword optimization.  Once you get keywords that you have researched on by using any of the keyword search tool, you will be on track to optimize your site and improve Google ranking.

Let me give you an example.  I had just uploaded my video clip on my blog (http://veronrecommends.com/blog/online-marketing/the-mlm-university-traffic-formula-20/) yesterday evening and in less than 24 hours, it is appearing on the second page of Google.  This is great results indeed!  Without the use of top search words, this would not have been possible.

Improve Google Ranking

So how did I do that?  First, I have to admit that I am no SEO expert.  However, I can show you how I use the free adwords keyword tool (freeadwordstool.com) from Google to do my research.  This helps me to determine which keywords I shall be sprinkling into my headline, body as well as description of the content.

Let us start with what is known as keyword effectiveness index, also known as KEI.  This is basically a mathematical formula that helps to determine if the specific keyword that you are intending to use is going to help you move up the search engines ranking on Google as well as the other various search engines.

I will normally have an excel spreadsheet open as well with 4 columns:-

1) keyword

2) local search volume i.e. popularity of that particular keyword

3) number of competitive websites, i.e. your competition

4) KEI (local search volume²) /number of competitive websites

For example, if I were doing my research for this article, I would open up the free Google adwords keyword tool and key in the word “keyword”.  When I click on ‘get keyword ideas’, I get a whole long list of Google search keywords that are related to the keyword that I had input.

Google Adwords Research Tool

Next I run through the various keywords that are showing up on the keyword research tool and basically run through the options that are being shown and running them through my mind to see how those keywords will fit into the content that I am going to create.

Now this is the section where I spend quite some time doing the keyword research.  Personally, I would normally go for a keyword that has a minimum of 600 searches for the month.  Anything less than that would not be worth your while in working on.

Once I have selected some keywords and keyword phrases where I think would be suitable, I would go to the Google search engine and check out the amount of competition there is for that particular keyword using an exact match. This means, I would key in the particular keyword such as adwords keyword as “adwords keyword” in the Google browser.  The number of websites with that exact keyword will appear on the top right hand of the page.

To give a real live example, let us take the phrase “google search keywords”.  Upon checking from the keyword search tool, we get a search volume of 3,600.  Next we check on Google to find the number of competing sites.  Type in the keyword or keyword phrase in quotes and Google will give you the number of sites which are relevant to that keyword, with the figure of 20,400 in this instance.  Take note that these will be the sites that you will be competing against for your ranking.  As such, the fewer the competition, the more likely you will be able to rank high in the Google search engine.

Next you square the popularity of the keyword and divide by the number of competition.  In this case, it would be 3,600²/20,400 giving a KEI of 635.  The higher the KEI, the more popular your keywords are, and the less competition they have. That means that you might have a better chance of improving your Google ranking.

The Keyword Effectiveness Index is the square of the popularity of a keyword multiplied by 1000 and divided by the number of sites which appear in AltaVista for that keyword. It is designed to measure which keywords are worth optimizing your site for. Higher the KEI, better the keyword.

As you can see from above, just the singular or the plural of a keyword also makes a difference.

So if you are aiming for keyword optimization to improve google ranking, use the top search words first.