When consumers use keywords to search for your type of business, do the results point to your company or your competition? Because the right SEO keywords essentially grab potential customers by the wrist and lead them right to your business, it’s up to you to make sure you facilitate the meeting between the user and your website. Relevant keywords bump you to the top of search engine rankings; without targeted SEO keywords, you could be losing business 24/7.
While keeping tabs on your competition is necessary, you don’t want to completely mimic your SEO efforts against the opposition’s strategy. Taking the time to select specific keywords for your business and website is key to edging out the competition. The following steps help you choose and implement the best keywords for your website:
- Determine Your Site’s Platform
The best time to determine key elements of your SEO strategy is during the website design phase. Ask yourself key questions that force you to hone in on your intended audience and your content:
o What is your website’s focus?
o Who is your audience?
o What makes your website valuable?
Select keywords based on these answers, and conduct your own market research by asking current customers what words they would use to search for your website. Remember to use keywords that include products, services and general information.
- Research Keyword Popularity
Once you’re armed with keywords and phrases that accurately describe your business, products and services, you’ll need to determine how many other websites use the same keywords, and how many people actually use those keywords in their search efforts. To determine the answers of these questions, go to the Google Keyword tool or a paid tool such as RavenTools to find out the amount of results each of your keywords or phrases return. Additionally, you’ll find out what keywords people actually use to search for your type of business and all variations of those keywords.
- Keep Keywords on Your Page
You’re ready to dive in to the hard part – integrating your chosen SEO keywords and phrases into your content. First and foremost, make sure targeted keywords for a page are actually on that page. Use keywords within the title, in the content, in bold, in italics, etc. The key is to utilize your keywords in as many different ways as possible, without repeating words or using words that don’t pertain to your company or website. Search engines are smart; you’ll be banned if you try any sort of spam technique or deceitful tactic to gain visitors.
Other important elements for SEO integration include using META tags in the head section of your document, including common misspellings of relevant keywords, and using both singular and plural forms of keywords.
With a comprehensive SEO strategy, you’ll raise awareness of your business, increase your credibility and drive sales. It’s up to you to stay abreast of industry trends or changes. For best results, keep your keywords fresh to mirror evolving consumer search habits.
This guest post was provided by University Alliance and submitted on behalf of University of San Francisco. USF offers complete SEO training courses available 100% online and taught by leading industry experts. If you complete three of the required courses then you’ll earn an Internet marketing certificate.
Related articles
- Keyword Research – Why It’s the Foundation of Every Good SEO Strategy (eblogtip.com)
- 5 Excellent Websites to Check Keyword Ranking in Google (shoutmeloud.com)
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Twitter: kutahotelsbali
but sometime if to many keyword in you page can cause you website get penalty from Google cause it can recognize spam, from my experience the maximum main keyword at you page are 6 times …but i don now if any one had other experience ..
seminyak villas recently posted..Akasha Villa Seminyak
Twitter: schemjo
It can definitely harm your efforts if you insert too many keywords and it appears that you’re stuffing your content. It really depends on your content to say what is a good amount so 6 may or may not be correct.
If you only have a 400 word post then I’d say 1 or 2 times maximum would be a good amount. Above all make sure your content is readable and makes sense to people (forget about the spiders).
Twitter: nandimaan
Ya 2 keywords per 100 post,that means maximum of 8 keywords in a 400 word post.I just love to research on keyword by any tools, generally I use adwords keyword tools to get some real stat behind a keyword.It shows the reach and search of the keywords on daily basis.
Twitter: rumblinglankan
Keyword research is important in any SEO strategy and it is also important to optimize your articles for your specific keywords, this is why I find it strange that some blogger go for catchy post titles instead of keyword rich post titles
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Twitter: ronniedare
Determining site platform and targeted niche primarily is what most people fail to do. Good thing you put that subject first and upfront.
Ron recently posted..Philippine Azkals – Philippine Football Team
My great thanks for posting an article like this! Very useful indeed. Selecting keyword is very crucial when starting an online business! I myself get a lot of research done before finally deciding what keywords to be used. Deciding takes time and needs a lot of effort in gathering data. Thanks for the hints for a successful online business!
I would say that the best keywords for your business are those that get the traffic that converts. Now how will you be able to find that traffic? Well, there are some modifiers that can make all the difference.
For example if someone has a business with steel and his website can’t be the number one for steel, he can try “buy steel” “cheap steel” etc that will almost sure convert better then the keyword steel alone.
Now to rank for those keywords you need to look at your competition and of course, besides the on page optimization specified in the post you should always use those keywords in your links anchors.
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Twitter: schemjo
Agreed Alex – going for the long tail is definitely a way to rank. To take your example one step further you could use “buy steel in Tampa” or “cheap steel 33607″ (don’t forget about zip codes!)
Twitter: GizmosHub
I’ve been using the google keyword tool to find low competitive keyword, but I get more traffic from other keywords that I didn’t really target. I’m not complaining about getting traffic from those keywords, but I would like to get more traffic from the keywords I selected.
Do you know how can I achieve this?
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Twitter: danalingga
Simple but effective SEO Tips. Yeah, the core of SEO is the keywords and if can utilize the keywords in right way, our SEO can be called as success.
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Twitter: Sixth_Sense_Mkt
Keyword research is a must do for any SEO campaign. Now with Google Instant being rolled out as a permanent feature around the world it has made quality keyword research even more important.
Twitter: mani0993
I prefer using Keywords in the title & the url of the post.
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Twitter: DennisEdell
It’s come to my understanding recently that the whole “underline/bold/italic” keyword thinking is undated, what say you?
Twitter: MrsMoodyGermany
Hi Schemjo,
I guess I have done and practiced your tips above.
I preferred to use wordtracker, though now its getting sux because I had to enter email address or sort of things.
So I use adword tool again for now.
Thanks
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Twitter: seommotips
Using same word many times sometimes can be counter productive too! I had a page where more than 20 ebooks were available for downloads. I published with Download blabla book, Download blabla book and so on for all of those. Surprisingly found that the page never ranked well in SERP. I had better user that Download word only once and list the name of books with links. Keywords are very useful but over used ones can be devastating.
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Twitter: BlazingMinds
I’ve seen sites with over use of keywards just fall down with now SERP at all or so terrible, there is just no point, as you say, using the keywaords wisely and in the right quoter does seem to work better
Twitter: farbrornabil
Hey, Karen! I’ve got a tip for you guys. It’s very useful when it comes to researching keywords to optimize for.
Let’s say a phrase has 1000 exact searches every month. That doesn’t mean you get that much traffic. That would require you to have a CTR of 100% in the SERP which isn’t logical.
So take the amount of searches and divide it by two. That’s what I always do!
/Nabil, from Sweden.
Twitter: SEODISCOVERYorg
IMO, the hardest part of keyword research is finding a balance between 3 factors – the amount of search traffic, the level of competition, and how targeted the traffic will be. Sometimes it’s better to target a lower search volume even with more competition to get those visitors that will be most profitable.
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When I write a content on my site I never think of my keyword, all I do is just write and bookmark it on a few sites..that’s all! On the following days, I just see that I got a traffic from google and see that it was came from a keyword that I am not intended to use or not expected to get one. For now, I would say that you just need to continue writing your content and enjoy it and have a few comments and bookmark it on a do follow sites and that’s it. I know this one is very far from the topic but this is my style in writing an article or blog and I have a good traffic on that way.
Very straight forward article! I have used Wordtracker and Adwords before and I agree, the use of long tail keywords is very important. It’s sometimes hard to strike a balance between using keywords in an article and letting the info flow naturally. Thanks for the info!
Twitter: Steps2BuildSite
Nice post schemjo
Keyword research and optimizing the article for that keyword is important to rank higher in search engine! I always perform keyword research before writing any post.
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