Have you ever thought of keywords as a commodity? Something bought & sold? Could there be a supply & a demand for words?

When you think about it, keywords are the new currency of the information age, aren’t they?

Let me try to bring this concept to life for you. Google is the number 1 search engine because of the relevancy of its results. Google’s unique selling proposition is “relevancy”. I love Google adwords, because I’m rewarded with lower costs by making my ads more relevant.

For example, if I where selling second mortgages, I would bid on ‘second mortgage’ as a broad match. This means that when someone does a search containing these two words (taken together, they form a “keyword” or search term), my ad will show up. So ‘mortgage second’, ‘home owners second mortgage’, ‘second mortgage discount rate’, ‘mortgage financing second’ etc. will all show my ad. There are in fact many different possibilities.

Nice, neat, & easy right? But what if I have more time on my hands than money? Say I had a hunch that there were a lot of people actually searching on exactly ‘second mortgage’. If I enter another keyword as an exact match [second mortgage], anytime somebody searches for it, my ad will place higher on the page. Cool. Of course I’m still bidding on ‘second mortgage’ too, so I’m still picking up on all of the broad matches as well.

I’ve given you this example, because I want to introduce you to the concept of supply & demand, as it relates to keywords. If you want more details on winning with Adwords, try this.

The same principle applies to organic listings.

“Here’s An Example That You’ll Want To

 Pay Close Attention To!”

For every keyword typed into the search engines, there is a supply & a demand. The supply is represented by the number of web sites that are returned by the query, and the demand by the number of times that people search on this search term within a given period of time.

Now please, bear with my on this. I know that your eyes are starting to glaze over, but stick with me. It’s worth it.

There are plenty of variables when it comes to how search engines rank pages, but as a rule of thumb, your chances of making it to the first, or second page are greatly increased if your web site contains a keyword that is in low supply, and high demand. Make sense?

Before you tune out because there’s just no way that you’re going to take the time to learn this arcane science, or hire some propeller head to do it for you, listen up. You don’t have to. I’ll tell you why in a minute.

For now, get this. Let’s say we’re selling second mortgages as in the above example. Is it possible that the demand for web sites with ‘home equity loan’ information exceeds the demand for web sites with ‘second mortgage’ information?

Here’s a July 7, 2004 snapshot.

Home equity loan = Demand 562,359 Supply 1,070,000

Second Mortgage = Demand 270,378 Supply 820,000

Not only is there twice the demand, there is also relatively less supply. For every search on the term ‘second mortgage’, there are approximately 4 web sites to meet the demand, while there are only about 2 for every search on ‘home equity loan’.

So what does this tell you?

It tells you that even though for most people there is precious little difference between a second mortgage, and a home equity loan, there is a huge difference when it comes to the search engines, & the results you obtain from different keywords.

We’re hearing a lot about niche marketing these days.

Niche marketing means identifying an underserved segment within your market, & catering to its specific needs.

It’s something that smart marketers have been doing for a long, long time.  But the Internet gives it a whole new dimension. Never before in the history of marketing, has it been easier (I said easier, not easy) to identify these market niches.

Keyword supply & demand numbers can tell you a great deal about the actual supply & demand for your goods & services. But what’s more, they can tell you a great deal about HOW you should be marketing your existing business as well.

Get a leg up on the keyword competition with this amazingly affordable set of tools that not only give you x-ray market vision, but also make building a search engine keyword optimized web site a snap!

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