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Internet Marketing > Weekly
Tips > SSWT 4/20/05
Understanding "Keywords"
Choosing Them & Using Them
This
week we are going in-depth on the topic of Keywords.
What are they, and why do you need them? A "keyword"
is the word/phrase that you want your web page to rank well for
in the major search engines. Keywords are also the words/phrases
that you bid on when using Adwords or any other pay-per-click
system.
Which
keywords you choose will determine how well your pages do in the
major search engines... which could equal a HUGE increase in targeted
traffic to your site. You should choose different keywords for
each page of your site, and you should choose keywords that are
relevant (very specific) to each page.
"ALL of your words are just as important
as your KEYwords."
This was a statement I made earlier this week on my blog when
discussing traffic, converting visitors into buyers and 'SEO
Copywriting' (the combination of two skills to
maximize your profit potential).
It's very easy to get caught up in your KEYWORDS. Which keywords
to use and why, how competitive they are, where to place them...
and of course going through this process on each and every page
on your site(s).
In
today's issue we're going to walk through that process, but you
should keep in mind that all of the other words on your pages
are equally important when it comes to interacting with your visitors
and converting them into buyers or subscribers. 'Making the Sale'
is the ultimate goal, so we'll cover that in more depth in next
week's issue. For now, let's focus on choosing those keywords
and making the best use of them...
Choosing Keywords
When
you are trying to determine which keywords you want to use on
your web pages or in your marketing campaigns, it is important
to research your options through one of the popular Keyword Research
tools such as WordTracker or Keywords Analyzer.
WordTracker
(unlimited free trial available)
Keywords
Analyzer (this link will give you a $14 discount)
WordTracker
is a web-based service and is currently the most popular keyword
research tool on the market. Keywords Analyzer is a software program
that you download and use
from your own computer. You can import, export and save your reports
for easy 'anytime' reference. You can even import data from WordTracker
for continued research and advanced options.
These tools will allow you to see just how popular any given search
term (or keyword) is, and will also give you alternate keywords
and keyword phrases to consider.
Let's
take a look at an example...
This
is a page on my web site where I discuss Business Ideas to help
people choose an online business to start: www.selfstartersweeklytips.com/ebiz/business-ideas.htm
First,
we'll go to WordTracker, and click the "Trial" button
in their menu across the top of the page. You have to fill in
your name & email address, and then click the button to start
the trial. The next page will ask you to enter a keyword or phrase...
so I'll type in "business idea".
WordTracker
will return a list of 15 related keyword phrases based on the
words that you enter. (The paid version of WordTracker, or Keywords
Analyzer, will return 100+.) Select one of those 15 choices and
click it to 'dig deeper' and see the options that are specific
to that keyword phrase. For this example, I'll click "business
ideas" (the plural form of my original keyword phrase).
When
you click that choice on the left, a new window opens to the right
with variations of the word/phrase and also shows you the approximate
number of daily searches for each
of those search terms. (You want to look at the "Predict"
column for this number.) Here's what we see for "business
ideas":
h0me
based business ideas 1349
h0me business ideas 869
small business ideas 546
business ideas 540
business ideas for h0me 371
h0me base business ideas 230
ideas h0me based business 192
online business ideas 165
ideas for a h0me based business 146
small business 0pportunities ideas 120
list of small business ideas 114
catering business ideas 110
internet business ideas 99
business names ideas 88
business ideas entrepreneur 81
We now have two things:
1)
The popularity of the topic itself, as well as the popularity
of individual keyword phrases
2)
A variety of phrases related to the topic which we can use both
on the web page, and also as ideas for additional pages or articles/reports
that will drive traffic to that web page.
I'm going to prune this list down to the phrases that I feel are
the most relevant to the "business ideas" page we are
working with:
h0me
based business ideas 1349
h0me business ideas 869
online business ideas 165
ideas for a h0me based business 146
internet business ideas 99
I removed all references to "small business ideas" because
these could be searches for either online or offline businesses
- and we really want to target visitors that are specifically
interested in the content we are offering. "Business ideas"
itself also seemed entirely too general when comparing it to the
other phrases on the list. Using a phrase that contains the term
"business ideas" (540 searches per day) will allow us
to optimize the page for 'overlapping terms'.
For
example "online business ideas" (165 searches/day) may
be found in a search for "online business", "business
ideas" or "online business ideas".
Note: Approximately
50% of all searches performed each day are unique. This means
that those search terms never register in the major Keyword Research
type programs such as WordTracker or Keywords Analyzer.
For
this reason, it's important to choose a topic that has a good
variety of popular keyword variations. In the original list above
where you see 15 variations, combined they equal a total of over
5,000 searches a day on that topic.
You
can even combine phrases and optimize for more than one, like
this:
"business
ideas for a h0me based business"
Which
allows you to optimize for:
business
ideas
h0me based business
business ideas for h0me
ideas h0me based business
ideas for a h0me based business
("for"
and "a" are considered Stop Words, and usually aren't
considered in a general search query)
Once you have pruned your list of keywords down, and considered
any combinations of those keywords, it's time to analyze the competition
to see which one would be easiest to rank well for.
You
can walk through this process with me by reading over a recent
issue of SSWT where we discussed creating affiliate sites:
www.selfstartersweeklytips.com/archives/122104.htm
(scroll down and find "Let's take a look at the Competition")
Often people think that the number of results in a Google
search is a good indication of the number of competitors for the
keyword searched. Not true. That just happens
to be the number of pages on the web that contain that word or
phrase... not necessarily the number that are *optimized* for
it ;)
You
will usually find that it is fairly easy to get in the top ten
results, unless you choose a super-competitive word or phrase
(such as "h0me based business ideas" > 1349/day).
The only way to know for sure is to analyze the "on the page"
and "off the page" optimization of the top ten results
that are already listed... and determine whether you can do better
with your own page.
I
like to choose keyword phrases that are fairly easy to rank well
for (ie don't take a lot of time or effort). These less competitive
terms usually have a lower number of searches... but they are
usually more specific, too. And those more specific search terms
tend to convert better than the general terms do ;)
For this particular page:
www.selfstartersweeklytips.com/ebiz/business-ideas.htm
...
I would choose the keyword phrase "online business ideas".
It's definitely more specific than just "business ideas"
yet still contains that more popular phrase - and, after analyzing
the competition, it appears to be fairly easy to obtain a top
ten listing for it.
Remember, all of the keyword phrases that you DON'T use from your
list will make great sub-headings, sub-categories, articles titles,
newsletter topics & additional web pages!
Using Keywords
First, let's cover "on the page optimization". This
refers to the locations on your web page where you place or use
your Primary Keyword Phrase. (You'll often hear it referred to
as that: your Primary Keyword Phrase - this is the main search
term that you are optimizing any given page for.)
1) Directory / File Name
If
you have already created your website, I wouldn't recommend going
back through it to change all of your file names. However, when
adding new pages or creating a new site, it makes sense to include
your keywords in the directory names and file names. This helps
to "define" your pages to both your visitors and to
the search engines.
For
the term "online business ideas" you can name the page:
online-business-ideas.htm
-or- /online/business-ideas.htm
Search engines treat hyphens as spaces, allowing them to read
the individual words in a file name or directory name.
In
both cases the search engines will read the phrase "online
business ideas". Again, this doesn't hold a lot of weight
in and of itself, so I wont make any changes to the file name
I already chose for this particular page (business-ideas.htm).
2) The Title Bar
The
Title Bar is considered the most valuable piece of real estate
on your web page - and for more reasons than one. First, the
search engines look here for a general "summary" of
the content of your page. It's important that you use your Primary
Keyword Phrase at the very beginning of the Title.
You'll
find the code for your Title Bar in the heading of your page,
towards the top. If you look at the HTML code for you page, you'll
see something like this:
<html>
<head>
<title>Online Business Ideas :: Easy, Inexpensive
&
Creative Ways to Start an Online Business</title>
Between the <title>
and </title>
is where you want to place your page title, which should begin
with your Primary Keyword Phrase as in the example above.
In
addition, it's *important* to word it so that it will interest
searchers that are scanning the search results where your listing
appears. A title that is "stuffed with keywords" or
doesn't make any sense to human readers, will not result in a
very high click-through rate.
3) Text Header
Your
text header is the heading at the very beginning of your content
area that defines the content on that page. In HTML code, it will
look like this:
<h1>Online
Business Ideas</h1>
You
can also create sub-headings, or headings in smaller sizes, by
changing the number in the tag. Try using <h2>,
<h3> or <h4>
to get an idea for how they will look on your page.
The
text that is placed between these 'heading tags' is given consideration
when the search engines are determining what your web page is
about, so you will want to use your Primary Keyword Phrase here
as well.
4) Within The Content
You
should use your Primary Keyword Phrase a few times throughout
the text on your page. Some people say that 'proximity' is important,
and that you should use your
Primary Keyword Phrase near the beginning and also near the end
of your page.
What
you DON'T want to do is make your page sound "keyword stuffed".
You want it to flow well and to make sense to your human visitors.
Be sure to also use alternate combinations (such as other keywords
on your original list, or logical uses in the everyday language).
This
is where "SEO Copywriting" comes in. I posted one of
my favorite tips on this topic in a recent blog post at:
http://clicknewz.blogspot.com/2005/04/getting-traffic-making-sales.html
5)
Outbound Links
Link
out to relevant resources using keyword rich anchor text. Why?
Because who you link TO (and how) is an obvious indication of
what *your* page is about.
Anchor Text is the text that you link a URL to:
<a
href="url-here">variation of your keyword
here</a>
This can be an authority site, an affiliate program, a directory,
a forum, or any other relevant web page on the same topic as your
page. The rule of thumb is to recommend a reputable resource that
will benefit the visitors that are reading your page.
Any of these optimization factors alone do not carry very much
weight. In fact, "on the page optimization" itself doesn't
carry much weight in comparison to your "off the page optimization".
However, in a very competitive market - or even slightly competitive
- it's wise to cover all of your bases.
"Off the Page Optimization"
1) Internal Linking
This
is how you link to your web page from the other pages within your
own site. You can add a link to a new page to your site-wide navigation,
or you can link to the page from relevant web pages where it makes
sense.
Adding
a link to a new page, from an existing (and already indexed) page,
will allow the 'spiders' to find the new page the next time that
they crawl your site. For this reason, it's important to put the
link on one of your main pages.
You
want to use your Primary Keyword Phrase in the Anchor Text when
setting up your internal links. Here is an example:
<a
href="link-to-new-page">Primary Keyword
Phrase here</a>
In
our example above, it would look like this:
<a href="http://www.selfstartersweeklytips.com/ebiz/business-ideas.htm">
Online Business Ideas</a>
Which
would appear on a web page like this: Online
Business Ideas
2)
Inbound Links
There
are two factors to Inbound Links: Link Popularity and Link
Reputation. This refers to the number of pages that link back
to yours, and also the quality and relevancy of those pages. The
goal is to gain as many high-quality inbound links as you can
from relevant pages (pages with similar but non-competing content).
At
the present time, this is the most important optimization technique
and the one you should focus on the most.
This
works exactly the same as Internal Linking, except that you obtain
links from relevant web pages outside of your domain. For a full
explanation, see:
Link
Strategy - Tips For Gaining Quality Inbound Links!
(You'll
find it about halfway down the page at the link above,
which is titled "Using Competition To Your Advantage".)
EXAMPLE
(these
examples are subject to change at any time as the search engines
fluctuate)
I have a page set up to give away Mike Litman's "Greatness
Held Hostage" CD which I have optimized for "how to
become a millionaire". According to my stats, this page was
found through the search engines almost as many times for the
phrase "mike litman". It currently
ranks #4 on Google for that search term:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=mike+litman
...
And #9 on Yahoo for "how to become a millionaire":
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=how+to+become+a+millionaire
(Ranking
#8 & #11 on MSN.com)
There
were also a significant number of visitors that entered from the
search engines after searching the title of Mike's book ("Conversations
With Millionaires"), which that same page ranks #4 for in
the Google Search:
http://www.google.com/search?&q=conversations+with+millionaires
This
is a good example where it pays to use every logical combination
of keywords within your content on any given page. While the page
was only 'intentionally' optimized for the phrase "how to
become a millionaire", it is getting traffic from several
other relevant phrases that are found within the content.
RESOURCES / REVIEWS
XSitePro:
This program is a great all-in-one program for those of us that
build large content sites or affiliate-based sites. If you are
new to SEO, or unsure about doing it manually across all of your
pages & sites, this would be a perfect match for you. It also
takes all of the headaches out of site design --> no HTML knowledge
or SEO skills are needed to use this program for creating websites.
Finding
niches & creating content for them: This
is a new topic at the SSWT Forum, and you are welcome to join
in with your own tips & suggestions... and to ask additional
questions too if you like.
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Got questions? Want to discuss a particular eBiz topic? Meet us
over at the SSWT Discussion Forum! Go to: http://www.SelfStartersWeeklyTips.com/forum/
