The start to successful search engine marketing.

Could your web site use a traffic jolt? Then make search engine marketing a top priority.

The first step to launching a successful search engine optimization (SEO) and paid search campaign is choosing keywords for maximum performance. But take your time. Not all keywords are created equal. Choose the wrong ones and you'll waste a lot of time and money. You need a keyword strategy for both SEO and paid search, because they're different yet complementary parts of search marketing.

The SEO Strategy
SEO is the process of designing your web site to achieve free "organic listings," (sometimes called "natural listings") in the search results. In Yahoo!, organic listings are typically the numbered ones on the left side of the search results page that don't show a category within the listing information. (The listings with categories are pulled from the Yahoo! Directory). To get organic rankings for the keywords you want, you need to put them in areas of your web site such as:

meta tags

headers

body copy

But before you start worrying about where to put your keywords, you have to choose the right ones. Keep in mind that organic rankings are free, so the more traffic you can get, the better. That said, consider keywords that:

Are too broad to perform well through paid search

Have a huge number of searches

Cost too much through pay-per-click
Let's use an example. Pretend you're selling flower seeds. What would make good keywords? How about: flowers, flower seeds, sunflower seeds? At first glance, they all seem relevant. But hold on. People also search for send flowers and wedding flowers. Uh oh. You're not a florist, so those don't work. You might not only target the wrong audience by bidding on flowers through paid search, you might waste money because this keyword is too broad — which makes it a great consideration for SEO. Sure, it'll be tough to land a top organic listing for a single keyword as opposed to a multiple-word phrase, but why not try? Getting your company a top ranking for that keyword would be outstanding branding. And more importantly, you'd get a stampede of traffic, too.

See, flowers had more than 1.7 million searches in one month on the Yahoo! network. Wow. Land a top 30 organic ranking for that keyword, and your traffic would explode, even if there's only a 0.5% click-through rate on your listing (that's 8,500 clicks). But you probably wouldn't want to pay for 8,500 clicks at around $1.00 per click through PPC; you could blow your entire 12-month budget in 24 hours on one keyword. With such a high search volume, this keyword seems to be a better fit for SEO.

The cost is also pretty pricy at $3.32 per click for a number 1 position on PPC. That might be fine for a florist whose average order is $50-$100, but what if your average sale for flower seeds is $10?

Because flowers is such a broad keyword, has a high number of searches, and is fairly expensive per click, it's a better match for SEO.

Now you are probably wondering when keywords are better matched to paid search.

The PPC Strategy
Unfortunately, with SEO there's no guarantee you can get top organic rankings for your keywords. It can take months and months to achieve highly competitive rankings. Then you may lose them as soon as the search engines change their algorithms, the formulas used to rank web pages.

Thank goodness for PPC. Any position you want for as for many keywords as you want can be yours within days. On Yahoo!, these appear under the "Sponsor Results" headings. When shoppers click your paid listings, you'll be charged. Your per-click fee is determined by your competitors; the more advertisers bidding on a keyword, the higher the click cost. The highest bidder gets the highest position. Although the Yahoo! Sponsored Search program has a $0.10 per-click minimum, it's difficult to find keywords without any advertisers. You might need to bid a dollar or more per click.

Even though you have to pay for traffic through PPC, some keywords are a better match for it over SEO. Choose keywords that:

Are challenging for SEO because you lack site content about these terms

Have millions of web results (not searches) already competing for top organic rankings

Will be short-term products or offers on your web site
Using the same flower seed example from SEO, let's see how these considerations apply. Let's say you have only one web page containing a photo and brief description for each of the 50 flower seeds you're selling including wildflower seeds, sunflower seeds, and rose flower seeds. OK, the search engines might determine this page is about flower seeds, but due to a lack of content, they can't determine if it's about wildflower seeds, sunflower seeds, rose flower seeds, or any of your 50 items. This page might not rank well for any of those keywords. Not to worry, there's PPC. You can bid on those 50 flower seed keywords and direct traffic to that page.

And with more than 2.9 million web results for sunflower seeds, you're not likely to be able to outrank other web pages with a brief description about this keyword. There are too many web pages that are better optimized.

Besides, perhaps you only sell sunflower seeds during a certain season. It would be silly to optimize a web page for a product (or service) you don't offer year-round. Use PPC, not SEO, for keywords that are short-term promotional offers on your site.

Keywords for SEO and PPC aren't always different, however…

The Balancing Act
You're right if you believe many keywords will be the same for SEO and PPC. They will. Keywords that are targeted and have a few thousand searches a month are perfect candidates for both. In fact, you need to do both for your high-performing keywords.

A successful search engine marketing campaign balances SEO and PPC because the landscapes change constantly.

If advertisers flood the PPC space, you can lower your bids or pause your listings because you're getting a steady flow of traffic for those keywords through SEO. However, when you lose your organic rankings you can boost your bids (and subsequently your positions) for maximum traffic through PPC.

Focusing only on SEO or PPC is a bad idea. Each space is too volatile. Doing both helps you maintain the steady traffic flow your business relies on. And choosing the "right" keywords is the first and most essential step in creating a successful search engine marketing strategy.