One of the main components that helps determine the success, or failure, of your search engine optimization (SEO) campaign is your keyword selection. Although this may not appear much, choosing the right keyword to use for your website is one of the more grueling parts of the entire SEO process, especially if you aim to find one that will be most effective for your site’s search engine optimization.
When using keywords for SEO, you just need to follow a few simple steps in order to properly find the right keyword that will do the job. There are also a couple of things that you need to look out for in order to avoid any problems when trying to optimize your web page.
Make a list
The first thing that you should do if you want to be able to use keywords effectively is to start out by making a list of “key” keywords or phrases that are relevant to the content of your site, and by doing this, it can actually lead you to create or discover more keywords or phrases that may blossom from the original one that you have chosen.
Select key phrases or words
Once you’ve made a list, try to select ones that contain a “key” keyword or phrase that can help you identify your site’s content. Let’s say your site’s content is all about cars, using cars as a keyword won’t put you high up in the page ranking of search engines, especially since a lot of sites or pages have that as a keyword. Try to avoid using words or phrases that are too general, as this will not help improve your page ranking. By adding other key terms to your chosen keyword, such as “second-hand cars”, or “second-hand sports cars” will actually help improve your chances of going up higher in the page rankings. Just make sure that these are relevant to your site’s content.
Check your competition
It also helps if you took the time to search for keywords or phrases that your competition are using so that you can narrow down which ones to use, and which ones to avoid. There is no sense in using a type of keyword or phrase, such as “cars”, which a lot or most of your competition are using as well, and if their site’s are ranked high up in the search engine’s index, then you might have a difficult time going up against that.
Use your location
You can also improve your chances of getting a much better page ranking result if you incorporate your location to the keyword or phrase that you are trying to use. Let’s say your business is located somewhere in Minnesota, by simply adding the word “Minnesota” to your keyword selection (“Minnesota second-hand sports cars”), you can fair better in your page ranking. However, this type of method usually entails that people are planning on seeing you in person when they do searches like this, so make sure that you only utilize this technique if you are open to the idea of them visiting you in person.
Use your niche
Always try to choose the keyword that you specialize in, or at least the one that offers you with the most profit. Keep in mind that you want to offer the keyword that best describes your business, but if the search volume of users is leaning towards one that isn’t your main product, then you can actually opt to use that keyword instead, just as long as that keyword is still related or relevant to your site’s content.
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5 Tips to Ranking Well at Search Engines
Do you have a product or service that you want to sell on the Internet? If so, there are a few fundamental components that you must know. Putting your product or service up for sale is easy. You can find a cheap hosting plan and get a 1-5 page site up within a few hours. But what happens next?
Unfortunately, most businesses will never sell their product successfully on the Internet. Their sites may be flashy, but they are not receiving visitors. To receive an endless supply of free, targeted, leads from the search engines you should consider a few of the 5 tips below.
Tip #1- Provide High Quality Content
Providing content does more than give out generic information. Providing content builds trust between you and your visitor. The more content you give, the bigger the bond. Your content should focus around very specific keywords. Each page on your website should be optimized and focused on one keyword.
Finding keywords is a task in and of itself. I will be the first to admit that hunting down keywords with a high demand and low supply is not the easiest task in the world. It can be boring and repetitive. After awhile the numbers will blend together and you will feel a bit dazed. But do not stop now! Keywords are the foundation for your content pages and for your business.
Tip #2- Find Relevant Linking Partners
The days of trading links with any old site are gone. There was a period in time when search engines counted how many links in you had to your site. They factored that and determined if your site was good or not. So if your site had 300 other sites linking to it, search engines would have probably considered it a better site than one with only 10 incoming links.
Search engines have wised up since those days. Now search engines place more emphasis on relevant links. Your site should only link to other sites that are high quality and relevant. If your site is about cookies then you should not be linking to a site about gambling. It doesn’t make sense for your site visitors, and it doesn’t make sense to the search engines.
When you trade links with a relevant, high quality site be sure you specify where your link should be placed, for how long, and what it should say. I often see people exchange links and within a few days the linking partner has taken down the link. Only do business with trusted webmasters.
Tip #3- Submit Your Site to Site Directories
This is a great way to get high quality and high ranked sites to link to you. Think of a link to your site as a vote of confidence. Site directories are less popular than search engines, but their link to you helps you increase in search engine rankings. Be wary of any site directory that makes you pay for submission. There are plenty of great directories that allow you to submit your site for free.
Getting as specific as possible with site directories is a great idea. If your site is about cookies, you should try to find a site directory that only deals with desserts or foods. General directories are fine, but be sure you submit your site to the appropriate category. General directories tend to have a category for almost any topic.
Some site directories will ask you to link to them first. This is your choice. I do not link or pay to get into any site directory. There are too many free ones that do not require a link back. Remember to place only relevant links on your site. Would your cookie site visitors want to click on a link for a site directory?
Tip #4- Add a Site Map
A site map is a single webpage that contains links to all the other pages on your site. Adding a map will help your visitors find information quickly. Besides being a helpful tool for visitors a site map also helps search engines find pages. When a search engine spider visits your site it crawls through a page. It visits all the links on your page and it checks for keywords. This is why keywords and relevant linking partners are recommended above.
Once the search engine spider finds the site map it will find all of your other pages. Search engine spiders do not like to dig very deep into sites. They like to search through 2 or 3 ‘levels’ of information. So pages that are hard to find will not rank well or they will take much longer to rank well. A site map helps the engines find all your pages at once.
Tip #5- Be Patient and Find Other Means of Traffic
Waiting for the search engines to scour your site and rank it could take a bit of time. I recommend a lot of patience. When I post a new content page on my website, it takes a few weeks to get noticed. Some search engines are fast and rank the page immediately. Others are a bit slower.
While you wait for your pages to rank well I recommend finding alternative ways to drive traffic to your site. You can look into PPC (pay-per-click advertising), article writing, off-line ads, buying ad space in newsletters, doing a joint venture with a fellow webmaster or post in relevant forums.
These 5 tips to ranking well at the search engines are tried and true methods. I have built a site using these 5 tips and can personally attest to their sheer power. Patience is the hardest part. Keep building relevant content, link to relevant partners, submit to site directories, add a site map and then keep going.
Persistence pays off. Building a web business takes time. Your business needs to develop and mature. Using some or all of the above tips can ensure a big payoff down the road.
“Do-It-Yourself” Search Engine Optimization (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 Optimization 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., “optimization”), 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.
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 your 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 italicize keywords where appropriate.
• Instead of having a link to another page that says, “Click here to read more “, reword it to include your keywords.
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 organizations. 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 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.
