Keywords are the actual words that a user types in when performing a query or search on a search engine. The most important ingredient in search engine optimization is the keywords for which you want to rank. Keywords are very important to search engine optimization because every search starts with keywords. As a result, determining what keywords a site should rank for is one of the search engine optimizer’s most important jobs.

If you are planning on creating a web site and are thinking about search engine optimization, you should decide which keywords you would like to target before you create the pages. That way every page that is created will be built around the keywords you select. When creating your initial keyword list, think about the intended audience. Knowing your audience will help you determine your keywords. If you are marketing something through the site, think about your potential products. Each category page can have its own keywords as well as each product page.

Once a keyword list is created, a tool can be used to tell you what keywords are related to yours that people have actually searched for. Several tools exist that will give you this information. Word Tracker is a paid tool that has been in use for a long time. There is a free version but it will only return 15 results at a time. Keyword Discovery is another paid tool with a free trial. Other options include using the keyword tool that Google provides for AdWords customers or the similar tool that is available for Yahoo search marketing users.

Once you have the tool available, you enter your words into the search field, and it will search its query database and return a list of terms that contain or are related to the words you typed. These results are the actual terms for which people searched. This way you can optimize your pages for actual words people are using and not just what you think they are searching for. When your final list of words is complete, you can start optimizing your pages.