What is a keyword? Let me start out with an example. Pretend that you are interested

in 'clean seashells' and you would like to have some information about it. Enter

'clean seashells' into a search engine on the internet.

A page will come up with several sites associated with cleaning seashells. And, of course you guessed it,

'clean seashells' is a keyword or to be more precise a keyword phrase. To keep it short a keyword is a word or phrase that is

entered into a search engine to find sites with information for that term.

Most software used to run keyword searches gives the number of times the word or phrase was searched

for within a specific length of time, usually the previous thirty days. This is what indicates the

popularity of the keyword.

Type in a keyword, click 'go' and Overture (recently purchased by Yahoo) will print out 100 related keywords.

The number of searches performed will be to the left of each word. Before I began studying keywords it

seemed that most people knew they had to have a lot of them but they were not sure why. Did anyone ever tell

you why? Do you know why?

One time an acquaintance of mine was so proud because he had 5000 keywords. He was so excited you would think the

number of keywords guaranteed success. If only it were that simple. In actuality the number of keywords is only

relevant to the use you have for them and the popularity.

For instance, if you are going to build a 500 page website you may want 500 keywords, one keyword for each page. But

that is another story. When someone types in one of your keywords you'll have a page of information for them.

In truth, today we use considerably less keywords than were used in the past.

If you plan to start an online business, keywords help you find your niche (subject of your business).

Brainstorm a few subjects that interest you, jot down four or five and run a keyword search on each.

Make sure the interest is there for any business you go into. There needs to be enough interest (number of searches)

for you to be successful but not so much that the competition would be too fierce.

Another facet is 'the higher the popularity of a keyword, the higher the cost of each 'pay per click'. If the

competition is too stiff you will be competing against all the gurus. In that case you need to

study more before you tackle it.

I cannot tell you how many searches indicate a worthwhile interest. I have heard some say they would not

use any keyword with less that a thousand hits (searches) in a month. Yet, if you use several keywords of lesser

interest with say 60 hits a month, add them all up and you would have good interest. You will need to experiment a little.

Keywords are the basis for almost everything you do in relationship to your 'online home business.

Some other uses for keyword searches are:

Finding a product

finding a need to create your own product

planning an advertising campaign

Building a website

there is no point doing a lot of work on a product etc. if there is no interest in it at all. Fifteen searches in the

previous month does not show much interest. Remember; only proceed with a business or product search, etc. if there is

an interest in it. If there is no interest, keep looking and run the research over again.