Keyword helpers

Those of us who frequently write for the Web know the importance of incorporating keywords and descriptions.

If you were to look up a company in the Yellow Pages, what category would you look under? You can use that as an example for the types of keywords that should be included in a Web page, blog post or other listing for that company.

Another good tool is on Wordtracker.com. There you can input a search term, like ‘press release,’ and see the top 100 searches that relate to that term. Then, when you write, you can include those keywords.

If you’d like to see how two search terms compare in usage, try Google Trends which gives a graph comparison for number of searches for the two respective keywords. For instance, I did a comparison of ‘press release’ and ‘news release’ to see how the two stack up. Press release, by far, is the more searched for term. This approach is helpful if you don’t quite know which keywords are most important.

Another tool is included in Google AdWords. There you can build pay-per-click campaigns. Google provides keyword tools to help you identify the most searched for, appropriate keywords for your product or service.

Keep in mind that writing for the Web is different from traditional public relations writing. It requires short sentences and paragraphs, incorporation of appropriate keywords as well as various search engine optimization techniques.