Basics of Keyword Selection for Better SEO Results

Presented by Chrissanne Long and Craig HoskingMarketing System Blueprints

1.• Time constrained searchers: Tuxedo rental, Valentine flowers,

money sending or payday advances. Target keywords like “Next day loans”. This searcher is much more highly targeted & exponentially more likely to buy.

2.• Keyword Suggest is your friend: Do not over-concentrate on

one phrase. Mix it up with variations like “websites” & “sites” or “Las Vegas Show” & “Shows in Vegas”. This will keep search engines from filtering out your over-optimized page and also open up some new search queries in the variations you have used. Specify your URL in the “website content” tab in Google keyword tool to discover new variations from within your site.

3.• Target profitable customers: using keyword phrases like

“discount shirts” may drive more traffic, but if you cannot compete with low prices at large companies, these are not the visitors you want. Targeting phrases like “custom shirts” or “premium shirts” will attract better visitors and convert on higher margin items. Think of all the people who only buy organic food. Finding out what your best customers covet is essential. By catering to special needs, customers are more willing to pay a premium.

4.• Think outside your site: You meta data and content are

important places for your keywords, but the incoming links and words websites use in your link are just as important. Make a concerted effort to have sites linking into yours use your targeted keyword phrases in the link text.

5.• Avoid too much of a good thing: Do not make the mistake of

using the same keyword phrase or anchor text description for your website in all of your incoming links. Mix it up with different variation of your keywords so it feels more natural to search engines.

6.• Don’t forget the S: In most business scenarios, plurals will

reach more searchers than singular versions. Many more people search for “Orlando condos” than “Orlando condo” right? Try to use both versions, but when it doubt, add the s.

7.• Repurpose good material: If you have an article or particular

blog post that ranks well for a certain term, try changing the title to attract more links or ranking for an additional phrase. You may be able to make slight changes every other month to improve rankings for ancillary keywords based on your past success. No need to reinvent the wheel right?

8.• Become a writer: Without enough quality, link worthy

content, it is extremely hard to build a successful site with high rankings. Try writing industry or product related articles as often as possible for link bait. Topics could be as simple as industry news or top 10 lists. People love to link to interesting industry info.

9.• Data mining is your friend: From my past work with one of

the world’s largest producers of data mining software, I cannot stress enough the need to uncover new keywords from past visitors. A tool like Google Analytics will tell you what visitors typed into it to find you. Set a regular time up at least once a month to mine this data for phrases you may not have thought of.

10.• Use Internal Linking: Most brick and mortar stores know to

keep the most popular items in front, and the low margin clearance items in the back. Your website is very similar. Use internal site links to push visitors to your most popular (or most profitable) products. A site wide link to “Featured Items” is a great idea.

11.• BOGO listings: Use a highly ranking page to link to another

page on that keyword/topic. This may be able to get that 2nd page ranked for the search term as well. 2 of the 10 listings on the results page will greatly improve your chances of a click through vs. your competitors.

12.• Put time on your side, plan ahead: If you have a seasonal

product, like jewelry sales, you need to launch your Valentine’s specific pages aggressively months in advance. It is going to take time to build up your rankings for those terms, so it may take several months of work to be in peak position at the right time ahead of your competitors.

13.• Check the News: Look for the hottest stories on your topics for

opportunities to create material on the same subject matter. You can easily check and track what topics are creating the most buzz. Check Yahoo! Buzz, Google Trends, and for retailers check Google Checkout Trends, eBay Pulse or Amazon top movers. Piggybacking a trend can generate tons of traffic.

14.• Let your visitors comment: By allowing customer feedback, or

blog comments, your visitors are actually creating free content for you. They may also use some keyword combinations you did not think of, and help bring more long tail search queries to your site. They may also spell words wrong, which for your core content is not professional, but for searchers who misspell words this could help you rank highly for them.

15.• Q & A: Searchers often type question queries, so including

words like how, why, what and when to your content can help you rank for these searches. You also want to have well defined answers to the main questions your industry visitors have. This will make you the hub of information and create great link bait for the millions of online forums discussing topics.

16.• Compare & Review Products: Do you have a large competitor

or a lot of products in your industry that people search for by product name? How can you rank highly for these product names or even your competitor’s name? How about creating detailed product comparisons? This allows you to use their searchable brand names and product information while promoting your product’s superior features. You can also write content on why something doesn’t work to be ranked for that term (i.e. a search for “Rank #1 for any keyword” is still looking for SEO services right?). You could also get traffic from pages with discontinued products, and suggest new models or comparable products you have in stock.

17.• The searcher is in the details: If you are going to sell products

online, you must be sure to list very detailed product information. Someone searching for a book could search by the author, title, book topic or ISBN #. Someone searching for a TV remote could search by the brand, model # or functionality. Even relevant or comparable product #’s could help.

18.• Content type as keywords: Some searchers are adding their

content type to their queries. For example, optimizing for “Internet Marketing PDF” or “Internet Marketing wiki” could rank highly by adding the type of content searched for. Adding blog, video, or white paper to your keywords could uncover some hidden traffic.

19.• Mine PPC data: If you do paid placement like Google Adwords,

you can allow Google to place your ads on their AdSense content network and see which sites convert best. These are the sites you want to content directly to advertise with & acquire links.

20.• Overlapping multiple keyword phrases: If you are a mortgage

broker new to the industry, we are not going to compete for “mortgage rate”. However, by focusing on “best mortgage rate deals”, we are targeting “best mortgage rate”, “mortgage rate deals” and at the same time building age and authority toward our long-term goal of “mortgage rate”. This is all happening within 1 term by overlapping several phrases and making sure it still reads naturally.

21.• Use your internal search data: If you do not already have an

Search the site box on your website, install one immediately. This will enable you to add products/services visitors are looking for and also uncover additional keywords phrases to add to your content.

22.• Give them something to talk about: By creating content

around a controversial topic, a common frustration in your industry, or even humorous material, you can create great link bait and also a ton of user generated content (i.e. blog comments or product reviews).

23.• Keep keyword density in mind: When you are writing your

keyword phrases, be sure to put the keywords next to each other in sequence, especially in your title tags. Having filler words like in or and between your keywords can be the difference between you or your competitor getting the top ranking.

24• Create online Q & A Forums: Whether it is through your blog,

an FAQ page or a newsgroup, you should answer your customer’s questions online. This can help in several ways like: creating keyword rich content, helping to have content matching long tail search queries, answering future visitors similar questions. I recommend answering questions from emails, surveys and even phone calls online.

25.• Know your audience: If you have an international business, or

even attract clients from the UK or Canada, you have to make exceptions for differences in keywords. For example, a real estate page renting apartments and condos to UK users would refer to lofts or flats. For multi-lingual sites, use a real translator, and not translation tools for your keywords.

26.• Campaign synergy: Many large companies have different

budgets and teams for print, tv and Internet ads. The opportunity is that if these teams work together, the sum of all their work is greater (much greater!) than the individual parts. For example, many people will get your postcard flyer or watch your commercial for solar heating. They will then research these topics and long tail keyword variations online. If you did not launch your accompanying keyword campaign already and achieve rankings for these keyword variations, you could be paying to drive traffic to your more Internet savvy competitors.

Conclusion• SEO is more than just what YOU think your customers are

looking for, your job is to try to get into the head of the people looking for solutions to their problems that you can help solve. The available information on the web, provided by Google, Yahoo and Bing can give you some excellent insight to exactly that. The behavior of the prospective customer can be accurately predict if the research is done well.

• Reference: Wall, Aaron (2008). 50 Kick-ass Keyword Strategies. Retrieved

January 15, 2009, from the Wordtracker website: http://www.wordtracker.com