Web Marketing Strategy Update

Keyword research is the first, and most important step in search marketing.

You can probably see why keyword selection would logically be the first task. But why most important?

Because if you choose the wrong keywords, everything else you do to improve your search engine rankings is wasted effort.

Or to be blunt: If you target the wrong keywords, you will not make money.

When you create a new website or web page, you want to focus the content on popular keyword phrases relevant to your subject matter. These are the keywords that people in your target market regularly type into search engines to locate information on the products or services you provide.

But it’s often the case that many of your first choice keyword searches will be very competitive, making it difficult — if not impossible — for you to get your pages to rank highly for them unless you employ an SEO expert.

What you need to do is find other, less popular keywords that are also quite heavily searched, yet are easier to rank well for because there are fewer competing pages in the search results (this also applies to Adsense keywords and other PPC’s, but in terms of paying less for your clicks because there are less competing ads).

From ClickZ News:

NEW YORK - Microsoft’s MSN has launched its paid search service in France and Singapore, according to the portal’s SVP Yusuf Mehdi.

Mehdi described the service, which is powered by MSN’s in-development adCenter platform, during his keynote address at the kick-off of Advertising Week in New York.

The features resemble those now available through Google AdSense and Yahoo! Search Marketing, but with some twists. They include a manual keyword selection tool, a “site analyzer” keyword suggestion module, demographic targeting, and assistance with budget allocation. The launches — today in France and on August 31 in Singapore — follow pilot programs in both countries.

The service is the first component of a total ad management platform that the Microsoft will use to sell media across all its channels and properties. Mehdi said adCenter will offer media planning and buying across everything from Web to e-mail to interactive TV.

Mehdi admitted the current functionality is “paid search as you know it today, but we introduced better audience intelligence. You can do amazing research even before you start a campaign.”

He said, for instance, that wine marketers in the French beta have called up detailed demographic information on who searches for “vin” (wine) by age.