5 Simple Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Techniques
The lifeblood of any website/ecommerce business is traffic, and every webmaster knows the best type of traffic is natural, organic search engine traffic. There are two very important reasons for this: (1) it is extremely targeted, and (2) It is FREE! The hard part is getting top ranking for your sites keywords… or is it? The purpose of this article is to provide a few simple, effective, and most important, search engine friendly strategies to help boost your websites’ ranking and ultimately your traffic.
1. We will start with the Meta Tags. I know you have already heard of, and are probably currently using meta tags on your site. This is great. I just want to make sure you are using them effectively. We will only go over 2 tags: the “title” tag, and the “description” tag. We will not go over the “keywords” tag, as the major search engines have placed less and less weight on this one, and some would argue this tag has no weight at all. I still use this tag however, as I feel there is some merit and no drawbacks to using this tag.
I have found it effective to use similar text in the “title” and “description” tags, and to place your keywords prominently in these tags (near the beginning and more than once). I have seen sites with “sitename.com”, “New Page 1″, or “Welcome to my site” in the “title” tag, which really does not help in their quest for higher rankings for their particular keyword. Also, try not to use words such as “and”, “or”, or “the” in these tags.
**Important note about your keywords. Search engines evaluate keyword prominence, keyword weight, and keyword density when determining a site’s ranking. All three are calculated individually for the page, the title tag, the description tag, as well as other areas on a page. Keyword prominence means how close the keyword is to the beginning of your page. Keyword weight refers to how many times a particular keyword or phrase can be found on the page. Keyword density is the ratio of the keyword to the other words on the page. You do not want the keyword weight or density to be too high, as this can appear to the search engine as “keyword stuffing” and most search engines penalize sites that stuff their keywords.
2. Place your navigational links (and JavaScript) at the right or at the bottom, but not on the left, of the page. When the search engines “read” your site, they read from the top left to the bottom right. Search engines place an emphasis on the first 100 words or text on the site. You do not want these words to be navigational links or Javascript. Ideally, you want to have your heading tags with your keywords in the beginning of your page. This being said, placing your links/JavaScript on the right or bottom of your page ensures the search engine spiders get to the text first, giving more weight to what’s important on your page.
3. Place alt tags on all of your images. Search engine spiders cannot “read” pictures or images. The only way a spider knows what an image is about is by reading the alt tag. This is also another chance to place more of your keywords in your HTML, improving your page’s keyword weight/density. Alt tags are easy to make and they can make a big difference in your sites keyword ranking. A simple alt tag looks like this: alt=”put your keyword phrase here.” Search engines separately calculate keyword prominence, density, and weight in alt tags as well, so optimize your tags.
4. Place your keywords at the bottom of your page. Just as search engines place more weight on the first words of your page, they also do the same to the last words. The general thinking is this, if your site is about a certain subject, then the main points, or keywords, should, appear at the beginning, be spread throughout the page, and be prominent at the conclusion. But if you have all of your navigational links and JavaScript at the bottom, your relevant page text could end well before the HTML does. An easy way to have your keywords at the bottom of your page is to include them in the copyright information. For example, if you have a dog food website, you could have something like this at the very bottom of the page:
copyright 2005 yoursite.com
World’s best dog food
Search engines are not (as of this writing), penalizing sites using this technique, and it wouldn’t really make much sense for them to do so.
5. The Anchor Text of your links. Anchor text is the actual linking text on a site. It is what the user clicks on to navigate to that particular site or page. If a search engine finds many links to your site using the term “dog food”, then the search engine concludes your site is about “dog food”. This is overlooked quite often, but it seems to have a very large impact on your search engine rankings for a particular keyword. Your anchor text needs to be the keyword or phrase you are trying to target. Try to avoid anchor text such as “Click Here” or “yoursite.com”
Also, if you’re running a reciprocal link campaign, be sure to use variations of your text. If an engine notices every link to your site is identical, it could place less weight on these links or potentially penalize your site. This is because search engines generally give more weight to “naturally occurring” links, and less to “reciprocal link exchange campaigns”. Using different, but relevant anchor text can dramatically affect your targeted keyword rankings, by making your links appear more natural.
Effective SEO may seem difficult at first, but as you have read above, little tricks that require little or no programming knowledge, can make a huge impact on your website’s keyword ranking.
How to Boost Your Traffic and Profits with Content
Are you aware of how vitally important and valuable CONTENT is to your online business? In fact, content can do more to build your business and profits than just about any other resource or service available.
Following is a list of 5 key ways that content can help build your traffic, subscribers, and customers starting today!…
1. Boost your search engine ranking and daily visitor count by posting keyword rich articles and content on your web-site. For example, if your business involves offering products and services related to fitness, posting fitness related articles and content will attract unlimited prospective customers on a regular basis!
2. Generate double or even triple the number of newsletter subscribers you do currently, simply by offering content in the form of “special reports” or manuals as bonuses for subscribing to your publication. People love freebies, so give them what they want and watch as your results increase!
3. Create an automated cashflow by using content to formulate multi-part email training courses with related web-site or affiliate links “sprinkled” throughout each course. Use an autoresponder service to automate the delivery of your training course (such as a 5 part training course delivered over a 5 day period).
Training courses can also serve as excellent bonus offers for your prospective newsletter subscribers.
4. One of the most important keys to a successful online business is not JUST having a mailing list or newsletter subscribers… It’s about building a trusting relationship with your subscribers (ie, “cultivating” your list)…
By sending informative articles (content) to your list on a regular basis you will establish yourself as an expert on your topic of business, as well as gain the trust of your subscribers over time. As a result, your subscribers will be EAGER to take advantage of your “paid” product and service offers. (Just make sure that you NEVER take advantage of the relationship you develop with your list by offering products or services of poor quality just to make a quick buck!)
If there is one “constant” in Internet marketing, it’s this: A cultivated list of subscribers is as good as money in the bank. Write that down and never forget it!
5. Another excellent way to generate no cost traffic is by submitting ready-made articles to “content hungry” web-site and newsletter publishers with your “resource box” attached. A resource box is nothing more than a little 3-6 line “bio” about you and/or your web-site – including a link to your site (or even instructions on how to subscribe to your newsletter)…
When submitting or offering your article(s) for reprint purposes, just make sure to specify that each article is to be reprinted “as is” with your resource box attached.
…Even one article can go a LONG way towards generating no cost traffic and visitors for you. Just imagine your article being sent out to a newsletter subscriber base of 100,000 individuals – many of whom will be reading YOUR included resource box and clicking on your URL to learn more about what you have to offer!
Well there you have it, 5 sure ways to build your online business exponentially with the help of articles and content…
With the declining effectiveness of many of the online advertising methods that we’ve relied on in past years, content is only strengthening its position as the ultimate KEY to generating unlimited traffic, subscribers, and customers!
7 Ways To Drive Laser Targeted Traffic to Your Site
Whether you’re an affiliate marketer, sell your own products and services, or MLM, there are certain internet marketing techniques that you can use to get more traffic to your site.
It’s not that internet marketing techniques that vary from industry to industry that make a difference, but how you apply them to marketing your business.
The most important element of internet marketing is to go where your customers are. Just as you wouldn’t promote gambling on a gardening site, don’t promote products and services, your own or someone else’s, or MLM where it’s not welcome.
What I’m saying is, don’t just throw your product up anywhere. That’s not targeted traffic. To get targeted traffic, you have to promote where others are looking for what you are offering. Targeted traffic is the key to higher website conversion and more sales.
Regardless of what you are promoting, these techniques will help you get more traffic to your site, and building site is crucial to your success no matter what industry you are in.
Here are seven techniques I use to get more traffic to my sites:
1. Search engines.
Search engines are the easiest way I know of to be found online because just about everyone uses the search engines. Although I don’t recommend that you rely solely on search engines as a way for potential customers to find you, you should at least get your site indexed. People can’t find you if you aren’t there.
2. Link exchanges.
Although linking isn’t as valuable as it once was, it’s still an effective way to promote your site. By contacting website owners who have websites that complement your own, and then exchanging links with them, you’ll build referral traffic because linking is still considered to be an endorsement of your site.
3. Affiliate programs.
An affiliate program is where you allow others to promote your website for a percentage of the profits of each sale. Although there are other ways to pay affiliates like per lead, pay per sale is the most common.
With an affiliate program, you give others an incentive for promoting your website, and this can also make it easier to get links back to your site.
4. Writing articles.
Of all the internet marketing techniques I’ve tried, I’ve found this one to be the most effective. I’m sure it has something to with the fact that I like to write, and maybe it’s easier for me.
What articles will do for you is help you build backlinks to your site, establish you as an expert, and offer more value to your business. You are offering your potential customers something up front.
If the thought of writing articles makes you cringe, try writing tip sheets, lists, or a how to. People love these types of articles because they’re so easy to read.
5. Joint ventures.
Done correctly, a joint venture can be your ticket to fast cash in your business. By seeking out others who have complementary websites, and offering them incentives to sell your products, you can quickly increase your bottom line.
6. List building.
Although list building isn’t an internet marketing technique per se, it is an important part of building your business. List building allows you to recycle your traffic, build relationships, and increase your conversion to make more sales.
7. Know your market.
By knowing your market, you’ll know what kind of products and services potential customers are looking for. Although it won’t help you raise visibility for your site, it will help you increase your conversions, and you can more easily get to know your market by visiting forums on your topic, posting polls on your site, and studying other sites on your topic.
The most important thing to remember is to show your potential customers respect. Don’t spam them with offers. Build a relationship, and you’ll build traffic and make more sales.
5 Tips For Improving Your Site’s Search Engine Positioning
Almost all webmasters or website owners are looking for ways to get better results from their websites. They wish to improve their site’s standing and get better rankings in search engines. This quest for improved results, known as search engine positioning, can be satisfied by following a few basic procedures.
Before you even begin, you have to realize that you are competing against hundreds, and in some categories, thousands of websites offering similar products and services. In the case of affiliate marketing, many of the competing websites may even be identical! If you want to get the edge over these competitors and improve your search engine positioning you have to fine-tune your website and actively work to make it better.
1. Make Sure that your design is search engine friendly:
Your design may look good to your eyes, but it may also be the cause of you present difficulties and poor search engine positioning. How is that possible? Look at your web page using a text editor or the html view of popular editors such as Dreamweaver and Frontpage. On what line does your first line of copy begin? If your actual copy is pushed far down the page, it is more difficult for search engines to pick up the crucial information that would have helped you to improve your web page ranking.
If you have this difficulty, first take out all unnecessary spaces in the html code. If there are long strings of java script, put these in external files. Similarly, put style information in external Cascading Style Sheet files. Simplifying your table structure may also help. If this starts getting too complicated for you, then consult with a professional search engine positioning specialist or your web designer.
2. Make sure your keywords are strategically placed in your copy:
It is not possible to improve web page ranking if the readable copy on your web page does not contain the words you wish to be found by. Many people erroneously think that just putting your important keywords in meta tags is enough. This is not true, some search engines hardly use the meta tags and look more to the copy on the page. Make sure that your important copy is in the first paragraph of text, in headlines (using headers such as H1, H2, H3) and in the active or clickable portions of link text on your page.
3. Use a site map and text link navigation on your pages:
If you want to improve your search engine positioning for all the pages of your website then you have to be sure that these pages actually get indexed or included in the search engines. You can help this process along by making a site map, a web page that has text links to all the sub pages of your site. Another good practice is to include a text link navigation system on your web pages, even if you already have a graphics based navigation bar elsewhere on these same pages. Remember, search engines follow text links more easily. A robot that lands on your main page or site map page will follow the text links and then visit and index your lower level pages.
4. Increase the quantity and quality of inbound links:
In fiercely competitive categories it will be difficult to improve web page ranking without obtaining a good number of links to your page from other websites. If you have very good and valuable copy, other sites may link to you because you are a valuable resource. However, if you want to speed this process along you will have to actively request links from other websites, either by trading links or by getting your content (with a link back to your site) placed on other websites.
When it comes to links you should keep in mind one important principle: it is not the quantity of links that is important, but the quality. One good link from an authority site such as CNN or Wikipedia is worth more than dozens of links from other sites. To get these quality links, there is no short cut. You will have to earn it by having a site that provides a lot of useful information.
5. Keep up with Search Engine Developments:
The challenge of improving your web page ranking and search engine positioning is dynamic. Search engines are not static. Most of the big search engines of yesterday have disappeared or are only minor players today. You should keep up with changes in the world of search engines by taking part in online forums or subscribing to newsletters which deal with topics such as search engine optimization, web ranking, and general webmaster related issues.
For years I have been getting great information from the Led Digest, a subscription list which is sent out several times a week. You can see samples online at www.led-digest.com
If you do not have the expertise or the time to tackle these matters by yourself then you should take advantage of skilled professionals who can help you to improve your site’s performance in search engines. Whether you rely on professionals or are able to do it yourself, these five tips can provide a good point of reference for starting the work.
Link Popularity FAQ
Building links doesn’t always have to be so stressful. Many sites tell you that they’ll increase your links by 1000 overnight if you spend $39.99! I’m here to tell you, it’s not the quantity, it’s the quality.
Although quality does help, it’s hard to judge what is quality and what isn’t. The first comes first, reciprocal links aren’t all that great, so don’t spend hours upon hours of sending hopeless spam mails to sites who, if you had good content, would link to you for free.
The best way to gain links quickly is article submission. One article, if well written and of high quality, can generate 10-15 links. Think of the possibilities! Write one article a day for a week and you may end up with 100 links. And that is, 100 non-reciprocal links.
Why are non-reciprocal links so important?
Well, I will tell you. Search engines, such as Google and Yahoo!, are now counting reciprocal links for less. There is even speculation of the recent update that Yahoo! is penalizing sites which have links pages.
Even if this were not the case, non-reciprocal links are more important for one reason, visitors. Visitors don’t like to see sites with worthless links to websites they don’t want. Why have a link to a travel website if you are in entertainment (besides the obvious, but you get the point)? Even if you do have a reciprocal link to a site which is your competitor you may lose visitors by giving them a higher link popularity.
Should I not link to anyone then?
No. In fact, you should link to as many authoritative sites as possible (authoritative sites are sites which are ranked 1 or 2 throughout your genre).
Links are very important on every site. Don’t just give them away, choose carefully. Link to authoritative sites with great content you know your visitors will appreciate. Just ask yourself, "If the links are not for the visitors use, what use are they then?"
So, I’ve done the whole article submission thing, what other ways can I gain link popularity?
Directories and great content. Content is king and is becoming more-so with the evolution of Search Engines. When a site owner finds an article useful he or she generally places a link to it, even if it is just a blog, it’s still a link. But whatever you do, don’t do the silly thing and spam blogs, that will only get you banned.
Directories are also a major part. If you can write a great description and have an editor in your field at DMOZ.org, submit it and forget it. Either you will get in or you won’t. If there isn’t an editor, try becoming one. It will only take a few hours of your time, just don’t get too hopeful.
If you can’t get in DMOZ, don’t worry, there are tons of other useful directories out there. Tons of FREE directories. Don’t spend $10-$20 on a directory submission unless you know they are worth it and can generate quality traffic. Google and others are starting to crack down on directories who require a fee in order to get listed.
Do Reciprocal Links Work To Increase My Page Rank?
Reciprocal links work like this. You will put your link on someone else’s website and they will be able to list their website on yours. It is a trade off. But, there has been a lot of controversy about these links. Do they work to help improve your page rank in search engines? Do they hurt your page rank? Should you bother investing in them? To answer these questions, take a moment to consider both sides of the coin. The bottom line, to most webmasters, is that they are capable of working for you.
Why They May Not Be Good
When reciprocal links first began to be used, it was a trade off between one webmaster and another. If you were in the home decorating business, for example, it would be beneficial to work with and have a link to a company that provides windows. You both would benefit. When the webmasters did this, they found that their websites did in fact rank better. In fact, it worked so well that they went out and sought more and more of them.
There in lies the problem. Instead of working with other website owners to develop a relationship and create a reciprocal link that benefited both parties, many website developers found that they could buy these links instead. Now, they did not have to go to the trouble of luring in those that they would like to have links from but they could just buy them. Okay, this is not so bad right? The problem was that people were buying and using thousands of reciprocal links on their website. This is completely unnatural and it just didn’t work well for them.
But, Why?
The search engines soon became wise to this scheme of getting your website to rank well. They developed programs that would spot this problem and in fact people that used this large amount of reciprocal links, in this fashion, were ranked WORSE! They would spend top dollar to get these links from companies that were all too willing to sell them and would end up well back into the search pages.
So, Now What?
Keeping these things in mind, you need to consider wisely if you should in fact use reciprocal links for the websites that you put up. In most cases, if you take the time to work at getting reciprocal links from qualified webmasters instead of buying large amounts of them, you are more capable of securing a sound method for increasing your page rank. If you decide to purchase hundreds of them and slap them on your website quickly, you will face a worst case scenario of lowering your page rank.
Keep in mind as well that one of the best ways to increase traffic to your web page with links is to use one way links. You can get these by using article directory sites. There may not be a sure fire way to take a brand new site and get it as number one in the search engines, you can gain some movement upwards if you use links properly.
What Is Google Page Rank
The Google page rank is calculated with an algorithm that is calculated with incoming and outgoing links of the page. It is as the name suggests a ranking system of pages. Your page rank is decided on the number of different criteria, standalone keywords, keyword in URL, and reciprocal linking. The Page Rank is rendered on the number of one way links that report back to your site and go out to other sites, and the other websites page ranks. Like everything about Google the formula for figuring out page rank is a mystery and Google will not reveal their code. Google page rank is a way for consumers as well as partners that may have an interest in you, to find out your web site value in terms of search engines.
Writing articles is an excellent way of gaining non reciprocal or one way links. The upside is you can gain a lot of traffic and one way links from award winners websites. Though Search Engines consider one way links superior to reciprocal links. Just remember links to such sites are one way links from your site to their site. Build unique content, and as many relevant high quality one way links as possible back to your site. One Way Links from High Page Rank Pages are your ticket to the top of the page rank leader board. Build a quality site, and you may get one way links, by asking people.
Follow the daily SEO techniques used to help your website reach the top of the search engine page.
Websites that use 100% ethical search engine optimization techniques are the best type of websites. Website promotion software, web designing and optimization are very important. Here are some marketing tips you will need to use, web design and search engine optimization to get google page rank designation. Manually doing the search engine optimization yourself is very time consuming. The key points are meta tags, and building links to optimize your website. How does manipulating page rank help search engine optimization. Google secrets is about google optimization for top rankings, end-to-end and step-by-step. This search engine software gets Google page rank values for a list of website URLs. You have heard the buzz about page rank and search engine optimization. Here are some interesting seo techniques that will help you increase your page rank.
1. Off page optimization means you have to work on building links pointing to your website. Link building for effective search engine optimization is one of the best ways of getting your site to the top of the pack. There are many software applications that will make this easier to do
2. Optimize your site with meta keywords and meta descriptions
3. Make sure your title for each page is different
In conclusion Google Page Rank is as the name suggests a ranking system of pages. The Page Rank is the number of links to and from your website pages, and their respective page rank. My opinion is that Google Page Rank is getting more relevant to SERPs.
“Do-It-Yourself” Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) Three Easy Steps
Ranking high in Google’s search results can have a phenomenal impact on the success of your business.
You can either engage the expertise of a Search Engine Optimisation company, or if you have the time, there are some changes you can make to your website yourself.
Step 1: Keyword Research
What keywords do you think your customers would type in to search for your products or services? A keyword can be one word (e.g. “optimisation”), but multiple keywords or keyword phrases are usually preferred, because they are more specific and more likely to be what your customers are looking for (eg. “ Search Engine Optimisation Australia“).
Write down as many as you can think of. Brainstorm with your team. Think of alternative words. Consider geographical phrases if they are important to your customer (e.g. “house cleaning Hornsby”). Also, get some ideas from your competitors’ websites. Try to make a list of 20-30 keyword phrases.
Choose the two keyword phrases you think would be searched for the most. But also remember, the more competition there is for a keyword, the harder it is to achieve top rankings. If you want to rank high in Google for the keyword “insurance”, you have a very long journey ahead. So try your best to select two keyword phrases that are the most relevant to you business but that are not vague nor competitive. It’s a good idea to have 2 or 3 words in each phrase (e.g. “wedding catering services”)
Once you’ve selected your two best keyword phrases the next step shows you how to make some improvements to your home page.
Step 2: Web Copy
Web copy refers to all the words or text on your website. Because content is king in the world of search engines, your keyword phrases need to be placed strategically on your webpage to convince Google that your content is highly relevant to those keywords. The more prominent they are, the better. (Keep in mind that as important as search engines are, customers come first, so make sure your copy also reads well.)
Here’s how you can increase each keyword’s prominence:
Place your keywords in headings, preferably at the beginning of the heading;
Include keywords towards the top of the page;
Bold or italicise keywords where appropriate;
Instead of having a link to another page that says “Click here to read more “, reword it to include your keywords, e.g. “Read more about our seo copywriting Services“.
An important tip is to also include these keywords in your HTML “title tag”. Use your content management system to make these changes yourself, or perhaps ask your web developer to do it if you’re unsure how.
Once you have fine-tuned your home page, consider adding new content, such as detailed descriptions of what you offer, FAQs and informative articles about your products and services. (If you don’t want to write these yourself, they can be located for free on the internet – do a search for “articles directory”).
It’s also good to bear in mind that search engines can only read text, not pictures. Often web developers embed words in images to look better for website visitors or use Flash for animation, but this is a major impediment to search engines.
Step 3: Linking
Each link from another website to your website (not from your website) is considered by search engines as a vote of popularity for your business and will improve your rankings.
But it is the quality, not quantity, of the links that is crucial. The other websites should be relevant to your industry, and preferably highly regarded themselves. Ten quality links count far more than 500 links from arbitrary websites. In the same way your personal business network can have a significant impact on the success of your business, so too the online network you build on the internet.
Brainstorm all the relevant websites that could link to you, such as non-competing companies, and industry bodies and organisations. Write a friendly email to each describing the benefit their visitors would get in knowing about your business, and request them to create a link to your website. Most people will not respond first time round, so a follow-up phone call is usually required.
How do I monitor my results?
Monitor your rankings in Google over the next few months by typing your chosen keywords into the search box, and recording your ranking. Also look at your hosting reports to understand what search terms your visitors are using to find your website.
The above process can be also be repeated for each page of your website. Remember to keep updating your content, and continually increase the number of links to your website.
As you see your rankings climb you should see a corresponding increase in web traffic and a substantial increase in sales enquiries. Be sure to record the source of your customer enquiries, so you can measure the success of your marketing efforts.
Remember, if you measure it, you can improve it.
Keywords: How To Use Them Properly On Your Website
Because keywords help determine the ranking of your website, and therefore how visible your pages are to Internet traffic, it is important to use keywords properly in the creation of your site.
In today’s world of Internet lingo, you may frequently hear the terms “keywords,” “search engine rankings,” and “keyword search results” bandied about. However, not everyone knows what keywords are, and how important they are to the success of a website.
Keywords are essentially words or phrases that summarize the topic of a site. When a Web surfer types a word or phrase into the blank field of a search engine such as MSN or Google, the search engine returns a list of related sites. Each site on this list is determined by the presence of the search terms, or keywords, in the site’s meta tags, image tags, and content.
Keywords and Meta Tags
Meta tags are like a site’s “dog tags.” They identify the site’s title, description, and keywords. Meta tags are invisible to Web surfers, but they are instrumental in a search engine’s recognition of the site’s content.
Title Tags
A title tag gives the title of the Web page. A title should only be around six words long, and the primary keyword the word or phrase that the site is primarily identified with should be in this title tag. The closer to the beginning of the title the primary keyword is, the stronger the association with that keyword will be.
Description Tags
A Web page’s description tag provides the search engines with a summary of the content contained on the page. Once again, the primary keywords for this page should be contained in the description, as close to the beginning as possible. Description tags only allow 200 characters of text.
Keyword Tags
The keyword tag lists all of the keywords that can be associated with the Web page. The primary keyword used in the title and description tags should be first, followed by other keywords in order of importance and relevance. Although keywords can be separated by commas, they don’t have to be; however, keywords should not be repeated more than three times, lest the Web page be rejected by the search engines as spam. Between 800 and 1,000 characters are allowed for keyword text.
Keywords and Image Tags
Image tags are the text that shows up in place of an image, if the image fails to load for any reason. However, image tags serve a more important function: they allow the search engines to “read” your images. Without image tags, search engines have no way of interpreting your images. Therefore, image tags can also help boost the visibility and relevancy of your site to search engines.
Keywords and Web Page Content
The tags that you use on a Web page are important identifiers for search engines. However, in order to maintain a respectable search engine ranking, your Web page must establish relevancy. In other words, the keywords in your tags must pertain to the actual content on the page. Therefore, the same keywords you list in your tags must be used within the text your page displays.
The most important part of the content is the opening paragraph. The primary keyword the keyword that was used in the title and description, and listed first in the keyword text should be used several times in the first paragraph, and then occasionally throughout the rest of the page. Other, less important keywords can be used occasionally throughout the content, as well. This will indicate to the search engines that your page really is relevant to the keywords listed in your tags.
Another way to judge keywords is via a concept called “keyword density.” Keyword density shows the frequency at which a keyword is used. The density is calculated by taking the total number of words and dividing it into the number of times keywords appear in the text. The resulting number is multiplied by 100 to create a percentage. Keyword density can be a tricky business, however. Too low a density will fail to be noticed by the search engines, whereas too high a density can cause a Web page to be rejected as spam. Typically, a keyword density of around 5% is sufficient.
The Importance of Keywords
Keywords are a vital part of the creation of Web pages because they directly affect how visible the page will be to search engine traffic. The presence of keywords needs to be a consideration in every aspect of designing a Web page: designing the tags as well as writing the content. Because of the impact keywords can have on the success of your site, it’s important to know how to use them properly.
Striking Keyword Gold How To Grab Keywords By The Tail
Anyone can pick out related keywords to rank their websites for. However, it’s the crafty webmaster who knows how to find multiple keyword goldmines among the thousands of possibilities available.
One popular approach is called the “long tail”. In this approach you go after three word + phrases in hopes of having less competition. The main problem with this approach is that there is a second aspect of it that most people neglect. The second and most important part of the “long tail” approach is that with longer, more targeted phrases you are more apt to directly meet the needs of the user. While that may seem obvious, many people ignore or poorly execute it. That’s because they don’t understand the importance of their client’s purchase cycle as it relates to search engines.
The Purchase Cycle:
The very first thing you need to understand before starting keyword research is the “Purchase Cycle”. Its main steps are:
Attention > Interest > Desire > and Action.
Finding tons of low competing yet high converting keywords is as simple as understanding your customer’s buying habits. When they are in the action stage you will want to be there with them.
Let me give you some examples. Let’s imagine you are a new Real Estate Agent in the crowded but profitable Los Angeles Real estate market. You have had a site up for almost 6 months, have done a little SEO but have gotten almost no traffic and not a single lead from your site. The problem is more than likely the phrases you are going after. Everyone will be competing in the SERP’s for obvious terms like “Los Angeles Real Estate”. Now there is nothing wrong with competing for the best phrases, however this guide is all about training you to look at the areas your competition has ignored, and are at the end of the buying cycle. Trust me, great opportunities are available in every single market.
Think Like Your Customer
Imagine yourself as a customer who is using Google to find or sell real estate in Los Angeles. A typical search may go something like this.
Search Term: 1 “Real estate” (hmm too broad what was I thinking?)
Search Term: 2 “Los Angeles real estate” (Lots of options maybe I need a local agent?)
Search Term: 3 “Real estate agent in Los Angeles” BINGO!!! If you are a real estate agent in Los Angeles this should be one of your many keyword goldmines.
Now let me show you how the competition for rankings in Google has diminished as the customer got more and more refined with their search. I want you to see just how ripe the opportunity is when you understand the process your customers go through.
To get a good feel for the level of competition for a phrase one simple but highly important SEO factor is the Title tag. Using Google we can easily see how many sites have the exact search phrase we are using, as the title tag to their website. This is a great initial gauge of the competition you will face.
The command I use in Google is intitle:”real estate” (returns results with the exact phrase “real estate” in the title tag).
Diminished Competition
intitle:”real estate” Over 59 Million Pages Retuned
intitle:”Los Angeles real estate” Down to 25,000 Pages Returned
intitle:”Real estate agent in Los Angeles” 57 Results and only 7 Domains listed!!!
This high conversion keyword is just sitting there waiting for you “our new real estate agent” to rank for it. If you do the proper SEO work and point a few quality links to the page then you should begin to see highly qualified traffic.
Let me give you one more example and then we will move on. Let’s say you sell high-end condos right on the beach in Hawaii, which by the way is where I call home (Its OK to feel sorry for me). The competition for the condo market in Hawaii is very stiff and any little edge you can get is extremely helpful. Again all you have to do is understand how a potential customer searches and know your own product to find those keyword gems.
Results:
Search 1: “Hawaii Condos” intitle 11,100 pages
Search 2: “Hawaii Condo Rental” intitle 147 pages (Great action phrase)
Search 3: “Hawaii beach front condo” intitle 0 pages!!!
I could literally go on and on finding great marketing opportunities for these two markets. I promise you if you spend the time you will find these all-too-easy keyword treasures in your market as well. Now let’s take what we have learned to the next level with action phrases.
Make Use Of Action Words
Ok let’s say you sell the latest PC video cards at great prices. You have done your homework and realize that many consumers do extensive research on specific video cards to find the one that’s perfect for them. They then lookup the specific model of the video card they want when they are in “purchase mode”.
A popular video card series right now is Nvidia’s Geforce 6800. However, when you do an intitle: search on Google you get over 40,000 results for “Nvidia Geforce 6800″. This is where Action words come in handy. Some great action words are Buy, Lowest price, Purchase, Free shipping etc. All of these words are used when the customer is in the purchasing phase, which is exactly when you need them to find you.
intitle:”Buy nvidia geforce 6800″ 3 sites!!!
intitle:”Purchase nvidia geforce 6800″ 0 sites!!!
intitle:”Lowest price nvidia geforce 6800″ 0 sites!!!
You get the idea. Now that you understand the concept I can suggest a few keyword research tools.
Now let’s put you on a path to find 20 to 40 money keywords you are not currently using
Keyword Research Steps:
Step 1 – Logs: One great asset that you may not be utilizing is your weblogs. You should always mine your weblogs for niche keyword phrases and use them as a basis for what type of searches your users are typing into search engines. If you have not done this before it can be highly informative. You will not only understand your audience better you will also get a great variety of keyword “goldmines” that you can then use for your organice SEO campaign. I suggest doing this once a month or every two weeks if you can find the time.
Step 2 – Competition: Your competition can be a great source of keyword research. Check the keywords in their Title, meta tags, and body text to see if you find anything you might have missed.
Step 3 Keyword Tools: Three free tools that you should check out are SEO Books online keyword tool http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword/ and http://www.goodkeywords.com/ which is a free desktop download that runs off of Yahoo data and http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/ which queries both Yahoo and http://www.wordtracker.com/ (A top tool if your paying) . All three of these tools are very handy and for the price who can complain?
A word to the wise, these tools should only be used as guides. They are heavily biased to PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising and are subject to distortion due to automated queries.
The main thing to look out for with any tool that uses Yahoo is that it does not separate plurals. It shows Condo and Condos as the same results. So when you are doing your research be sure to check out the Word Tracker tool over at digital point because the MSN version will show you how a phrase does for singular versus a plural version. While search engines are still ironing out how they handle plural searches its highly important that you select the right one. Sometimes you may choose to go after a less used plural or singular version of a keyword because it has less competition.
Bonus 1: Don’t forget about hyphenated or potentially hyphenated words.
If you are looking at a term like “increase online traffic” don’t forget hyphenated versions of the same phrase. According to Word Tracker “increase on-line traffic” is searched for 186 times a day on MSN alone. The non hyphenated version has over 1,000 pages listed for an intitle: search on Google. While the hyphenated version only has 21 sites listed.
Bonus 2: Use slang or insider terminology when and where it makes sense. One great example of that is locally here in Hawaii. Locals call the main island of Hawaii the “Big Island” A term like “big island real estate” is typed in a few thousand times per month. But according to Google only one site has the phrase in their title!!!
Bonus 3: People often type keyword phrases as one word. So instead of typing in “Hawaii Condos”, they’ll type in “hawaiicondos”. Then engines serve different results for these 2 phrases, and guess what the kwkw version is usually a LOT less competitive!
I must mention that just because you find great keywords that others are not using in their title tags does not mean you can simply put in a new title and rank. In some cases that will actually happen but in most you will need to do a good job with your on-page SEO and acquire a few relevant links. In any case you will be putting yourself in a great position to be successful with minimal competition and maximum return on investment.
I hope that I have helped to get your mind churning about the endless possibilities in your own local market. If you follow these steps you should be able to quickly generate a wonderful new list of keywords for your site to dominate the “Action” phase of the purchase cycle. Once you place your site at the end of the purchase cycle and away from the hordes of competition it is quite easy to strike keyword Gold.
