The most important part of any SEO campaign is keyword selection. There are so many different options out there that sometimes it’s hard to decide which ones to use. With these tips, you should be able to narrow down the field into a list of useable keywords and phrases.

Your keywords should be separated into three lists, known as tiers. First tier keywords will be the shortest, often one or two words at most, and obviously you want to start with whatever niche you’ve selected. For the first tier keyword, you’ll want to use only one term – the search term that you really want to rank for. It’s your the keyword where, if you could wave a magic wand, you’d ask to rank #1 for this keyword.

Let’s use automobiles as an example. Assuming you had a website that sold cars. Your first tier keywords will be things like “cars sales”, “auto auctions”, “buy an automobile” or whatever term you want to use. This term will be the most relevant to your content, and again will be the one with which you’re ultimately hoping to show up in the rankings.

For your next tier, you have the ability to spread yourself out a little more. Instead of one keyword, for tier two we start out with up to about ten search terms, with each one breaking down your original keyword and niche into smaller segments – they’re like our category keywords.

Sticking with our automobile example, you could go with terms like “buying collectible autos”, “classic automobile sales” or “buy American muscle cars”. For local businesses, you can also add geographical locations to this tier of keywords: “Melbourne cars sales” or “Adelaide auto sales”.

As you’ve probably guessed by this point, the third tier will delve even deeper into the second tier. This is where you’ll add specifics, things like, “buy convertible black Ford Mustang melbourne”, “white 1969 Stingray Corvette”, etc. This tier will be relevant to your second tier, just as the second tier will be relative to your first. And just like the second tier, you have even more freedom here.

Keep in mind, this can also be an ongoing process – tracking and analyzation of your traffic and keywords can help you even further along your path to the top of the search engines.

This is a simple exercise in keyword selection that can help you narrow down the competition and ultimately rank higher in search engine traffic. For more information on keyword selection, click here to get your copy of the latest workshop DVD from Melbourne SEO Services.