Now, let's look at a "new" way to use Wordtracker, John's step- by-step approach:

To write this article, I came up with a real-life example and I started at step #1, just like you will do with your own site.

Let's say that your client sells aromatherapy supplies over Internet. Your first step is to try to determine target audience. Who would be buying aromatherapy supplies? One target audience would be people with stress in their lives who want to use aromatherapy as a way of relaxing. So, let's try that angle and see what we come up with.

* Go to Comprehensive Search at Wordtracker (http://www.wordtracker.com) and type in "relaxation." Click Proceed.

* Scroll toward bottom of page and click on "Check boxes off."

* Scroll back to top, and look at various choices. Remember that "Predict" column is predicted traffic you could expect to get for each of those keyword choices from all of major engines and directories in one day.

* Begin marking keyword ideas, all while thinking of a strategy to pull in traffic for your client's site through target audience.

* Scroll back to bottom of page and click on "Option 2: Competitive Search."

* Choose MSN and Google, since those two engines have potential of bringing in a lot of traffic to most Web sites. Of course, you can choose any two engines or directories that you'd like. Click Proceed.

* What did we find? "Relaxation" and associated words were not good choices, because KEI in comparison to projected traffic was too low. Targeting those keywords just wouldn't have been worth effort for such a low amount of traffic. Keep in mind that this is a real-life example, so this is certainly something that could happen to you when doing this strategy yourself.

* So, we went back to drawing board and tried "aromatherapy." Again, not a good example.

* Then, we tried "massage." After all, aromatherapy oils are used when giving massages, and people who are interested in massages would be a perfect target audience for aromatherapy supplies.

* After studying Wordtracker results for MSN and Google search engines for words that include "massage," we picked third result, "Techniques of Massage," because it's an excellent and appropriate angle for our client. The #1 result in MSN has a KEI of 3696, but it wouldn't work with our client's site. You have to be sure to choose keyword phrases that are appropriate for your particular client's site.

At MSN, "Techniques of Massage" has a KEI of 255. Within a 24- hour period, if your site was placed well in MSN engine, you could expect to get 90 visitors from MSN alone. What is your competition? 1954.

"Techniques of Massage" in Google has a KEI of 900, 165 potential visitors through Google alone in a 24-hour period, and competition of only 555.

Remember that a "good" KEI is anything over 100, and an "excellent" KEI is anything over 400.

Let's be honest here. You could manage a top 10 for this keyword phrase with your eyes closed (and your computer turned off).

By Robin Nobles

If you're in search engine industry, or if you're a Web designer or Webmaster, it's an almost sure thing that you've heard of, and probably used, Wordtracker (http://www.wordtracker.com).

But, for those who may not know about Wordtracker, let's back up for a minute.

What exactly is Wordtracker, and why is it so important?

Most search engine optimizers would agree that one of most important things you can do for your Web site is to target right keywords. If you target wrong keywords, you may get scores of traffic but no conversions to sales, or no traffic whatsoever. Either is disastrous for an online business.

Before Wordtracker, it was up to search engine marketer, or client, to choose right keywords for site. We also had GoTo's Search Term Suggestion Tool, which was one of our only sources for keyword help at that time.

Then Wordtracker (http://www.wordtracker.com) entered picture. With Wordtracker, you can plug in some keywords, and Web-based service will give you ideas for additional keywords that might work for your business. Not only that, but service will also tell you how competitive those keywords are (how many other Web pages have been optimized with those keywords in mind) and how many people have actually searched for those keywords in past 24 hours at each of major engines.

Ideally, your goal is to choose a keyword phrase that doesn't have a huge amount of competition but that (hopefully) a large number of people are searching for. This is where KEI comes in. KEI, which stands for Keyword Effectiveness Index, refers to number of times a keyword has appeared in Wordtracker's data compared with number of competing Web pages, which points to which keywords would be most effective for your search engine marketing campaign.

In other words, higher KEI, more popular your keyword phrases are, and less competition they have. According to Wordtracker, a "good" keyword to target is one that has a KEI of around 100, but an "excellent" keyword to target has a KEI of over 400.

Okay, enough of background into Wordtracker. Most of you probably already know all of that. In fact, your path through Wordtracker most likely looks very similar to mine.

The "old" way to use Wordtracker

In past, I have always started at Keyword Universe, or maybe at Keyword Projects. From there, I work my way through system. Does it work? Yes, very effectively. Is it time consuming? Yep.

But, let's look at an easier, and even more effective, way to use Wordtracker. And with this alternate way, you're actually considering keyword phrases based on your target audience.

Introducing John Alexander

To write this article, I interviewed John Alexander, an authority of Wordtracker who has spent countless hours working through each of features and developing his own unique strategy.

As means of introduction, John is a professional search engine optimizer with Beyond-SEO (http://www.beyond-seo.com) and a trainer of onsite search engine marketing workshops through Search Engine Workshops (http://www.searchengineworkshops.com).

Besides using Wordtracker to find keywords, John actually uses service to target an audience's surfing behavior. Once he determines surfing behavior, he can use that knowledge to target those who are most likely to purchase his clients' products or services.

Unlike most of us, John doesn't get "stuck" in Keyword Universe to where system does all thinking for him. Instead, he begins at Comprehensive Search (found under Multiple Search heading).