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The first thing you need to know in order to do a keyword search is: what is a keyword? A keyword is simply a word or phrase that someone would type into their browser window to find a particular product. A long tailed keyword is a keyword phrase made up of 3 or more words.
For example, let's say I was looking for a guide on how to house train a dog. I would type in the phrase: how to house train a dog.
If you are selling a guide on how to house train a dog you would want to know how many people are using that exact phrase and how much competition you have. There are many software products you can use to make this process a little easier, but if you are starting out on a small budget you can also do a keyword search for free.
The first thing you need to do is determine what keywords you want to target for your business. Once you have a list of appropriate keywords you need to find out the search volume (you want it as high as possible) and the competition (you want this no higher than 5,000). To do your keyword search for free use the free keyword tool from Google. Just do a search for 'Google keyword tool'.
Once you have a list of the keywords that will work for your business that have a fairly high volume of searches you need to determine how much competition each keyword has.
To see how much competition you have all you need to do is type in your keywords into your browser window, one at a time. You want to type them in with quotes. This is very important. Even though most people don't search with quotes you need to do all keyword searches with them. Why? Because if you don't you will get an inaccurate picture of your competition.
If you type your search in without quotes your results will list any websites that have those words on a page. They may not be in order or even in the same sentence. For example, the term I used above, how to house train a dog. If I typed that into my browser without quotes I would get back results that had all of those word in, but not in that order.
So instead of sites that only had the phrase how to house train a dog, I would get results from sites that had the word train, dog, house,etc. Of course this is way too broad and so it will make your competition look much higher than it actually is.
The number of results you get will let you know if the keyword phrase will work for you or if it has too much competition. Remember, you want the competition to be below 5,000.
That's the basics of doing a keyword search. Once you have a good list of highly searched keywords with low competition you can really start generating a steady flow of highly qualified visitors to your website. And, hopefully, those visitors will turn into customers!
There is nothing like an air of mystery to perk up people's ears and create a frenzy. And certainly all it takes in the job search world is to tell job seekers that they must have something or they will miss out on the greatest opportunities ever, and pretty soon you have a trend worthy of epic proportions on your hands.
The whole concept of keywords in resumes is one of those mysterious things that has caused many a job seeker to lose sleep. And all because this issue has somehow taken on a life of its own.
I like to equate it to the old records that used to get everyone clamoring to play them backward to hear some creepy musician say “I see dead people” or whatever. You felt like you were part of some special club because you found the Holy Grail, the special secret. I guess a more modern example would be the hidden levels in a video game. You've cracked the code! You've discovered something that very few ever do!
The truth, of course, is that although it might make you feel good to find out these things, they aren't really that much of a secret and almost always blown out of proportion.
When it comes to resumes, many job seekers are savvy enough now to ask about “embedding” keywords into their resumes. The idea is that after resumes are scanned into a database, hiring managers, HR staff, recruiters, etc., can perform keyword searches to find suitable candidates.
And just think…if your resume is missing that keyword, then your resume will be passed right over!
Back in the old days (3-5 years ago at least!), that meant creating a whole separate document called a scannable resume that included long lists of possible keywords.
Some job seekers went so far as to creatively “embed” keywords into an invisible watermark, header, or footer of a document, thinking that this would greatly increase their chances. Now resumes are often including Core Competency or Keyword sections that include many of the buzzwords of the candidate's industry. Again, the idea is that their resume will come up on a database search.
The obvious dilemma here, then (and the one that causes job seekers to lose sleep), is whether you included the best possible keywords for fear of being passed over during a search. After all, companies receive hundreds of resumes per job posting; you can't possibly expect them to read them all, right?
I'll be honest, as a resume writer, I find the whole thing ludicrous on several fronts. First, the number of companies actually scanning resumes into databases is much smaller than the perceived threat.
Second, it makes no sense to “embed” keywords for the sake of embedding keywords. At the end of the day, even if the resume comes up in a search, someone will eventually read the resume and see whether you actually have the skill set. So you aren't really fooling anyone.
Moral of this story: Don't put keywords on your resume that you don't have experience to back up.
Third, Internet job posting sites are about the most ineffective way of finding a job in the first place. So if job seekers need something to lose sleep over, they should instead focus more of their angst on how/when they are going to launch an effective job search that gets them around the HR black hole, where they are going to devote the bulk of their time and resources, and what kind of networking channel they have.
So does this mean that I think you should run immediately to your resume and delete any and all keywords (core competency terms, etc.)? No, but I definitely don't think you need to be fretting over it either. Pick some key industry terms that are strongly reflected in the body of your resume (i.e., your work experience) and be done with it! And, please, whatever you do, don't be putting secret messages in the headers, footers, and watermarks. That's just silly…