When you see everyone around you on Twitter and Facebook, you think, “Wow! Twitter and Facebook are taking over the world!” But almost every time I talk to people who are not in this industry, I find that they have no idea of what I’m talking about. Some may be just starting to use Twitter, but not aware of any use of Twitter other than to chat with their friends and family, and have never even considered using it for business. Others may have been on Facebook a few years back, but haven’t been using it for a while since they graduated from University. Twitter currently has less than 10% reach in US market. This is probably much smaller than most of Online Marketers think. Perhaps, it’s good to step back and review the whole market in regular (don’t live in Internet) people’s shoes.

This, “when you are in the middle of it, it seems as if that’s the norm” definitely works against you when you do the keyword research. The phrase “monitoring system” may have gazillion search volume, but it’s safe to say that most of them are not your target market if you are selling the “Network Monitoring System” designed for big corporations. Average people imagine “Home Security System” when they hear “monitoring systems”. Your product may be used to build the “security cameras”, but when people search for the “security cameras”, they are not looking for a part that goes inside.

I understand that you may not want to use those paid tools especially if you are a small business owner and just starting this “Internet thing”. But remember, just because Google’s keyword tool suggested doesn’t mean that you should include the word/phrase in your campaign. By bidding on words and phrases that are not really targeted to your market, you’d find yourself paying Google way too much money for no return.