Do-It-Yourself SEO: Finding the Right Keywords

You don't want just any website traffic. You want people who are looking for what you have to offer and who are likely to make a purchase. How do you get search engines to lead these targeted customers to your website? First, you must identify and use the most relevant search engine keywords—the ones most likely to be used by these potential customers. Remember, increased traffic does not equal increased sales; targeting and attracting interested customers translates into more buyers.

Keyword Essentials

What are keywords? Keywords are the words or phrases people type into a search engine (such as Google or Yahoo) to find what they're looking for. Search engines first analyze a website's content and then rank the results of the search in order of relevance based on the keywords entered. Naturally, you—and all of your competitors—want to be at the top of the search results page.

Identifying the right keywords is vital not only in obtaining higher rankings, but in connecting with qualified customers. Having a site with plenty of fresh, updated content of interest to your customers is even more critical. And having the content and keywords built into a cleanly coded, well-designed site that doesn't impede search engines is another necessity.

Creating Your List of Keywords

How do you find the right keywords? The first step is to brainstorm. Write down as many terms as you can think of that relate to your business and products or services. Think of your industry, description, solution. Go beyond industry-specific terms and think of terms customers would use. Use the Keyword Selector Tool or Wordtracker to generate more ideas. Start with as many as you can. You will then thin the list down to a handful by focusing on phrases that are relevant to your content and to your target audience. Try to identify words that equal sales and not just traffic.

A recent study found that searchers who used three to four words in their searches were ready to make a purchase. Those who searched with fewer words were still investigating and comparing. And those who searched with more than four words were looking for specific data and not likely to make a purchase. A single keyword, such as "software," will be too general to attract targeted traffic. To be most effective, your keywords should be phrases of two to four words.

Once you've identified all the possible keywords for your site, you need to determine which ones are the most effective. For each phrase under consideration, you will need to find its Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI). The KEI calculates the number of times a keyword is searched on compared with the number of competing web pages. This information provides you with a rating of how competitive a keyword is—or how difficult it will be to achieve top rankings for that keyword. The best keywords to use are those that people search on frequently but that won't be rendered useless bescause of intense competition. Useful research tools are Wordtracker and SearchGuild's Difficulty Checker.

Incorporating Your Keywords

Once you have researched and refined your keyword list, you must incorporate them in your website. Avoid using too many keywords on a single page—search engines consider that "spamming" and could ban your site. Incorporate your selected keywords in file names, page titles, meta tags, alt tags, and links as appropriate, without "stuffing." Each web page should focus on no more than three keywords. Ensure that your content is written for people first, search engines second. Then be patient. It can take as long as three months for search engines to reindex your website. Be sure you have keyword monitoring software installed on your web host so you can check on your results and modify your keywords as necessary.

About Cool Plum Design

Cool Plum Design is a full-service web design business. We work with clients throughout the United States who need to represent their business online. We offer quality, customer-focused solutions integrating design, functionality, and content.

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