Selecting the right keywords for a website is the key to top ranking on search engines. If the wrong keywords are optimized, there is very little chance of them achieving top placement. So much so that some SEO consultants advise to use the chosen keyword in the actual domain name. If a keyword is searched thousands of times a day in Overture, then most of time the competition you will have to outrank will be extremely fierce. In order to find about less competitive keywords that can still generate a good traffic to your website, you will need to work out the KEI - Keyword Effectiveness Index.
The KEI is the ratio of the frequency a keyword is searched to the number of search engine result pages that come up for that keyword phrase. In simple terms, the higher the KEI, the better the keyword. Wordtracker is a keyword research website that offers KEI service with ongoing subscription fees. There are a few keywords research software on the market that offers KEI feature and keyworordelite from Bryxen technologies, is the latest one to hit the market.

Besides knowing the KEI, in order to outrank competitors websites, you will need the following information
- Does the keyword appears in :
1. H1 tags
2. Bold
3. Underlined and Italic
4. Keyword in the first and last 25 words
5. Image alt text

These are the factors that the algorithm of search engines are based upon.

Knowing the google pagerank is also important. If you have to compete against websites with PageRank more than 5, and your website pagerank is zero , then you have little chance of outranking them on google.

When choosing keywords it would be helpful to get those ones that are top paying on Adsense. There are many websites that sell adsense keyword lists, however these lists are restricted and get outdated all the time. With keyword research tool like keywordelite, internet publishers can exploit new niche markets rather than using the same keyword list other internet marketers have. A larger and better keyword database gives webmasters the opportunity to generate traffic on less competitive keywords.

One easy way of getting traffic overnight is by advertising on Pay per Click (PPC) search engines like google adword, overture and kanoodle. These days, PPC keywords are getting more and more expensive. You will need to monitor your competitors and see which keywords they are bidding on. Building a large keyword database can help you to get traffic from less competitive keywords that your competitors have not thought of using.