Netpreneur

It is almost impossible to get your website optimised for single-word keywords - eg. hotels.  It's much better to optimise your site for a combination of keywords, or what are known as 'long tail' keywords.  Not only will it be easier to get to the top of the search results, but you're more likely to get a sale if somebody finds your site using these keyword combinations.

Using the example above, how many times have you searched on the single keyword term 'hotels'?  I'm willing to bet that you have never done so, because the keyword 'hotels', in isolation, has no context - where is the hotel that you are looking for?   It's not likely that you will find what you are looking for in the search engines if you were to use this term.

If you were looking for a discount hotel in Sydney, you would be more inclined to use the terms 'cheap hotels sydney', which is an example of a 'long tail' keyword.  It is much easier to optimise for this keyword combination and get results, than if you were to use the generic term 'hotels'.  In fact, one of my sites, www.getaroom.com.au, currently appears in the top ten listings on Google for this keyword combination.

Clearly, the person that searches on 'cheap hotels sydney' is closer to making an accommodation purchase, than the person who simply types in 'hotel' - the former is more motivated towards a sale than the latter.  Hence, it's best to employ 'long tail' keyword combinations.

To work out which keyword combos are best, it's a useful exercise to try and emulate your customer's behaviour when settling upon keywords - if I were a customer, what would I plug into a search engine to find my products?

Be aware that it's a lot easier to optimise for combinations of 4-5 words, than combinations of 2-3.