Ask Mr. D - Search Engine Keywords

By Bill Daugherty
Posted Wednesday, October 20, 2004

Dear Mr. D,

My partner and I have a website that puts together all kinds of tours of Mexico for people. I think we have great products at great prices. We have a great website that cost us a lot of money to have designed. There's just one problem, we are getting very little traffic. So, I'm sure you can guess that we aren't making any money.

It is our understanding that search engines can bring a lot of traffic to a site, but that hasn't been our experience. We have listed our site with several of the pay-per-click engines and we have a top listing with all of them with the key phrase "Mexico Vacation Tours." But we are only getting a few hits a week. We don't know what's wrong.

Signed,

Defeated

--------------------------------------

Dear Defeated,

I am surprised you are getting any hits at all. Your key phrase is too narrow for most surfers to find.

You need to list your site under the keywords: travel, tours, vacations, Mexico, Mexico vacations, Mexico City, Mexico City vacations and several other keywords and phrases along those lines. I wager you can come up with forty or fifty good listings for your site, if you put your mind to it. Just be sure each keyword or phrase is relevant to your site.

When you list a site with any search engine, the key (no pun intended) is to come up with as many words and phrases that a searcher would possible use to find a product or service like yours. The more keywords you are listed under, the more traffic you will draw.

Now, go back to those pay-per-clicks and add as many new keywords and phrases as you and your partner can come up with and I can assure you that your hit counter will jump overnight.

Best wishes,

Mr. D

Do you have an advertising or marketing question you'd like to see published in this column? Send it to mailto:MrD@epm.zzn.com You can visit Mr. D's website at: (http://www.freeadsgalore.com)

About the Author
None