Keyword research and the selection, of such, is very important in the overall SEO process.
Whenever I meet with a potential SEO client we talked about the importance of choosing the correct keywords. After further explanation of keywords, and the affects of SEO, I'm usually able to walk away from the meeting with a signed contract.
However, on occasion, in an effort to keep my clients costs down, some decide to do their own keyword research and even handle their own page optimization. Some clients are capable of undertaking such tasks. However, I always provide some guidance, to my client, with respect to doing their keyword research.
Here are a few ideas I share with my clients that they should keep in their mind when selecting keywords:
- Brainstorm a list of keywords someone might use to find the product/service that you're offering.
- Use a keyword tool finder (http://www.wordtracker.com/) to see how many searches have been done on these keywords.
- The keyword tool will also make suggestions of related keywords to try (don't disregard all suggestions).
- Conduct searches of your selected keywords (use quotation marks around your search term for stronger results) in Google, Yahoo, and MSN to see who else is out there.
- Evaluate the popularity of the sites you discover by checking out their Google Page Rank and Alexa ranking.
- Is regional search important to your company, i.e. city and state?
- Try to keep each page of your company's web site focused on one (1) or two (2) keywords, NO more than three (3).
Choosing keywords that are attainable, yet ones that still provide a reasonable search frequency for your particular industry, is of utmost importance. The selection of your keyword phrase should be targeted to help you bring qualified traffic to your site.
Keywords are (and I'll steal a tag line from an old Ford commercial) "job one". However, there are many on-site factors that play a role in your search engine rankings.
In my opinion, and according to a some SEO experts, the most important elements of your web site, with regards to search results on Google, is the title tag. The title tag is almost always the heading Google chooses for each of its listings. With that in mind, make sure you have your keyword phrase in your title tag.
Don't disregard the Meta Description tag. It is still used, occasionally, by Google as the description which appears in the search results themselves. While this used to be a more common practice, Google tends to use it most often on sites with very limited content, or those which are flash based. This is still an important element of your web page.
With respect to the overall ranking of your site, keyword density plays the most important role; however, it is not as cut and dry as it once was. At one time there was a magic number that, when used, could almost guarantee top rankings.
Today, this is no longer the case. The ideal density varies from industry to industry, and phrase to phrase. If you want to find the density you should aim for, take the top 10 or 20 search results for your keyword phrase, and see what percentage of keywords those sites are using. I'm sure if you aim for the percentage (of keywords) that these sites are using, you'll wind up in the ballpark.
Sprinkle your keyword phrases in your content. Start as close to the top of the page as possible, and continue to use your phrase throughout the page, sticking with your optimum percentage. Do not overwhelm the search engine spiders and site visitors with a bombardment of targeted phrases, rather use them in a natural, meaningful, and strategic fashion.
Never forget synonyms! Yes, synonyms, for your target phrases, are also very effective when it comes to SEO. So make sure you use them within your body text on your site. Google uses these synonyms to tie in the overall relevance of the page for your main target phrases, which can improve your page ranking.
Jeffrey Sloe
440-725-3729
Internet Marketing Advisors
Professional SEO Services
http://trivita.healthfulchoice.com
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