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One of the most important things you need to do when trying to build up traffic to your blog or site is to determine which keywords you’re going to target. You’ll want to pick keywords that are broad enough that they generate a lot of searches, but specific enough so that the traffic you do it is targeted.

Unfortunately, this is a pretty fine line to walk.

To give you an example, I worked incredibly hard to get Daily Fuel Economy Tip ranked on the first page of Google for the search term “fuel economy.” I figured if I could get this widely searched keyword I’d be set and get thousands of free visitors each day on this keyword alone.

Yeah, not so much.

Turns out I get most of my search engine traffic from long-tail keywords like “difference between diesel and gasoline,” or “reduce fuel consumption.” In fact, probably just one percent of my site’s total traffic comes from the highly coveted keyword “fuel economy.”

When you’re working to get ranked so that you can get highly targeted traffic or buyers with their credit card out and ready to go, make sure you’re going after keywords that are going to convert. You don’t always have to go after the big game keywords because more often than not they’re not going to be the best terms for converting visitors into long-term readers or buyers.

Instead, focus on specific or action keywords. For example, which keyword do you think is going to provide better conversions: “cell phone cash” or something like “review of cell phone cash,” or “buy cell phone cash program?” Based on previous experience, it almost a foregone conclusion that the long-tail, action specific keywords will convert better.

Just targeting “cell phone review” will bring information seekers, whereas making a slight change and targeting “buy cell phone cash” will bring in targeted, ready to act buyers.