If you want your online business to be successful, you need traffic. Listing with the major Search Engines is one of the ways to drive traffic to your site.

However - you don't JUST want traffic, you want TARGETED traffic! Visitors who are going to be interested in sticking around at your site ... visitors who are going to be interested in hearing about your products and/or services ... visitors who are going to want to sign-up for your newsletter or your opt-in announcements!

The trick to getting targeted traffic is to choose your keywords and key phrases carefully ... this is the most common mistake people make when submitting to the search engines.

Your keywords/phrases are going to show up:

• on your entry page and other key pages
• in your title tags
• in your META tags

When the Search Engines come visiting, they will be using the keywords and phrases you have chosen in order to determine how high (or low) your site will be listed.

The keywords you choose will have a direct impact on the placement you get in the Search Engines and on the quantity and quality of visitors to your site.

How do you determine what keywords to use?

There are several things you can do. First of all ... forget that you own the site, and pretend you are surfing. What words or phrases would YOU surf for? What might other people surf for ... not everyone thinks alike. For example if you have the ultimate site that focuses on dogs ... dogsite.com ... an obvious search word is "dog" ... a not quite so obvious search word is "canine". Make a list of the ideas you come up with.

If you wanted to find your major competitor's sites ... what words or phrases would you search for? Make a second list ... it will probably overlap with your first list, but there may be some differences.

Now take a few days to surf these two lists. Go through your words or phrases one at a time and see what kind of results you get. Pay particularly close attention to the top 10 listings. You can take a peak at their Meta tags and Title tags by clicking on "view" and "source" in your browser's menu. If you see a good idea for a keyword or key phrase that you've missed, add it to your list. However ... don't just copy all the keywords and META tags from someone else's site. In addition to the fact that every site is different and will get different Search Engine results (even from using the same tags) - you could be breaking copyright laws!

Make sure you search your list with more than one Search Engine. Each Search Engine has it's own rules and uses different algorithms to create their listings ... you will find some very interesting differences in your search results.

The next thing you should do is check out lists of the top 100 or top 200 search words. Find out what people are currently searching for. Here are several places you can visit to check this out....

Both WordSpot and WordTracker maintain top search word lists. At WordSpot, you have to register and they will send you an email report of the top 200 words. WordTracker will send you an unfiltered report of 500 top search terms. Just a word of caution here ... these are unfiltered lists. This means the lists include searches for sexual content.

Probably the best way to get ideas for key phrases is to use the great little suggestion tool at GoTo.com. Check out GoTo.com and click on the Search Terms Suggestion List link. When you type in a common keyword or key phrase, it will give you the number of times the word has been used in a search during past month ... along with a list of other suggestions.

Let's follow through with the dogsite.com example ...

Our original list contained:

• dog
• canine
• dog food
• dog vitamins
• dog toys

Not a very inspired list, but a start.

Our "find my competitor's sites" list contained a few more ideas:

• dog house
• dog kennels
• dog supplies

After spending some time surfing and checking out some competitor sites, the list has expanded to:

• dog
• canine
• dog food
• dog vitamins
• dog toys
• dog house
• dog kennels
• dog supplies
• dog breeder
• dog health
• dog shows
• dog races
• pet food
• pet supplies
• pet toys
• pet health

There were not any useful ideas in the top hundred's lists ... I guess dogs are not a broad enough, or popular enough topic. However, the GoTo Search Terms Suggestion List was great! A search on Dogs turned up the fact that there were over 55,000 searches on the keyword "dogs" done last month! Then came the list of other suggestions - there were some very useful ones that were not yet on our list, so we're adding:

• dog breeding
• dog training
• dog grooming
• dog behavior
• dog care
• dog adoption
• dog obedience

This is plenty for now. When the site is up and running, I'd review these and maybe add a few more!

Now -just so you don't get the wrong idea - we could have used a list of a thousand different dog breeds or lists of brand name dog foods and dog vitamins ... but this is our main page. We'll save some of the more specific terms for web pages that are specific to breeds, food, or vitamins.

Using a thousand keywords or key phrases on your entry page only dilutes the relevancy ratings that the Search Engines assign to that particular term. But that's a whole other topic! For now, all you need to know is keep your key words and phrases specific to the web page you are working on.

You will also note that we didn't load up with irrelevant keywords such as "cats" just to bring in more traffic. We don't want cat lovers coming to our site and getting mad at us ... all we want are "happy to find us" dog lovers!

Now that you've identified your website's keywords and phrases:

• use them in your keywords Meta Tag
• use them in your title Tag
• use them (or some of them) in your Headlines
• use them in the first few paragraphs of your main page

Each Search Engine looks for different things. If you use your keywords and phrases in the areas I've indicated, you will stand a very good chance of getting listed under those key words. However, keeping up with the Search Engines can be a full time job. Do the absolute best you can the first time out ... register with the top Search Engines ... and then try and improve on your results.

You can do this on your own for free. However, if you have more than one site to do, or if you want help, I'd suggest looking at two Software packages. This software can help you get and keep great Search Engine placement for all your critical keywords and phrases.

The first is SubmitWolf. SubmitWolf knows the rules and guidelines for each search engine. When you submit your website with the help of SubmitWolf, you will get excellent positioning and boost your site towards the top of the list!

Once you learn how to achieve a top 10 search position, you have to monitor your progress - a crucial step that can take hours to do! WebPosition Gold will help you analyze, track, and improve all your Internet search positions.

Your keyword and key phrase choices are an important factor in building traffic with Search Engines. Spend the time on it ... pay attention to it ... and you will see the difference in your incoming traffic! And if you want more in-depth information on how to really utilize the search engines, take a look at my Insider Secrets Course You will find over a chapter dedicated on search engine tips and techniques.