If you want to understand how Google search works, go through this diagram in detail.
This is the introductory post on Aaron’s SEOBook.com blog: How Does Google Work

And the diagram (follow link to diagram at bottom of diagram if you want to link to it yourself).

Infographic by PPC Blog

How Google Search works

Having a search engine friendly website is vital, because if you don’t, all your hard work won’t help if you can’t even get indexed. But assuming you have a search engine friendly website, and know your keywords, what do you do with that knowledge?

I’ve written a set of articles in our How To section that talk about on-page and off-page search engine optimization.

A detailed – and pretty technical – article from the Keyword Discovery manual is also useful: Implementing Keywords into a Website. If you are using one of our sites, make sure you read the How To articles first, as we have made it easy to access the tags mentioned in the KD article from your Dashboard – no programming required.

We use Wordtracker a lot because our clients can keep on using the free keyword discovery tool themselves even if they don’t have a full subscription. Keyword Discovery costs more, and doesn’t have a free version. As their free trial is heavily neutered, it isn’t easy to get a flavour for it.

Implementing Keywords Into a Website

Jane: What aspects of a website are most important for a business owner interested in marketing online?

Wendy: Definitely the overall professional image of the website design, but more importantly, the keyword search. If you don’t have this – you don’t have a website. It’s a bit embarrassing really, as we’ve had a website for 5 years, but it was really mostly being found by people that were looking for us specifically by name. The new website is helping so very much to gain business from people who’ve never heard of us. That’s very powerful!

(my emphasis). Thanks Wendy for expressing this so clearly.

By ‘the keyword search’, Wendy is referring to the fact that her site has a keyword plan and is search engine friendly. So popular keywords are now visible to the search engines, and the search engines now send visitors to her site she wasn’t getting before. 

Most of the time I talk to business owners about keywords, they are pretty sure they understand them. They know they want to be #1 on Google. But the keywords they are interested in are almost always based on common sense and intuition.

Once they get the keywords concept, there is an ‘aha’ moment. Because you don’t need to guess as much.

As Wendy puts it, keywords help you get found by people who have never heard of you before. And that is pretty cool.

If You Don’t Understand Keywords You Don’t Have a Website

… as search strategy defines the opportunity pursued by the web publication under consideration.

The web represents a massive increase in the number of people most businesses can reach. And in general business is only scratching the surface of how they can find new customers and convert them online.

Search engines are a major gateway to those people. So figuring out how your business can participate in search is a strategy. Not a tactic. Day to day SEO is tactical, but don’t think that is all it is.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of those important edges where technology meets marketing. A pure technology view isn’t enough, just as a pure marketing view isn’t enough. SEO requires an understanding of both.

If you are a technologist or marketer and don’t use SEO strategically yet, time to start.

Even more so for business owners.

But if you are starting out, learn about keywords first. Then SEO. It will all make sense.

Search Engine Optimization is a Strategy

Aaron has written a very detailed article about the comparative value of a #1 ranking on Google’s search engine results pages. What is surprising is just how much of a difference #1 is.

How Much is a Top Google Ranking Worth To Your Business

If you want to learn about SEO in detail, then joining Aaron’s SEO community is a good investment. Great online book and tutorials as well as access to an extremely helpful SEO forum.

Getting to #1 in Google’s Search Results