Keyword Optimization - How To Achieve It

The most important thing you can do for your business and your website is develop relevant keywords that are not too competitive yet generate targeted traffic to your website.

It's called keyword optimization. Why is it important?

Because Keywords and keyword phrases do a couple of things for you:

- With the right keywords, you will attract the viewers most interested in the items or services on your site.

- You will rank higher in the search engines for your chosen keywords, saving you thousands of dollars in advertising.

It all starts, however, with the best keywords that pertain to your product or services.

When selecting keywords you should select 1 perhaps 2 of the most relevant keywords for each page of your site. I suggest using no more than two keywords per page, preferably one.

Why?

Because search engines strive to deliver the most relevant pages for the search term entered. The more focused your page is for the search term, the more relevant the search engines will find your page. The more keywords you use, the less focused your page becomes.

How do you find keywords that your target audience will use?

- Think like your readers. Take yourself outside your site for a minute and think about how you would find the products or services you are selling.

- Use Overture's Keyword Selector Tool http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/ Type in your most basic keyword and it will show you the variations of the search term and also the count of how many times that term was entered in the search engine.

- Think of phrases as opposed to one single word. If you sell clay pots, think of keywords such as painted clay pots, or clay flower pots, large clay pots, buy clay pots. Use descriptive words when brainstorming phrases.

- Ask your relatives, kids and friends what they would type in to find your products. You would be amazed at the great ideas that can be generated. For example, I asked a teenager once what he would type in to find shoes online and he said 'nice kicks'. As of this writing, Overture's keyword selector tool showed a count of 12130. Hmmm, never would have thought of it on my own.

- Use a thesaurus or Webster's dictionary to find similar words to your chosen keywords. Consider all forms of the word. For example, for the term supply there is supply, supplies, supplier, supplying. Thinking of all forms of the word help a great deal in brainstorming keyword ideas.

- If you have a website already, place a search engine on your site. This would be a search engine that you put on your site that searches only your site such as http://www.freefind.com/. This will help you collect data on what keywords users are using. Once you've collected a good list of search terms you can use this to help you determine the best keywords.

Along this same line, you can also use your website server logs to gather information on the keywords used to find your site.

Once you've made a list of the best keywords and keyword phrases, you will need to determine which ones are the best.

Your challenge is to find keywords that have a high usage count but appear on the least amount of competing web pages.

Wordtracker.com is an excellent tool for helping you achieve this. Wordtracker's 'Keyword Effectiveness Index' (KEI) will provide you with the number of times a keyword is used along with the number of competing web pages. The higher the KEI, the more popular your keywords are, and the less competition. This means a better chance for you in getting to the top of the search engines.

Finding the best keywords and keyword phrases is an important part of your marketing mix. Find the correct keywords and build your content around them.

Elizabeth McGee strives to help webmasters and business owners find trusted marketing tools while also offering tips, stragegies and information for online marketing. Sign up for her FREE newsletter by visiting her site at: http://www.pro-marketing-online.com

---

Search Engine Optimization Explained

Search Engine Listing And OptimizationIn the world of website marketing,... Read More

Three Search Engine Ranking Gold Tips

Getting a high ranking in the search engines is something... Read More

All You Need to Know About Your Website Traffic is Contained in 5 Key Stats

You built that content rich web page optimized for your... Read More

Increase Your Page Rank Through SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) must be considered a process and... Read More

What is Google Pagerank?

PageRank is one of the factors that Google uses to... Read More

Search Engine Rankings for Beginners

Search engine optimization is best left in the mystical land... Read More

Beyond the Box with Googles Web API

Google, the most popular, and many say best, search engine,... Read More

Winning the Search Engine Wars!

Creating and building effective Search Engine marketing campaigns is like... Read More

Adding Content To Your Site Every Day

If you have been a webmaster for more than a... Read More

Search Engine Optimization Tips For 2005 - Part Two

Welcome to the second part of our series of articles... Read More

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Strategy - Navigating the Dark Waters of Website Promotion

Creating a well-designed website is the first step in your... Read More

How To Make Your Website More Successful? (Part II)

In part I of our series of how to make... Read More

The Write to Link Popularity

Incorporating writing as a means of boosting your link popularity... Read More

Do You Have a Bad SEO Company, or Are You Just a Bad Client?

I admit it, our SEO services are pretty bad.Speaking of... Read More

Can Google Really Deliver Country Specific Searching?

This is a serious matter, can Google really deliver top... Read More

7 Search Engine Optimization Mistakes and Solutions

To many websites, webmasters discover that major sources of website... Read More

Search Engines Are Doomed to Fail

A very provocative title, isn't it? Based on the latest... Read More

Types of Links

Internal Linking ? An introductionThe web as they call it... Read More

META Tags Explained and How To Use Them For Ranking

The META tags are used to provide extra information about... Read More

Reality Check: A Straightforward Guide to Keywords and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Web site owners need to have realistic expectations when it... Read More

Google, Yahoo!, Pandoras Box And The Lottery

In the fall of 1990, the musical group Snap had... Read More

Getting Listed in the ODP, Google Directory

First of all, the Google directory is really just the... Read More

The First Search Engine Marketing Method: Content That Meets Customers Needs

For your business web site, good search engine rankings and... Read More

Feed me - Satisfy the Search Engines and Your Sites Visitors With Keyword-Rich Content

Search engines love content. Graphics may make your site look... Read More

Why Search Engine Marketing Has A Passion for Web Site Usability

Watching a recent football game, I imagined two very different... Read More

Webmaster-Friendly Google Operators

There are a lot of operators (commands you can enter... Read More

How To Design A Search Engine Friendly Website

There are many websites that fail to target their required... Read More

Taking Advantage of Googles Sandbox Effect

Most new sites submitted to Google (at least within the... Read More

The Business Case for SEO

It's interesting how potential clients have preconceived notions about which... Read More

Google Sitemaps Explained - How To Use Google Sitemaps

Three Ways To Index Your Site With Google Sitemaps [Difficult,... Read More

Google is Quickly Changing...

Google is quickly changing...With the big buzz of Novembers fall... Read More

Search Engine Position Report

Since search engines are the first stop for people on... Read More

Search Engines: Tips and Strategies on Getting Listed and Ranking High for Newbies

You've got a website. You've put countless hours into it,... Read More