The first step in a search engine optimization campaign is to choose your keywords or keyphrases for each of your web pages. Keywords are the terms that search engine users type in the search box to conduct a query. The right keywords are those that:
- clearly describe the purpose and content of your site, and,
- allow your site to show up as close to the first results page as possible.
A good position doesn’t depend only on your choice of keywords. It also depends on how well do you position those keywords in your web page, and how many quality external pages link to you. However, choosing the wrong keywords can throw off your entire search engine optimization strategy, so you need to invest a few hours and make sure you do it right.
Let’s start with your homepage. Look at it carefully and write down the words and phrases that best define your site. Try to form two or three word phrases, since competition for one-word keyphrases is fierce, and it is virtually impossible to get a top position for them. That is why, from now on, we will talk about keyphrases, not keywords.
Once you have developed your list of potential keyphrases you are ready for the next step: to analyze the demand and supply for those keyphrases, and choose the best ones (those with good demand and not enough supply).
We will first check the demand for your selected keyphrases. For this, we will go to Overture’s Search Term Suggesion Tool:
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
Overture is a popular pay-per-click search engine (as we know, pay-per-click search engines are the only ones that disclose keyword poplularity for free). You will then type each of the keyphrases you selected, and see how many people search for those terms. This tool will show you only those searches conducted in Overture (and only in one month time). However, the relative popularity of each search term will be very similar in other search engines as well.
In addition to telling you if your selected keyphrases are popular, this tool will show you other keyphrases that you may not have thought about, which may even be more relevant to your site. For example, if your first keyphrase was “Italian Restaurant”, the Search Term Suggestion Tool will also display other popular search terms, like: “Gourmet Italian Restaurant”, “Northern Italian Restaurant”, “Italian Restaurant Pizzeria”, “Italian Restaurant Miami”, etc. You may also try other keyphrases, for example: “Italian Cuisine”, and come up with more specific keyphrases, like: “Fine Italian Cuisine”, “Italian Cuisine Miami”, “Northern Italian Cuisine”, “Italian Cuisine Fine Dining”, “Gourmet Italian Cuisine”, etc.
What you have done is to validate and enlarge your pool of popular, in-demand, potential keyphrases for your web page.
The next step is to check the supply, or, in other words, to see how much competition there is for your selected keywords. Naturally, you want to focus on keyphrases where competition is less fierce. For example, chosing “Italian Restaurant” alone will certainly hurt you. There are so many of them that your chances of showing up in an advantagous position within the search results are pretty slim.
Having said that, get your list of keyphrases, go to Google ( http://www.google.com ) and type-in each of them in the search box. Enter your keyphrases within quotation marks (to filter-out less relevant results), and see how many results each individual query produces, making a note of those with a relatively small number of results (less competition). You will stick with the keyphrase that:
- Best describes the topic and content of your page.
- Is a popular search term according to Overture’s Search Term Suggestion Tool.
- Generates a relatively small number of results after performing the Google search.
If “Gourmet Italian Restaurant” is the keyphrase that best meets these three criteria, it will become your primary keyphrase. To get even better results, you can choose a second keyphrase to make your page more relevant to an even more specific niche. For example, if your restaurant is in Miami, you can consider “Miami” a second keyphrase.
Once you have chosen the keyphrases for you homepage, do the same for the other pages on your site.
You will then take your selected keyphrases and optimize your pages heavily for them. This involves placing them in strategic locations in the title, headings and body of each page.
About The Author
Mario Sanchez publishes The Internet Digest ( http://www.theinternetdigest.net ), an online collection of web design and Internet marketing articles and resources. You can freely reprint his weekly articles in your website, ezine, newsletter or ebook.
The process on how a web site is being optimised is the great contribution that search engine optimisation Melbourne can offer. Most people think that optimisation only involves dumping various keywords into a web site which in reality is not the concept. It is suggested that a web page consists of about 5% of a certain keyword in order to be considered properly optimised. Achieeing this kind of percentage of web page content is not an easy task though, that’s why there are several web developers who basically specialize in search engine optimisation.
If you plan on hiring a web developer to optimise and create your website, you must consider his or her specifications first. He or she must be able to properly mark up the HTML in your web page. Go for quality web developers rather than cheap ones because most of the time, cheap providers provide poor-quality output. Go for quality and quantity rather than cost. An excellent developer will also be able to distinguish between excellent and poorly designed HTML codes.
Designing a web site is basically the main ingredient in generating traffic from search engines. A poorly designed website will not only be non-searchable by search engines, it will also just add up to your expenses when not being managed accordingly.
Earlier this year, I was having trouble getting good search engine placement for one of our sites. I was trading links like crazy, spending many hours a week trying to optimize the site properly, checking my linking structures, keyword density, etc., but still I was not climbing the ranks in Google.
I tried everything, but nothing was working. Then I had an opportunity to fly to Atlanta, GA for an intensive SEO workshop with Search Engine Specialist Brad Fallon and Online Store Expert Andy Jenkins. When I mentioned my quandary to Brad, he began checking my backlinks for me.
The problem became very obvious the more in depth the investigation got. Yes, I had gotten a lot of backlinks. Yes, I had a strong, keyword related descriptive text. Yes, I had keyword related Anchor Text (The Title linked back to a web site with a hyperlink). But here-in was my problem.
What I had done in my overzealousness to get my links exchanged (with everybody this side of the Sunni Triangle), was Over-Optimized my Anchor Text. Now, we were optimizing for several keyword phrases, but decided to go for a biggie – “Web Hosting Provider”.
The problem I had created for myself, however, was that every Link I exchanged in my flurry of activity, had the same anchor text, linked to the same URL on my site. Brad told me I had over-optimized the anchor text which appears un-natural to the Search Engines.
Because we were going after such a huge term, I mistakenly thought it was necessary to flood the net with as many links having “Web Hosting Provider” as possible, just to try and compete with the big boys having hundreds of thousands of links. Unfortunately, this was NOT the case. In fact, I did more damage than help.
I was OOPed (over-optimization penalty) on by Google – dropped like a rock out of the top 1000 from being in the top 30. Aaaargh! “What do I do now?” I wondered out loud. I was left with a quandary of sorts. All the intensive hours of laborious link exchanging with other like minded webmasters – do I now retrace my steps, and ask half of them to change my link? Sure! And while I’m at it I think I’ll cut the back lawn with a pair of mustache scissors just for fun.
I pondered my websites’ future as the SEO Pro conference continued…
On the last day, Andy Jenkins went into an in depth explanation of the incredible importance of examining your competitions’ backlinks. Using one of the finest tools available, SEO Elite, Andy ran a sample examination of some competing sites – one that placed well, one that did not. Both had a good number of backlinks.
What was the difference? He pulled up the first site not doing so well and went on to explain:
“Look down this column here on the right!” Andy exclaimed. “See the Anchor Text? All the same-most of the way down.” He showed us as he scrolled down the long list of backlinks. “Now let’s look at the one that’s ranking well.” He said, as he threw the one screen down and pulled the other one up.
“Look closely here, at these anchors.” My heart sank when I realized all my hard work may have been in vain. “Check out the anchors-all varied.” He pointed out. “You can see the main keywords show up the most, the second and third tier keywords show up less often.”
So, what was the bottom line? Was I able to salvage my linking strategy? It turns out I was left with two choices (actually 3 choices- I could just leave it alone). Either I go back and mix up some of my anchor texts with my linking partners, or I had to de-optimize the keyword density on my home page drastically. On this site, I chose to change the linking strategy and index page.
There in Atlanta, on a rainy day in February, was birthed the idea of a program that could automatically rotate anchor texts and the URL’s they link to, within a website. I presented the idea to my business partner and programmer Jonathan, to see if it was a viable idea. He said yes, and went to work scripting.
Several months later Link-Blaster was finished and uploaded. We decided to automate as many features as possible to help time strapped web-masters and SEO’s with their linking strategy. Now, any member who joins can also get automatically placed on every other member’s web site, gaining instant backlinks in minutes.
All links get 3 different Anchor Texts, 3 different URL’s, and the ability to weight them by percentage. Finally, we added relevant RSS Feeds to each category page to make sure they’re crawled consistently by the search engines. We’re excited about this brand new system and expect great results.
If you’d like more info check out our website which explains in more detail all the features of this powerful automated system.
Bob Volk
Co-Founder
http://Link-Blaster.com
Bob Volk, Founder of VolkNet Enterprises, is an Internet Entrepreneur and has started/co-founded many sites including http://volknet.com, http://seo-elite-services, and his newest venture, an automated link exchange program with a unique twist at http://Link-Blaster.com
He specializes in Web Site Design, Marketing, and SEO Consultation for both small and medium size businesses doing $30 – $40 million a year.
