TIP ONE: THE IMPORTANCE OF KEY WORDS
In the world of marketing online, one topic comes up over and
over with great frequency: site rankings. It can sometimes seem
to be the 'holy grail' in the highly competitive world of online
marketing, where search engines rule supreme. The reality is
that unless you have deep pockets indeed, SEO optimization in
the long run will be more affordable than simply buying
placement with click campaigns and advertisements.
This is the good news. The bad news is that the process is slow,
and it can take months (and months and months) of dedicated
effort to achieve decent rankings (one reason you don’t want to
abandon those paid campaigns while optimizing your site). But it
is well worth the time and effort in the long run, since it
addresses the one issue that is foremost when marketing your
product and services online: people use search engines such as
Google and MSN to do their looking. And search engine listings
that are highly ranked consistently outperform 'paid listings'.
So how do you get your site listed and ranked highly? Does it
take dedicating your life fulltime to this effort, or
specialized knowledge? The answer is "yes" and "no". It can help
tremendously to hire the assistance of a firm that specializes
in SEO (and, in fact, this is highly recommended). They can give
you professional guidance in this arena, and steer you away from
common mistakes.
But for those with a limited budget (which is most of us,
nowadays, it seems) it’s also possible to do your own site
optimization, and work on a long-term campaign to help your site
rise. It isn’t easy (unlike those ads and books online that
promise overnight success with no effort), but by rolling up
your shirtsleeves and diving in, you can learn a tremendous
amount, and help your site get found when people type in your
products into a search engine.
TIP TWO: SELECT YOUR KEYWORDS CAREFULLY
Search engine keywords are what lead people (as in potential
customers) who type in phrases in their favorite search engine
to your site. When they go onto Google, Excite, or other search
engines and directories, and are looking for a specific item,
keywords are the ones that they type in during their search.
To market effectively to them, you will need to think like them
(this is the basis of all excellent marketing). You will want to
determine:
What phrases people type in when looking for your product,
service, or content during their online searches (including the
most common
misspellings, by the way). Not sure? Try looking at your web
stats for your site. You should see an extremely valuable area
called "search strings", with a list of words underneath it.
These search strings are the phrases that actually brought
people to your web site. Which ones were the most popular?
You’ll want to note these. But you’ll want to add more.
Sit down for a minute, and think of every possible phrase people
might use for searching for your product. At this point, don’t
edit yourself, just let the words flow and write them down. If
you sell used Chevrolets in Alexandria, VA, you might come up
with "used cars, used Chevrolets, vintage cars, reconditioned
cars, Chevrolet dealers, Alexandria VA car dealers, Alexandria
VA used cars", as just a start.
By now, you should have a list. Go through it again, and decide
which ones seem the most focused for your product or service.
You want search engine keywords that will bring targeted
customers to your site, who are interested in doing business
with you, and the right keywords can help accomplish this. Be
specific and relevant in your choices. Then, alphabetize your
list, since some search engines and directories list pages
alphabetically; so use your best phrases in alphabetical order
whenever possible for better optimization.
Next, analyze which keyword phrases are realistic for obtaining
high rankings. While you may sell used autos, and want to get
top rankings for that term, ‘used autos’ is an extremely popular
and general phrase, and odds are, difficult to get good rankings
for. But if you sell used Chevrolets in Alexandria, Virginia,
then it’s realistic to hope for high rankings for search engine
phrases for ‘Alexandria used Chevrolets’. You’ll also get a more
targeted audience (think ‘more likely to buy from me’), since
most of your customers will probably come from your locale).
At this point, you should have a list of keywords. If you have a
very short one, or are having trouble thinking of some, you can
gain access to professional software at minimal cost. Just start
a Google adwords campaign, or a CPC campaign on Overture. Each
of these sites have "keyword suggestion" tools that will give
you several keywords based on your product or service, and will
include the relative popularity of each one.
TIP THREE: PLACE KEYWORDS CAREFULLY
Once you have your keywords, you’ll want to use them in the
right places. The goal is to help search engines find your site
for those phrases, so you will want to place them in spots the
engines look closely at. These include the page Title, inside
the meta tags, inside the heading tag, in the domain name (more
about this in a later lesson), and the keyword tags.
You will also want to sprinkle them liberally throughout the
content (text) of your site, with special consideration for the
top of your page and its first paragraphs. This is especially
important on your home (index page), which is the one that most
search engines will cache when spidering through. And please,
have some real content on your page, and not just a list of
keywords, or your site could go down in its rankings. Search
engines do rank according to content relevancy, and the site
that says "Our dealership provides quality used Chevrolet cars,
reconditioned to meet our customer’s needs," (with at least 100
words of good, relevant content) will always rank higher than
the site that says, "cars, cars, cars, buy quality used
Chevrolet cars, quality used cars are here". In addition, you
won’t drive away customers offended by poor quality writing and
obvious over-usage of marketing phrases.
But you do want to maintain a certain ratio of keyword density
in your text; a keyword density of 5 to 7% is usually
recommended. If you don’t feel comfortable writing copy using
keywords, a professional copywriter who specializes in online
writing can help you.
THREE COMMON MISTAKES TO AVOID
Mistake #1: One common error that many people make is to forget
to place ALT tags for their graphics. You may have a beautiful
logo or graphic on your web site, but if you don’t have an alt
tag, the search engines can’t "read it". Be sure to place
keywords there, and to label graphics with names that reflect
keywords.
Mistake #2: Always have text on your site. When creating your
site, search engines depend upon text to decide what your site
is about. The more relevant the text, the better. The spiders
and bots can’t "read" graphics as mentioned above. Don’t just
make the text for the site one big graphic, as some firms do.
The search engines will skip over the graphic, and assume you
have no content at all.
Mistake #3: Finally, please don’t spam (by trying to ‘hide’ your
keywords by using a font the same color as the background, or
repeating keyword phrases over and over in the title and meta
tags). Search engines are now excellent at finding those who try
to break the rules (and their technology for doing so is getting
more sophisticated all the time), and will drop spammers from
their indexes like a hot potato. So play by the rules, and when
in doubt, ask an ethical SEO firm for advice, or visit one of
the many excellent forums online (such as Jill Whalen’s High
Rankings Search Engine Forums).
Your site will rise more quickly, and enjoy higher rankings, if
you follow these tips and their advice. And your traffic will
increase, at no cost to you!
About the author:
Philip Lim is the editor of NewbiesOnly.com which is dedicated
to teaching newbies or beginner marketers to internet marketing
the ropes. Enroll into our free 10 days intensive email course:
"Strategies for Internet Marketing Success".
http://www.NewbiesOnly.com
