A keyword is a word that when entered into a search form or search box, will return a list of sites containing information about that keyword.

• Keywords are found in the content or text of your site as well as appearing within the meta-tagsof your site.
• Content or text is important to your site because a search engine can't see pictures or images, and most don't fully understand Flash movies (although they're getting better at it) To a search engine your page is made up of the text that talks about your topic.
• Organizing your text and site content is important, because how you organize your content can determine how useful it is to both your human visitor as well as how important the search engine rates it.

What Are Your Keywords?

Determining your keywords can be pretty simple. Sit down with a notepad and pen, and think about your business. Ask yourself:

• What industry are you in?
• What types of items do you sell?
• What's their common name?
• Do they have a nick name?
• What do you call them?
• What do your customers call them?
• What are they used for?
• Who uses them?
• What brand names do you carry?
• What things are used with what you sell?
• Look at your brochures or catalogs - you'll find quite a bit of what you're looking for there.
• Are you regionally based? National? International?

These questions will get you started on a list of keywords for your site. Once you have a short list, you can use a service like Wordtracker to further dig in and find other related keywords.