Keywords - Google vs Yahoo vs Bing.

The first search engine was called Archie (which is "archive" without the "v"). It was a pretty parochial affair, indexing a few FTP servers. The first REAL search engine was called Webcrawler, then came Lycos, which is probably the first one any of us can remember, along with Magellan, Excite, Infoseek, Northern Light, AltaVista and Yahoo. When Google came along in 1994 and finally adopted Goto.net's idea of selling keywords in 1998, it was set to rule the Internet.

In fact, Google is rapidly reaching the point where it IS the Internet. Think of Google+, Google Authorship, your Google account signing you into YouTube etc. That's going to take some cracking for Yahoo, Bing and their coterie of smaller search engines..

I was inspired by a post by AnnieB to check out my keywords on Yahoo. The key phrase I'm on page one, number two on Google with, doesn't appear at all on Yahoo. I gave up looking. But the second of my keywords has me on page one, position one on Yahoo. Just as a safety check I looked on Bing to discover, guess what, that Bing also had me in position one, page one. Not surprising as they're effectively the same thing as Bing now powers the Yahoo search engine.

Now I'll let you into a secret. My first key phrase is four words long. My second key phrase is three words long, and is the last three words of my first key phrase.

That can only mean that NOBODY on Yahoo or Bing can be searching using my longest key phrase, but they are on Google, and Google has 60% of the search market.

So, if you choose a long key phrase for your business, and incorporate a good shorter key phrase within it, you may do well (as I do ) on both search engines. In my case, my long key phrase isn't sought by many, but it is in position two, page one on Google, and the phrase within it is on page two of Google and page one, position one everywhere else.

Check both phrases in the keyword tool(s). General speaking, you can expect that the longer a key phrase is, the fewer people will search for it. The phrase white-haired bloke who writes in north bristol will be typed by virtually no one, so I can rank myself in position one, page one in Google within hours. But this isn't always the case. As an experiment I chose a key phrase dog grooming in bristol, which has 203 searches per month, traffic of 35 and competition for the exact phrase of just 49. An ideal, almost perfect piece of low-hanging fruit.

So, you would imagine that by adding the word cheapest, to form cheapest dog grooming in bristol I would create an even lower-hanging fruit - not so: 164 people search for it, it gets traffic of 28, but has competition of 247.

Both key phrases are within the criteria we use, and both get searched by Google. but by incorporating a more popular phrase within a less popular phrase, you'll pick up all the traffic related to both. And although the shorter, incorporated phrase may not do fantastically well on Google, it may be exceptional on Bing and Yahoo, and they still cover 30% of the search market.

However you choose your keywords, always use them sparingly (once in the title if possible and once in the first paragraph), and use a selection of related phrases in your text. dog grooming in bristol may have the phrases dog shampoo, brushing, glossy coat, smelling lovely, hair cut and many others supporting it in your written text. Trust me, this works.