The Business Of Love

In tribute to the sweetest of holidays for the year ending and Christmas, I bring you my first annual "Business of Love" special report. In it, i address the greener side of love and the best method for ditching an unwanted admirer (get a cellular woman). I even tuned in some finely tuned dating advice from a bona fide professional matchmaker yo get tips on what to do when your just-to-be-girl won't sign that prenuptial agreement. No Not! Never ! but yes for me love is done many a times in your lifetime with a bottle of booze ! 

Does that mean your sperm is for sale ?? Oh no! i never did this but yes something back in your mind always want a deeper crush of your life. Then What it costs to say "Be Mine". Don't you think there's a knight in your mobile as armor or it was serendipity that offered you the timely telephonic love out with your partner yelling out your emotions. Several a telecom business thrive on this and sustain themselves to afford you to empty your pockets forcing you to call as cheap as your sperm."Hilaya, Hiyala aur Hilaya jab tak dho na diya" - tagline must to be used for unlimited talk offers.

Now the economic criteria : It will cost love consumers a little more this year. The average love-struck consumer will spend nearly $60 on Valentine's Day this year according to the National Retail Federation's 2011 Valentine's Day Consumer Intentions and Actions Survey.These facts are subject to change on the bigger wallet underneath your ass.

Can you believe people get paid for this, drinking tea and talking about love all day long? Almost everyday someone somewhere around the globe is launching own lovemaking matchmaking business which trains aspiring matchmakers and sets quality standards for love. Their success is to what his/her offer that other dating sites don't: face-to-face coaching on how to choose the right certain someone--and how to keep him or her coming back for more. WTF!!

Now think you're "married to your work?" Try starting a business with your spouse considering you are a genius and have achieved the noble prize of getting a holy COW or BULL in your life. This is a bit more interesting though! For couples that do brave this dangerous territory, working too much is one of the many challenges they will face everyday. "The commitment to each other produces a synergy that can enhance the business," says Jean Charles, a New Jersey-based business consultant. Now there's "A third rule of thumb: Don't let just anyone know you're married and start business with every boy/girl you meet and get married." Later you may quit by just a statement : "He/She made the decision that I wasn't very easy to work with". Seriously folks that is what the stories of many entrepreneur couples around the globe.

Love, after all, can be one tough business. It takes many parts strategy, commitment, compromise and luck and what comes to my mind is that "What is the price of love?" Love is not like rotten tomatoes that are sold in the market. People express love in different languages and feel loved in different ways but if love is expressed in a different language which is not natural to the recipient then the message of love is not received. So Tweet your love and get you scholarship this New Year and Christmas. My way of expressing love http://bit.ly/vJn1iN

P.S.- Please don't follow any of the above mentioned amendments !

Next-generation water policy for businesses and government

The solution to water scarcity, in part, will come from new technologies for better managing water as a resource. But to make these technologies more effective, business and policy leaders will need to work more closely to implement them.

http://www.pabitragroup.com

Water insecurity looms as one of the great challenges of the 21st century, and it is one that policy makers and business leaders must face together. Policy makers recognize that certain technologies being developed by leading companies are critical tools for effectively managing scarce water supplies. But business leaders must do more to help shape the understanding of how good policies make it possible for technologies to be productive—and how ineffective ones do the reverse.

Public-sector leaders and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have long dominated the debate on water policy, but within the last five years, a growing number of progressive private-sector companies have also started to lend their perspectives on how best to effectively manage water. These companies have begun by paying much more attention to the water environment in which they function. As they develop a new generation of water-related technologies, they also increasingly influence a new generation of public policies that stimulate the development and use of these technologies. Here is how a number of them are engaging along both of these dimensions.

One group of companies, including beverage, mining, and energy businesses, has found that growing water scarcity constitutes a threat to their social license to operate. In response, some have made large donations to activist groups in the hopes of buying peace. Others have asked for water standards that they can then meet in their plants. The most far-sighted of these companies, however—with Nestlé as a leading example—recognize that while companies have to manage water efficiently behind their factory gate, society (along with companies and their suppliers) needs an equitable, efficiency-stimulating, and predictable legal and regulatory environment that governs all water uses. These companies also believe that private businesses have useful and legitimate inputs to make into the policy-formulation process, and that good business practices can guide effective implementation.

A second group of companies is developing technologies that can enable society to get more product—more food, energy, income, employment—per drop of water. There are three broad segments. The first comprises companies that develop productivity-enhancing seeds and agricultural technologies. Because agriculture accounts for more than 80 percent of water consumption in the developing world and because the productivity gains of the last round of agricultural technologies (the “green revolution”) have fallen to less than 1 percent a year (from about 3 percent a year in the 1960s), these innovations are vital for better water management. The importance of genetically modified organism (GMO) crops—a core agricultural technology—is illustrated by the contrasting performance of corn in Europe, where GMOs are not allowed, and in Iowa, where 90 percent of corn is grown from using GMOs. In the last ten years, corn yields in Europe have stagnated, while in the United States productivity has grown at over 2 percent a year. Existing GMOs already use substantially lower amounts of fertilizers, pesticides, and water. And some new-generation crops will be better able to thrive despite water stress.

A second segment of companies is developing new technologies for treating water and wastewater. The process of desalination illustrates the importance in this area. The laws of thermodynamics state that it is theoretically possible to desalinate seawater by using only 25 percent of the energy currently required to do so through existing technologies. If new developments in, for example, nanotechnology and membranes allow even half of this potential to be realized, the cost of desalination will fall to a level where most cities and industries in coastal areas throughout the world can turn to it as the new source of choice. The third segment comprises companies that provide users with just-in-time and just-what’s-needed information—such as on the probability of rainfall, on soil moisture, on water, and on fertilizer requirements. This is essential for energy consumption, domestic use of water, and, most important, for agriculture. Precision agriculture can produce much more crop per drop than traditional methods can, and industries and cities can use much less water too.

Executives at these leading companies know that progress in water management depends on linked advancement in technologies and policies. They have seen instances in some countries where policy shortcomings mean that many existing technologies that make more efficient use of water are not being fully employed. This has prompted a growing number of companies to engage with policy makers to ensure that key policies—such as tradeable water rights, support for intellectual-property rights, and efficiency-enhancing regulation—are implemented. In conversations with policy makers, corporate leaders highlight examples like the Murray-Darling Basin, in Australia, where an enabling policy environment means that a 70 percent reduction in water availability has had virtually no impact on agricultural production. In situations like this, policy makers know that what is needed is a “next generation” of technologies that will enable society to do more with less. And they know that the key to achieving this is a legal and business policy environment that stimulates the development of the next generation of water efficiency technologies.

Although the glass may certainly look half empty, it is also half full, not least because progressive business leaders understand that water scarcity is an issue that will affect their industries, suppliers, and the communities in which they work—and they’ve stepped into the policy area to help shape solutions. And as they have, policy leaders have begun to better understand the private-sector’s contributions and to draft more effective enabling regulations. But more business and policy leaders need to follow the lead of their progressive colleagues. That is how we will secure further development of new technologies and the formulation and implementation of a new generation of water-management policies.

Browse: Home / Socialnomics / Optimizing Your Social Marketing Program – A Practical Way to Social Media Optimization (SMO) Optimizing Your Social Marketing Program – A Practical Way to Social Media Optimization (SMO)

http://about.me/rajdeep.ramsay

If you are serious about your social marketing program, you are likely focused on executing across a number of social platforms.  I am of the mind that ideas are a dime a dozen and execution is key to success – that is, if our ideas are right to begin with. This is why I always advise our clients to take a breather and check in on their progress in the social realm at least twice every year.  Social media platforms change at an unprecedented rate and programs and plan we put in place just a few months can quickly grow outdated.  To add to that, we are often biased by our choices, and sometimes are too close to our programs to know if we are doing the best we can.  This is why we create How to Objectively Audit Your Social Marketing Efforts on white paper. I hope you will use suggested objective methodology to assess your progress and identify new ways to optimize your social marketing efforts.

An objective audit of your social marketing program will help you answer these key questions:

• How well are we doing with social marketing?
• How do we compare to our competition?
• What can our social marketing teams do better?

Start with some objective analysis of your Social Reach along with an analysis of the likelihood that your products or brands are or will be discussed in the social realm in the future.  You will learn that Social Reach is the estimated number of potential and existing customers you can reach via your presence on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.  Your reach is an important first baseline – you are as big as the number of people you can reach and touch (for a deeper conversation on how to grow your Social Reach.

Proceed by analyzing the volume and types of digital conversations surrounding your category and products.  You will likely find that new entrants are vying for your customers’ and prospects’ attention.  Understand who they are, where they are investing and what they are talking about.  This will help you assess if you have sufficient resources and focus to participate and dominate these conversations.

Remember – keywords are the new digital currency.  Create a list of top strategic keywords you want to own and see how well you rank for them with the top search engines.  You have to be good at connecting with your prospects and customers – wherever they are, however they search for your solutions. The SEO , helps you better understand your rankings and keyword authority. I learnt that to succeed with search engines, you need to use landing pages – research shows that best-in-class companies across all sectors are using landing pages to get to the users who have a clear idea of what they need.

Equipped with this data, you can build your own Social Marketing Effectiveness Dashboard.  This dashboard becomes your benchmark against your peers and against your own progress.  Updating it at least twice a year will help you stay focused, nimble and relevant.  It will also help you identify untapped opportunities for traction and growth. To bring this objective assessment to life, we connected with our friends at Social Media networks, who kindly agreed to be our featured company example. It provides Web Content Management (WCM) software that helps businesses increase traffic, drive conversion and improve social interaction. Recently invested in a new marketing team, who will use the provided objective assessment as a baseline to measure their improvements and create a targeted approach to social media and SEO practices. Special thanks to our social marketing agency WEB VELOCITY who helped with the analysis for this paper.

If you would like to review other resources on the same subject, I recommend WEB VELOCITY. You will learn the difference between social media optimization (SMO) and engagement. I also recommend the Social Media Explorer .

Curious to hear from my peers. How do you keep your social marketing program focused? Do you run health checks of your social and SEO programs and how often?  What methods and tools do you use? Let’s continue the discussion on this blog, Twitter, Facebook http://about.me/rajdeep.ramsay and in our Google + https://plus.google.com/110074757401718973167/posts?hl=en Group.

Procrastination making things better in life.

I have been intending to write this essay for months. Why am I finally doing it? Because I finally found some uncommitted time? Wrong. I have papers to grade, a grant proposal to review, drafts of dissertations to read.

I am working on this essay as a way of not doing all of those things. This is the essence of what I call structured procrastination, an amazing strategy I have discovered that converts procrastinators into effective human beings, respected and admired for all that they can accomplish and the good use they make of time.

All procrastinators put off things they have to do. Structured procrastination is the art of making this bad trait work for you. The key idea is that procrastinating does not mean doing absolutely nothing. Procrastinators seldom do absolutely nothing; they do marginally useful things, such as gardening or sharpening pencils or making a diagram of how they will reorganize their files when they find the time. Why does the procrastinator do these things? Because accomplishing these tasks is a way of not doing something more important.

If all the procrastinator had left to do was to sharpen some pencils, no force on earth could get him to do it. However, the procrastinator can be motivated to do difficult, timely, and important tasks, as long as these tasks are a way of not doing something more important.

To make structured procrastination work for you, begin by establishing a hierarchy of the tasks you have to do, in order of importance from the most urgent to the least important. Even though the most-important tasks are on top, you have worthwhile tasks to perform lower on the list. Doing those tasks becomes a way of not doing the things higher on the list. With this sort of appropriate task structure, you can become a useful citizen. Indeed, the procrastinator can even acquire, as I have, a reputation for getting a lot done.

Play Ping-Pong as a way of not doing more important things, and get a reputation as Mr. Chips.

Procrastinators often follow exactly the wrong tack. They try to minimize their commitments, assuming that if they have only a few things to do, they will quit procrastinating and get them done. But this approach ignores the basic nature of the procrastinator and destroys his most important source of motivation. The few tasks on his list will be, by definition, the most important. And the only way to avoid doing them will be to do nothing. This is the way to become a couch potato, not an effective human being.

At this point you may be asking, "How about the important tasks at the top of the list?" Admittedly, they pose a potential problem.

The second step in the art of structured procrastination is to pick the right sorts of projects for the top of the list. The ideal projects have two characteristics -- they seem to have clear deadlines (but really don't), and they seem awfully important (but really aren't). Luckily, life abounds with such tasks. At universities, the vast majority of tasks fall into those two categories, and I'm sure the same is true for most other institutions.

Take, for example, the item at the top of my list right now -- finishing an essay for a volume on the philosophy of language. It was supposed to be done 11 months ago. I have accomplished an enormous number of important things as a way of not working on it. A couple of months ago, nagged by guilt, I wrote a letter to the editor saying how sorry I was to be so late and expressing my good intentions to get to work. Writing the letter was, of course, a way of not working on the article. It turned out that I really wasn't much further behind schedule than anyone else. And how important is this article, anyway? Not so important that at some point something that I view as more important won't come along. Then I'll get to work on it.

Let me describe how I handled a familiar situation last summer. The book-order forms for a class scheduled for fall were overdue by early June. By July, it was easy to consider this an important task with a pressing deadline. (For procrastinators, deadlines start to press a week or two after they pass.) I got almost daily reminders from the department secretary; students sometimes asked me what we would be reading; and the unfilled order form sat right in the middle of my desk for weeks. This task was near the top of my list; it bothered me -- and motivated me to do other useful, but superficially less important, things. In fact, I knew that the bookstore was already plenty busy with forms filed by non-procrastinators. I knew that I could submit mine in midsummer and things would be fine. I just needed to order popular books from efficient publishers. I accepted another, apparently more important, task in early August, and my psyche finally felt comfortable about filling out the order form as a way of not doing this new task.

At this point, the observant reader may feel that structured procrastination requires a certain amount of self-deception, since one is, in effect, constantly perpetrating a pyramid scheme on oneself. Exactly. One needs to be able to recognize and commit oneself to tasks with inflated importance and unreal deadlines, while making oneself feel that they are important and urgent. This clears the way to accomplish several apparently less urgent, but eminently achievable, tasks. And virtually all procrastinators also have excellent skills at self-deception -- so what could be more noble than using one character flaw to offset the effects of another? "But In Life There is An Art Of Living In Procrastination enjoyed by only a few".

Google Study material !

Below I have compiled a list of 7 clever Google tricks that I believe everyone should be aware of.  Together I think they represent the apex of the grand possibilities associated with Google search manipulation tricks and hacks.  Although there are many others out there, these 7 tricks are my all-time favorite.  Enjoy yourself. 

1.  Find the Face Behind the Result – This is a neat trick you can use on a Google Image search to filter the search results so that they include only images of people.  How is this useful?  Well, it could come in handy if you are looking for images of the prominent people behind popular products, companies, or geographic locations.  You can perform this search by appending the code &imgtype=face to the end of the URL address after you perform a standard Google Image search.

• Examples (notice the differences in each URL):
  • Image Search for Google vs. Faces Behind Google Image Search
  • Image Search for Digg vs. Faces Behind Digg Image Search
  • Image Search for California vs. Faces Behind California Image Search
  • More info.

2.  Google + Social Media Sites = Quality Free Stuff – If you are on the hunt for free desktop wallpaper, stock images, Wordpress templates or the like, using Google to search your favorite social media sites is your best bet.  The word “free” in any standard search query immediately attracts spam.  Why wade through potential spam in standard search results when numerous social media sites have an active community of users who have already ranked and reviewed the specific free items that interest you.  All you have to do is direct Google to search through each of these individual social media sites, and bingo… you find quality content ranked by hundreds of other people.

• Examples:
  • site:digg.com free “desktop wallpaper”
  • site:reddit.com free “wordpress templates”
  • site:del.icio.us free “stock images”
  • site:netscape.com free “ringtones”
  • site:stumbleupon.com free icons
  • More info.

3.  Find Free Anonymous Web Proxies – A free anonymous web proxy site allows any web browser to access other third-party websites by channeling the browser’s connection through the proxy.  The web proxy basically acts as a middleman between your web browser and the third-party website you are visiting.  Why would you want to do this?  There are two common reasons:

• You’re connecting to a public network at a coffee shop or internet café and you want privacy while you browse the web.  You don’t want the admin to know every site you visit.
• You want to bypass a web content filter or perhaps a server-side ban on your IP address.  Content filtering is common practice on college campus networks.  This trick will usually bypass those restrictions.

There are subscription services and applications available such as TOR and paid VPN servers that do the same thing.  However, this trick is free and easy to access from anywhere via Google.  All you have to do is look through the search results returned by the queries below, find a proxy that works, and enter in the URL of the site you want to browse anonymously.

• Examples:
  • inurl:”nph-proxy.cgi” “start using cgiproxy”
  • inurl:”nph-proxy.cgi” “Start browsing through this CGI-based proxy”
  • More info.

4.  Google for Music, Videos, and Ebooks - Google can be used to conduct a search for almost any file type, including Mp3s, PDFs, and videos.  Open web directories are one of the easiest places to quickly find an endless quantity of freely downloadable files.  This is an oldie, but it’s a goodie!  Why thousands of webmasters incessantly fail to secure their web severs will continue to boggle our minds.

• Examples:
  • Find Music: -inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:”index of” +”last modified” +”parent directory” +description +size +(wma|mp3) “Counting Crows”
  • Find Videos: -inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:”index of” +”last modified” +”parent directory” +description +size +(mpg|wmv) “chapelle”
  • Find Ebooks: -inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:”index of” +”last modified” +”parent directory” +description +size +(pdf|doc) “george orwell 1984″
  • More info.

5.  Browse Open Webcams Worldwide – Take a randomized streaming video tour of the world by searching Google for live open access video webcams.  This may not be the most productive Google trick ever, but it sure is fun!  (Note: you may be prompted to install an ActiveX control or the Java runtime environment which allows your browser to view certain video stream formats.)

• Examples:
  • Axis Webcams: inurl:/view.shtml or inurl:view/index.shtml
  • Cannon Webcams: sample/LvAppl/
  • MOBOTIX Webcams: control/userimage.html
  • FlexWatch Webcams: /app/idxas.html
  • JVC Webcams: intitle: intitle:”V.Networks [Motion Picture(Java)]”
  • More info. - More info.

6.  Judge a Site by its Image – Find out what a site is all about by looking at a random selection of the images hosted on its web pages.  Even if you are somewhat familiar with the target site’s content, this can be an entertaining little exercise.  You will almost surely find something you didn’t expect to see.  All you have to do is use Google’s site: operator to target a domain in an image search.

• Examples:
  • Digg in Images
  • Wired in Images
  • Reddit in Images
  • More info.

7.  Results Based on Third-Party Opinion - Sometimes you can get a better idea of the content located within a website by reading how other websites refer to that site’s content.  The allinanchor: Google search operator can save you large quantities of time when a normal textual based search query fails to fetch the information you desire.  It conducts a search based on keywords used strictly in the anchor text, or linking text, of third party sites that link to the web pages returned by the search query.  In other words, this operator filters your search results in a way such that Google ignores the title and content of the returned web pages, but instead bases the search relevance on the keywords that other sites use to reference the results.  It can add a whole new dimension of variety to your search results.

• Examples (notice the added variety between search results):
• allinanchor:”google hacks” vs. basic search for Google hacks
• allinanchor:”wordpress exploits” vs. basic  search for Wordpress exploits 
• More info.

Bonus Material:

Here is a list of my favorite Google advanced search operators, operator combinations, and related uses:

• link:URL = lists other pages that link to the URL.
• related:URL = lists other pages that are related to the URL.
• site:domain.com “search term = restricts search results to the given domain.
• allinurl:WORDS = shows only pages with all search terms in the url.
• inurl:WORD = like allinurl: but filters the URL based on the first term only.
• allintitle:WORD = shows only results with terms in title.
• intitle:WORD = similar to allintitle, but only for the next word.
• cache:URL = will show the Google cached version of the URL.
• info:URL = will show a page containing links to related searches, backlinks, and pages containing the url. This is the same as typing the url into the search box. 
• filetype:SOMEFILETYPE = will restrict searches to that filetype
• -filetype:SOMEFILETYPE = will remove that file type from the search.
• site:www.somesite.net “+www.somesite.net” = shows you how many pages of your site are indexed by google
• allintext: = searches only within text of pages, but not in the links or page title
• allinlinks: = searches only within links, not text or title
• WordA OR WordB = search for either the word A or B
• “Word” OR “Phrase” = search exact word or phrase
• WordA -WordB = find word A but filter results that include word B
• WordA +WordB = results much contain both Word A and Word B
• ~WORD = looks up the word and its synonyms
• ~WORD -WORD = looks up only the synonyms to the word 
• More info.

Social Media Marketing - Effective keyword search !

There's no getting around it. Keyword research is a vitally important aspect of your search engine optimization campaign. If your site is targeting the wrong keywords, the search engines and your customers may never find you, resulting in lost dollars and meaningless rankings. By targeting the wrong keywords, you not only put valuable advertising dollars at risk, you are also throwing away all the time and energy you put into getting your site to rank for those terms to begin with. If you want to stay competitive, you can't afford to do that.

The keyword research process can be broken down into the following phases:

Phase 0 - Demolishing Misconceptions
Phase 1 - Creating the list and checking it twice
Phase 2 - Befriending the keyword research tool
Phase 3 - Finalizing your list
Phase 4 - Plan your Attack
Phase 5 - Rinse, Wash Repeat

Phase 0 - Demolishing Misconceptions

Over the years, we've had the opportunity to work with a wide array of wonderful clients. And as different and diverse as their sites and the individuals running them may have been, many had one thing in common: they were self-proclaimed keyword search mavens right out of the gate.

Or so they thought.

One of the most common misconceptions about conducting keyword research for a search engine optimization campaign is the belief that you already know which terms a customer would use to find your site. You don't. Not without first doing some research anyway. You may know what your site is about and how you, the site owner, would find it, but it's difficult to predict how a paying customer would go about looking for it.

This is due to site owners evaluating their site through too narrow of a lens, causing them to come up with words that read like industry jargon, not viable keywords. Remember, your customer probably doesn't work in the same industry that you do. If they did, they wouldn't need you. When describing your site or product, break away from industry speak. Your customers aren't searching that way and if you center your site on these terms, they'll never find you.

Another misconception is that generic or "big dollar" terms are the most important for rankings, even if the term you're going after has nothing to do with your site. Imagine a women's clothing store trying to rank for the term "google". Sure, thousands of searchers probably type that word into their search bar daily, but they're not doing it looking for you. They're looking for Google. Being ranked number one for a term no one would associate with your site is a waste of time and money (and it may get you in trouble!). Your site may see a lot of traffic, but customers won't stick around.

Phase 1 - Creating the list and checking it twice

The initial idea of keyword research can be daunting. Trying to come up with the perfect combination of words to drive customers to your site, rev up your conversion rate and allow the engines to see you as an expert would easily give anyone a tension headache.

The trick is to start slowly.

The first step in this process is to create a list of potential keywords. Brainstorm all the words you think a customer would type into their search box when trying to find you. This includes thinking of phrases that are broad and targeted, buying and research-oriented, and single and multi-word. What is your site hoping to do or promote? Come up with enough words to cover all the services your site offers. Avoid overly generic terms like 'shoes' or 'clothes'. These words are incredibly difficult to rank for and won't drive qualified traffic to your site. Focus on words that are relevant but not overly used.

If you need help brainstorming ideas, ask friends, colleagues or past customers for help. Sometimes they are able to see your site differently than the way you yourself see it. Also, don't be afraid to do some competitive research. What words are they targeting? How can you expand on their keyword list to make yours better? It's okay to get a little sneaky here. All's fair in love and search engine rankings.

Phase 2 - Befriend the keyword research tool

Now that you have your list, your next step is to determine the activity for each of your proposed keywords. You want to narrow your list to only include highly attainable, sought-after phrases that will bring the most qualified traffic to your site.

In the early days of SEO, measuring the "popularity" of your search terms was done by performing a search for that phrase in one of the various engines and seeing how many results it turned up. As you can imagine, this was a tedious and ineffective method of keyword research. Luckily, times have changes and we now have tools to do the hard part for us.

By inputting your proposed keywords into a keyword research tool, you can quickly learn how many users are conducting searches for that term every day, how many of those searches actually converted, and other important analytical information. It may also tune you in to words you had previously forgotten or synonyms you weren't aware of.

There are lots of great tools out there to help you determine how much activity your keywords are receiving:

Wordtracker: Wordtracker lets you look up popular keyword phrases to determine their activity and popularity among competitors. Their top 1000 report lists the most frequently searched for terms, while their Competition Search option provides valuable information to determine the competitiveness of each phrase. This is very useful for figuring out how difficult it will be to rank for a given term. It may also highlight hidden gems that have low competition-rates, but high relevancy.

WordStream: WordStream offers a suite of keyword research tools for use in pay-per-click marketing and search engine optimization initiatives. They also provide powerful fee based tools to help you organize your keywords and increase your profitability.

Google AdWords Keyword Tool: A free tool that should be part of everyone's arsenal.

Google Suggest: Google Suggest is a great way to find synonyms and related word suggestions that may help you expand your original list. Just start typing your search term and you'll see a drop down list of related terms.

Thesaurus.com: Again, another way to locate synonyms you may have forgotten.

Keep in mind that you're not only checking to see if enough people are searching for a particular word, you're also trying to determine how competitive that phrase is in terms of rankings.

Understanding the competition tells you how much effort you will need to invest in order to rank well for that term. There are two things to pay attention to when making this decision: how many other sites are competing for the same word and how strong are those sites' rankings (i.e. how many other sites link to them, how many pages do they have indexed)? Basically, is that word or phrase even worth your time? If it's not, move on.

While you're testing your new terms, you may want to do a little housekeeping and test the activity for keywords your site is already targeting. Keep the ones that are converting and drop the losers.

Phase 3 - Finalizing your list

Now that you have your initial list of words and have tested their activity, it's time to narrow down the field and decide which terms will make it into your coveted final keyword list.

We recommend creating a spreadsheet or some other visual that will allow you to easily see each word's conversion rate, search volume and competition rate (as given to you by the tools mentioned above). These three figures will allow you to calculate how viable that term is for your site and will be a great aid as you try and narrow down your focus.

The first step in narrowing down your list is to go through and highlight the terms that most closely target the subject and theme of your web site. These are the terms you want to hold on to. Kill all words that are not relevant to your site or that you don't have sufficient content to support (unless you're willing to write some). You can't optimize for words that you don't have content for.

Create a mix of both broad and targeted keywords. You'll need both to rank well. Broad terms are important because they describe what your web site does; however, they won't increase the level of qualified traffic coming into your site.

For example, say you are a company that specializes in cowboy boots. It may be natural for your site to focus on the broad search terms "boots" and "cowboy boots". These words are important because they tell the search engines what you do and may increase your visitors, but the traffic you receive will be largely unqualified. Customers will arrive on your site still unsure of what kind of boots you sell. Do you offer traditional cowboy boots, stiletto cowboy boots, toddler cowboy boots, suede cowboy boots or women's cowboy boots? By only targeting broad terms, customers won't know what you offer until they land on your site.

Targeted terms are often easier to rank for and help bring qualified traffic. They also make you a subject matter expert to the search engines, since the targeted terms strengthen the theme created with the broader phrases. Sticking with our example, targeted terms for your cowboy boots site may be "men's cowboy boots", "blue suede cowboy boots", "extra-wide women's cowboy boots", etc. Broad search terms may bring you the higher levels of traffic, but it's targeted, buying-oriented terms like these that will maximize conversions.

Phase 4 - Plan your attack

So you made your list of about 10-20 highly focused keywords, now what do you do with them? You prepare them for launch!

Chances are, if you did your keyword research right, at least some of the words on your list already appear in your site content, but some of them may not. Start thinking about how many pages you'll need to create to support these new words, and how and where your keyword phrases will be used.

We typically recommend only going after three or four related keywords per page (five if you can balance them properly). Any more than that and you run the risk of diluting your page to the point where you rank for nothing. Make sure to naturally work the keywords into your content and avoid over-repetition that may be interpreted as spamming. Your content should never sound forced.

Your on-page content isn't the only place where you can insert keywords. Keywords should also be used in several other elements on your site:

• Title Tag
• Meta Description Tags
• Headings
• Alt text
• Anchor Text/ Navigational Links

You've spent a lot of time molding your keywords; make sure you use them in all the appropriate fields to get the maximum benefit.

Phase 5 - Rinse, Wash, Repeat.

Congratulations. Your initial keyword search process is behind you. You've created your list, checked it twice, made friends with the keyword research tools and are now off to go plan your attack. You're done, right?

Unfortunately, no. As your customer's and your site's needs change over time, so will your keywords. It's important to keep monitoring your keywords and make tweaks as necessary. Doing so will allow you to stay ahead of your competition and keep moving forward.

Good luck and Best Wishes!