• Section: Money Guide - Category: Online Business
• Written by reconfigured.org

LONDON, JULY 12 2007

What is the key driver behind online sales? Visitors who find your products or services so appealing they commit to completing a purchase. This may sound like business 101 to most of you, but you'd be surprised to know how much uncorked inspiration there is in doing your homework on how to get there.

All of us web owners know that of course the traffic of visitors also need to be taken good care of in order to hold any value. You need to offer your potential customers elements such as secure payments, accessible customer service and clear information.

But back to the magic that makes your site more likely to be discovered by an audience who understand what you are offering - and who are in the market for your products? Of course the key is making your site pop in the search engines, whenever your average customer is on the lookout for your products. What does this mean? It's simple. It means that your keywords need to be co

mpatible with your target audience's search terms.

How to know what the right keywords are? Research.

Rule number one is to stay away from keywords that are too specific to your industry. This means that your average reseller or technician or industry professional would know exactly how to find your web site and your products or services. But at the same time, your audience may not ever use those terms when thinking of what to buy - they are maybe too technical or too component specific. So, using too industry specific terms may do your traffic a lot of harm. Stay clear of it!

Rule number two is to always think of how you can vary your keywords. Divide the keyword up into several parts (three or more), so that all of those users who may not search for your very specific product can still find you based on the generic term if included in different circumstances.

Rule number three: Always include negative keywords. What is a negative keyword? A negative keyword is a keyword that helps prevent your ad from being displayed in a non-relevant environment. This means that your negative keywords will make sure nobody who includes your keyword in a non-relevant search will reach your site - it basically lowers your costs for useless traffic and it also helps keep your quality score high in the engines. Keeping your score high is a long term investment, since it will prevent you from unnecessarily high bid prices and bad ad positioning.

Rule number four: Make sure your reach goes beyond one search engine. Don't automatically go with the big guys. Instead, research and go wider by looking at other multiple content networks. Make sure you don't overlook the very targeted smaller engines out there - they could save you a lot of money. Not to mention make you some too!

Rule number 5: Measure your performance, at all times. If you don't keep track of potential success or failure, using keywords is fairly useless. Use the results you get to develop new strategies.

Rule number 6 is to always review the tools you have at your disposal. If you are using a third-party bid management solution that doesn't add value, you need to reconsider how you align your work with keywords with the rest of your operations. Invest in good tools with a solid track record. What are good tools? Those who help you track both your precise keywords and your separate advertisements, and they will tell you which lead to more traffic and which lead to actual conversions, i.e. sales.

Again, as we said above - keyword research is only one part of your business. Getting your visitors to come to your site is only the first step towards sales. Greeting them the best possible way is the next challenge you should tackle before you even start your keywords campaigns - check back here for more articles on such as landing pages, content and other elements to help support your e-commerce business performance.

- Submitted by a reconfigured.org writer

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