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Every time you create content for your website, blog or article, you'll need to consider what keywords to use. Keywords are essential to driving targeted traffic to your pages so that people can see what it is you are offering.

What are keywords?

They are words that everyday people are typing into a search engine, like Google, so that they can find what it is they are looking for ' a product, service, or answer to a specific question or problem.

An example of a common keyword is ' apple.

Okay, so thousands of people will search for something related to the word apple. Does this mean that if you use the word apple on your website that people will flock to see your pages?

No.

General keywords like apple are found on millions of websites and your chances of ranking well for that term are nil. So, let's go deeper into this keyword thing and come up with some keyword phrases that people are searching for.

Here are some common keyword phrases for the word apple:

Apple pie
Apple bottom
Apple ipod
Apple crisp recipe
Apple martini
Apple peeler
Apple stock
Apple macbook
Fiona apple mp3
Apple bank for savings

These are all phrases being typed into a search engine everyday by people looking for very specific information. So, while adding the word apple to your site will not have any benefits, using one of the above keyword phrases in your content could potentially bring you traffic by making it easier for your site to rank higher in the search engines.

As you can see, apple can mean different things to different people. If you have a recipe site, you'll benefit from using any keyword phrases related to cooking and serving apples. If you have a computer oriented site, you'll be using anything related to apple computer and its products. If your site talks about popular music, then maybe you'll have a need for the Fiona Apple keyword.

But shouldn't I have the right to put whatever content I want on my site regardless of these keywords?

Sure, you can do that ' but your site will more than likely be lost amongst the millions of unread and unseen pages in cyberspace. Not knowing how to research and use keywords properly is a major reason why newbies fail to get any traffic to their sites. If you want to succeed online, you'll have to master the use of keywords. Meaning, find a way to weave these keyword phrases into your content, but don't go overboard.

So how do you find these keywords?

There are several free resources online where you can do some basic keyword research. The best one of these is Wordtracker. You can find it by searching for Wordtracker free keyword tool. Wordtracker will give you the daily results for each word you research. Wordtracker also has a paid service that allows you to find more keywords than their free tool, and it also gives you better analysis.

There are also lots of keyword research software tools available. These tools range in price, but all of them pretty much do the same thing. They allow you to research an unlimited amount of keywords and keyword phrases. I won't recommend any particular one, but you can easily find many good ones online.

The point is that since traffic is so hard to attract online, you need to make sure you use keywords to give you an advantage over your competition.