It is possible to make a large amount of money on the internet by choosing the right search terms for your site. The process involves a lot of hard work and if you pay someone else to do it for you, often a lot of money. But if you get it right the results can be spectacular.

These are the steps we follow when we do the exercise on behalf of one of our client's:

• Identify the market for your product/service, including the geographic location and language spoken by your potential customers.
   
• Compile a list of the words/phrases that you think/know your target customers will enter into a search engine if they are looking for the products/services you want to sell to them.
   
• Research how many people actually use these words to search and arrange your list accordingly. You can do this on a number of search engines who will tell you how many times your phrase has been searched for during the previous month.
   
• This is a good time to check how selected search engines rank your site for each of your chosen phrases. Use search engines that are popular in your clients geographical location and area of interest.
   
• Now research how stiff the competition is for each phrase by checking how many "hits" the search engine finds for each term.
  
  An example will explain, take two phrases let's call them phrase A and phrase B and assume that last month 1,000 people searched for phrase A and only 50 people searched for phrase B. But your research shows you that for phrase A there are 10,000 web sites (or "hits") and only 250 web sites for phrase B. Therefore you have a one in ten chance of success with phrase A but a one in 5 chance of success with phrase B. So it may make sense to go with the less popular phrase B, but read on.

The next two questions are about profitability:

• You need to add into your "mix" the answer to the following question, if someone bought the product/service described in phrase A, how much profit would you make as opposed to the product/service described in phrase B?
   
• Also what is your web site's conversion rate for enquiries on phrase A and on phrase B?
  
  Your answers to these questions will show you which phrase, A or B, has the greatest potential for profit for your business. In practice you may well be doing this exercise with up to a hundred phrases, although we would recommend that your limit your first try to a maximum of ten phrases until you become familiar with the process.

Test your calculations:

• You then need to test your calculations by buying "pay per click" traffic for phrases A and B. 1,000 visitors for each phrase will teach you a lot. Depending on your product/service you can expect to pay anything from five pence up to £25 per "click" or visitor.
  
  NOTE:You may feel that to pay £25 just to get someone to click on a link to your web site is far too much but that is what some large finance companies are currently paying (June 2004) for traffic on the term "remortgage". But, what few of them seem to have noticed is that the slightly less popular term "re-mortgage" is currently available for £11.20 per click.
   
• You should direct your "pay per click" traffic to pages within your web site designed around and containing each phrase so that you can be sure about the conversion rates and order profitability you are getting. When compiling these pages it is important to remember that there are three things that are important about a web page and they are "Information, information and information". Remember that as a general rule search engines can't see pictures.
  
  Remember also that most people think in pictures but in this situation it is a picture of the words. When the average person enters a term in a search box they have a mental picture of the words they typed. Some research indicates that what people actually remember is the "skyline" formed by the top of the letters in their word or phrase, this means you should not use all capital headings. (Whoops, please don't look at the top of this page!).

Advertise everywhere:

• You should build the promotion of your chosen terms/phrases into every aspect of your marketing on and off the internet.
   
• Be aware that the major players in this field may have over a hundred different web sites promoting a thousand or more search phrases on hundreds of search engines. We have a number of clients who spend many thousands of pounds each month buying "pay per click" traffic and advertising space for their sites.

An advertiser's dream:

While this whole exercise can involve a lot of time, effort and (possibly) a great deal of money, you could end up with a situation where you know with considerable certainty that for every hundred clicks on your website, which may cost you (say) £50, you will sell (say) two products/services at a gross profit of (say) £200 each. A "guaranteed" profit 700% on your advertising spend.

A major advantage is that you can buy "clicks" in the morning and start to receive traffic within minutes, subject to the activity level in your market area. This level of control and certainty in advertising is rare.

If you don't want to do the exercise yourself we would, of course, be happy to help.