Posts Tagged ‘Search Engine Optimization’

Keyword research is the most essential step to take before creating a site or even purchasing a domain because you want to include keywords in the domain.

Many newbies starting in web site marketing neglect keyword research completely or perform only basic research by guessing what keyword to rank for and checking how many searches per month are performed for it. This method is inadequate if you wish to be successful. Pursue the incorrect keyword and you’ll end up questioning why you have no traffic.

So how do you do keyword research?

The most accurate keyword research tool is https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal This tool is suggested because statistics are specific to google, the unquestionable search engine leader with 90% of overall searches.

Make a worksheet for your research. Label your columns: Searches, Keyword, Competition, Allintitle and Allinurl

Here is an explanation of each heading:
1. Searches: Monthly searches for the specified keyword/keyphrase
2. Keyword: The actual keyword or keyphrase
3. Competition: The number of pages targeting that precise keyword
4. Allintitle: The amount of sites targeting the keyword in their title.
5. Allinurl: The quantity of sites with the keyword in their domain name

The first two columns of information come directly from the Google tool. The other three columns are researched on google by performing the following searches.

To ascertain competition carry out a search for your keyword with quotation marks (“) around it (example. “Weight loss”). Google will return results from websites targeting the precise keyword/keyphrase. This filters out sites targeting ‘weight’ or ‘loss’ alone. Record the amount of results generated in the competition column beside the keyword. This number is found at the top right hand side of the browser window.

To determine how many websites include a keyword in their titles perform an allintitle search. The format for this is allintitle:your keyword. Exchange ‘your keyword’ with the keyword you would like statistics for. Record the number of results returned into the allintitle column next to the keyword.

To carry out an allinurl search use the format ‘allinurl:your keyword’ and insert the corresponding number of results in the allinurl column

Why search allintitle and allinurl? Because utilizing principal keywords in the title and URL is an extremely important factor in gaining good rankings with search engines for those keywords. Ultimately, you ought to use primary keywords in both. If our targeted keyword appears in the URL of 4000 sites then that is the greatest number of competitors we have to contend with. Utilizing the keyword in both URL and title puts your site ahead of many other sites in terms of on-page SEO.

Which Keywords should you Target?

It depends how much SEO practice you have which keywords you should target. It’s easier to rank for low competition keywords. Inexperienced marketers should seek out keywords with fewer than 20,000 results in the allinurl column. This makes it easier to outrank competitors. This might seem like a cop-out. However, sites that rank well for lower competition keywords will find it easier to rank for associated high competition keywords.

It’s crucial that traffic be laser targetted to improve conversion. For example: A site promoting GPS systems shouldn’t specifically target ‘GPS systems’ because it has considerable competition making it difficult to rank for. Additionally, a person searching for ‘GPS systems’ is most likely in research stage. A person searching for ‘Tom Tom GO 930 prices’ is considerably more targeted since it indicates that they are in purchasing stage. Of course, ‘buy Tom Tom GO 930′ is even better! Even though far less people will search for that term, those who do are in buying stage. It’s better to catch them in purchasing mode than in research mode!

Don’t target broad keywords that have more searches because that exposes you to additional competition. You need traffic that converts to sales. As you acquire SEO experience and your site gains status (i.e. Google pagerank) you can target high competition keywords. If you buy PPC (pay per click) traffic from search engines it’s essential to target converting keywords.

Two factors determine the best keywords to target:

1. The number of searches (higher is better)
2. The number of opposition (lower is better)

Try to obtain keywords with both of these factors. Balance is the essential factor here. Each webpage ought to target one principal keyword and contain several related keywords. Try to target combination keywords that contain more than one keyword like ‘online marketing techniques’ which targets three keywords including; online marketing techniques, online marketing and marketing techniques. While two word keyphrases have increased competition making them more challenging to rank for, using them means you won’t have to insert them later on when you do wish to rank for them.