The Importance Of Proper Keyword Research To SEO
Seeing your site at the top of the search results for your target phrase as a beautiful thing; however, if it doesn't drive quality, converting traffic to your site, it's not doing you any good. The goal of any true optimization campaign is not only to get a site and it's pages to the top of the results, but to get them to the top of the results for the phrases that matter.
In order to know the most important phrases to target it's necessary to do some keyword research before ever beginning the promotion of your site. I can tell you from first hand experience, I've seen some absolutely beautiful sites, with great content and great products fail miserably because they targeted the wrong phrases.
There are LOT of different ways to research the best keywords to choose. Below I've outlined a few of the top that should help you get going.
1) Brainstorming
The obvious place to start. Think of all the ways you know of that your potential visitors could try and find your product or service, but don't stop there. Once you've run out of terms, ask friends and family how they would try and find your product or service when searching online.
You may well be surprised at how others will search for you. Remember, in general, your potential visitors are not experts in your industry and may well use vastly different language to describe your product or service.
Make a list of all the phrases you come up with.
2) Competitors
This is always a good place to continue your research. After all, if there business has been running for a while, it is likely they have done a good bit of the research you need to do, so use their success to your advantage! Go through their site and look at the keywords and phrases they are targeting. Make notes of any phrases that can be used to describe your product or service that you haven't yet come up with and add them to your list.
3) Keyword Research Sites
These are great. You can type in a phrase and get back phrases that incorporate that phrase, associated phrases, etc. You'll also generally get a good bit of additional information such as predicted number of searches in a given time frame, etc. There are a number of research sites these days...some free and some paid.
I've listed a few below.
Wordtracker - Paid but has a free trial
Keyword Discover - Paid
Good Keywords - Free downloadable program
Google Keyword Tool - Free
Always remember that no keyword research tool is perfect. Some data will be skewed due to numerous reasons, but they are ideal for finding additional keywords and phrases you may have never thought of.
4) Old School Research
For this break out the dictionary and the thesaurus. You do have those don't' you? Well, luckily if not, you can use some online ones as well. :) You'd be surprised at the great ideas you can get just by using a thesaurus.
By the time you've gone through all 4 steps above, you should have a pretty exhaustive list of phrases that can be used to find your product or service. If you have multiple products and services, you will want to repeat the above steps for each product/service you offer.
Once you've got your list you want to focus your pages on the phrases you've generated. I try and hit about 2-3 phrases per page. In doing this you'll keep the focus of each page tight and have the best chance of ranking for that pages target phrase.
I'll see you at the top!
John Buchanan is an SEO consultant in Dallas Texas with 10 years in the field. He does search engine optimization in Dallas, Texas and for companies throughout the world.
Related Articles:
Seo - How Trustrank Is Catching Seo Crooks
TrustRank is a link analysis technique that several search engines, including Google have been using for semi-automatically separating useful web pages from spam. This makes it a lot harder for black hat search engine techniques to succeed because the human element is involved when it comes to assessing web pages. TrustRank is particularly successful when it comes to weeding out web pages that are created clearly for commercial reasons with the absolute intention of misleading search engines and uses a combination of human assessment and automated techniques to selectively identify bad pages.
SEO For Local Markets
Many brick and mortar companies that are catering to their local clientele find it hard to SEO for local markets despite targeting the best keywords Quite naturally this is not a surprising matter as many of them, although efficient in running their off line businesses, typically stumble over two critical blocks
The Unethical SEO Myth
"The use of black hat SEO techniques are completely unethical." Really? I completely disagree.
Using SEO As A Way To Bring Massive Amounts Of Traffic To Your Site
Many home entrepreneurs have a lot of trouble directing traffic to there site. This is a basic step that many people skip. They do not think about how they will increase traffic to there site as soon as it is created. There are so many strategies but you have to make sure that you establish some kind of a schedule and make sure that you stick to it. What we are going to do us look at using search engine optimization to create traffic from all different sources of the net and how that traffic will help you rank well in search engines.
5 Top Considerations To SEO
Search Engine Optimization, a.k.a. SEO, is a process by which a website becomes visible on the search engine's radars. Considering the fact that there are over 4 billion publicly accessible websites on the Internet, being visible when a potential customer performs a search on Google or Yahoo is crucial. If your website does not show up within first couple of pages of results, there is a very slim chance that the potential customer will be able to locate your website.
Search Engine Optimization - Free Tips and Help - Part One - The Title Tag
Search Engine Optimization is a widely misunderstood industry. Many webmasters, including myself, have been mislead by industry forums, and Internet "chatter".
Fathom SEO Releases White Paper: Is Search Engine Optimization a Waste of Money?
New report puts SEO industry growth in perspective and helps companies make strategic choices in the face of troublesome tactics and measurement failings.
Popular Search Engine Optimization Misconceptions
There is nothing more frustrating for a web designer or a website owner than spending an excessive amount of time ?tweaking? his website to optimize its page ranking ? and then realizing that search engines are bypassing it, for reasons unknown. The problem is that many people are operating off flawed misconceptions about search engine optimization (SEO) techniques ? rather than ?optimizing? their web pages, they may actually be harming it.
Seo - Writing The Seo Faq Article
If you don?t know what type of search engine optimized article to write for your web site then it is a good idea to consider writing some kind of FAQ article. FAQ stands for frequently asked questions. If you go to a message board or forum about a topic and provide a 250-word answer to a commonly asked question on these boards and then upload all of this information to your site you will probably get tons of traffic and also clicks on your affiliate links.
Search Engine Optimization, Positioning: Is Chasing Google Algorithms Worth It?
Google is the undisputed heavyweight champion of search engines. Most SEO (search engine optimization) companies pitch their tent around Google.
Search Engine Optimization : What it can do to your website?
Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a hot topic among many webmasters and internet professionals. Its hot because it promises less expensive traffic, saving you from spending thousands of ad dollars. As the search engines became the main source of internet traffic in the recent years, Search Engine Optimization or SEO has become a catchphrase.
Unique Performance Based Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Launched in Korea
Sofizar has signed a multiyear exclusive agreement with iLCorea and KT Networks in marketing its performance based Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services in Korea.
Web site submission services - SEO Experts 1st Secret to Success
On a budget here are some affordable way to optimize your site
SEO Copywriting
There is a difference between true copywriting and simple content writing Professional SEO copywriting is the technique of writing text on a webpage so that it is meaningful and useful for the visitor and also so it is visible in the search engines
SEO And Article Marketing: Can They Get You A Top Ten Listing?
SEO and Article Marketing work together to provide you with the best solution to website promotion that you can have. Forget PPC programs, and forget ezine advertising. Nothing beats free adverts on the index listings of the major search engines.