KEYWORDS - Worth Studying UPDATED 4/26/06
It took me awhile to figure out the big deal about "Keywords". It turns out, if you are starting from scratch, and do NOT already have a website, you should check out the value of the various searchwords, or keywords used by people when searching for sites. Advertisers pay more, a LOT more for some search terms than others. For instance, an advertiser who puts an ad on a site talking about the weather may pay only 50c per click for an ad, while an advertiser who is selling medical supplies may spend $5.00 or $10.00 or more for an ad on a site targeted to their particular focus. Even this page, probably will get more "per click" on an ad, than my weather pages due to the topic based on Keyword research. (I'm not positive of this, but I'm learning)
The lesson being: If you have multiple interests and want to get into making a website or blogging, AND want to cover the costs as well as you can, or even make a little bit of money, then check out which topic will end up making more in the end. Of course, getting the traffic to your site is essential too, so if you are REALLY knowledgeable in one area, more than another, that should be your prime consideration. A tool that I have been playing with to determine Keyword value is Wordtracker.
HERE ARE SOME EXAMPLES OF KEYWORDS THAT PEOPLE WOULD TYPE IN A BROWSER THAT WOULD LEAD TO HIGH PAYING ADS (So you could design a site based on these words):
Refinancing
Debt Consolidation
Web Hosting
Online Trading
Forex
Search Engine Optimization
VOIP
Those are just 6 that would attract high paying ads. There are numerous free sites that provide you with an idea of what high paying "keywords" are such as keywordsense.com and some pay sites which update you each week on the latest high paying kewords such as adsenseadwords.com.
A standard in the industry to determine how many "searches" a particular phrase or keyword will get in a given month is Yahoo's Keyword Selection Tool. While it is for Yahoo! and not Google Search, it still gives you a general idea. It is perfectly free, try it!
