Keywords

Keywords are the force behind search engine marketing.  When you want to find a donut shop in Provo, you type "donut shop provo" into Google, Yahoo!, or your search engine of choice.  The average donut-searching citizen doesn't think of these as keywords; in fact, they may have no idea what these are called.  But the online marketer knows how to reverse-engineer these user-generated search terms, and how to finesse them to his or her advantage.

So, if the search engine marketer learns that a certain keyword is cheap and brings in lots of clicks, the marketer can develop products that satisfy that search term.

Understanding how keywords work is essential to becoming a successful online marketer.