This is part one of ten in this search engine positioning series.
In part one we will outline how to choose the keyword phrases most
likely to produce a high ROI for your search engine positioning
efforts. Over this ten part series we will go through ten essential
elements and steps to optimizing a site. Some steps take a few hours,
some may take months depending on the competition, but in the end
and if done correctly you will have a well optimized site that will
place well and hold it's positioning.
Of course all website's fluctuate up and down however well optimized
sites will spend more time on the upper end of the rankings than
poorly optimized or spammy sites which may see high rankings but
which will lose those rankings over time.
The Ten Steps We Will Go
Through Are:
- Keyword Selection
- Content
- Site Structure
- Optimization
- Internal Linking
- Human Testing
- Submissions
- Link Building
- Monitoring
- The Extras
Step One - Keyword Selection
Arguably, keyword selection is the single most important stage
in the entire optimization process. If you do not choose the correct
keyword phrases you will not maximize your ROI on this campaign.
I mention ROI and use it as a reminder that keyword selection is
not necessarily about looking for the most searched phrases. A profitable
optimization is one which produces the greatest return on investment
for the time and money that are available to put towards it.
Bigger Is Not Always Better
If you are a web designer in Seattle who has just started your own
business, you could make "web design" the targeted keyword
phrase for your site as it certainly has the highest number of searches
with 707,962 in September 2004 according to the "Overture Search
Term Suggestion Tool". If you have thousands of dollars and
many months to dedicated just to attaining
those rankings it could be done however, would that be the best
use of your time? Alternatively you could target "seattle web
site design" with 5,070 searches in September. A Google link
check shows the number of links for the top three competitors for
the Seattle search had 132, 21, and 47 respectively whereas for
"web design" the top three had 18,700, 5,420, and 1,310
incoming links each.
With a good site you would get more work than you could handle
with 5,070 searches on Overture alone if you were ranking well on
the major search engines. This would clearly provide the highest
return on investment for the small business owner who most certainly
does not have the time and money available to target "web design"
and who wouldn't have the manpower to take advantage of the rankings
even if they were attained.
This is an extreme example however it clearly illustrates that
sometimes the phrase with the highest number of searches is not
necessarily the best target for your business.
Phrases That Sell
Another consideration you will want to make when choosing your keyword
phrases is whether or not they are "buy phrases". Phrases
with a high number of searches that are not "buy phrases"
will tend to bring a lot of traffic, however the conversion ratio
will be far lower. Should you choose to target "buy phrases"
you may not get the same number of visitors however your ratio of
visitors to sales will be much higher.
In this example let's assume you are the marketing director for
a well-known accounting company. There will be many choices you
can make for your targeted keyword phrase. The top searched phrases
in September 2004 that were accounting-related are:
Many might go with their gut instinct and attempt to target "accounting".
The problem with this phrase (other than the competition for it)
is that the people doing that search are not necessarily even looking
for an accounting firm. They may be accounting students, small business
owners not interested in hiring an accountant but just looking for
tax information, etc. "Accounting software" and "accounting
job" are irrelevant, which leaves us with "accounting
services" and "accounting firm" as the two main options.
From this point an evaluation of competition should be performed
and the pros and cons of making each the primary target should be
weighed based on the amount of work it will take to attain the phrase
vs. how many searches there are for that phrase.
Often promotions that target multiple "buy phrases" will
end up far more successful that those targeting phrases based solely
on the number of searches due to the increased conversions and generally
decreased competition.
Tools To Use
Armed now with knowledge on how to recognize and choose between
different phrases there remains only one question, how do you know
which phrases are even searched? Fortunately there are a couple
great resources out there to help you find out how many searches
are performed for specific phrases. They Are:
The
Overture Search Term Suggestion Tool
A decent tool for researching keyword phrases. It indicates which
phrases had the highest numbers of searches on Overture during
the previous month. The biggest weakness it has, as far as applying
it to the natural search engines, is that Overture counts singular
and plural as the same and also corrects misspelling so the totals
are all lumped together in this tool whereas on the natural engines
they are considered differently.WordTracker
WordTracker is very similar to Overture's Search Term Suggestion
Tool except that this tool differentiates between plural and singular
searches, does not correct spelling (i.e. it gives the number
of searches for misspellings rather than correcting them and giving
a total for correct and misspelled words) and gives the results
in predicted numbers of searches over all the engines per day
rather than just one engine over a month.They have a great free trial that doesn't give you as many results
but which can be very useful.
When using these tools I recommend beginning with the Overture
Search term Suggestion Tool and once you've narrowed down your choices,
switch to WordTracker to insure that you're getting the right information
in regards to tense (singular vs. plural) and also that the numbers
match. Sometimes you will find that the numbers are completely different
from each tool. In this event you will have to use your best judgment.
Don't forget to check misspellings when using WordTracker!
Tips & Tricks
There are no real "tricks" to uncovering the keywords
you should target however there are a few tips. A few pointers that
will help you maximize your keyword selection:
Testing
Test your phrases. If there is any debate about whether a search
phrase is worth targeting it's often a good idea to test the conversions
through pay-per-click engines. Set up an account with a PPC engine
and bid on the phrases that you would like to target.
You have to remember that the PPC engines do not provide for the
same amount of traffic as the natural engines. Test the initial
phrases, test alternative phrases, and see which produce the best
results. Something else to keep in mind is that PPC are not natural
engines. If your ROI is not as high on more costly phrases that
doesn't mean they won't produce the higher return on the natural
engines where a top ranking does not cost money per click.
In the end you will have confirmed a solid list of keyword phrases
and if the PPC campaign is providing a good return on investment
you might as well keep it running and enjoy the "bonus"
traffic that it provides.
Next Week
Next week in part two of our "Ten Steps To an Optimized Website"
series we will be covering content. This will cover everything from
the optimization of existing content to the creation of new content
for your website.
About the Author
Dave Davies is the owner of Beanstalk Search Engine Positioning. He has been optimizing and ranking websites for over three years and has a solid history of success. Dave is available to answer any questions that you may have about your website and how to get it into the top positions on the major search engines.