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Keywords - Your Key to Internet Marketing Positioning |
Keywords are the words which people type into search engine "search" boxes to find what they are looking for. The more your website contains keywords that people are looking for, the more likely your site will be found and accessed. This is so basic, but most websites are developed from the inside out, not from the potential customer's point of view. In fact some websites don't even have the VERY WORDS which people would most likely use to find their site - so no wonder no one does unless they already know the web address (URL).
Every second of every day, millions of people are using Google, Yahoo and other search engines to find the information they want. And the vast majority of them start by typing keywords either directly into a search engine home page, or using the search box on their browser toolbars if they have a new version of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari or others.
So - here are all those swarming bees looking for your nectar. Will they find it or pass you by? It all depends on how you use keywords.
There are several important locations for keywords on your website. If you don't hit them all, you're leaving "nectar" on the table:
The title of your web page - If you look up at the very top of your web browser right now, you will see the words "Keywords: Your Keys To Market Positioning" followed by the name of your browser, such as "Microsoft Internet Explorer". That is the title of your page, and it is the most important source of keyword information and ranking because it is what the search engine spiders see first and consider most important about each page. In general titles should not be more than about 65 characters, and the shorter the better. Avoid very short words (articles) like "a," "an" or "the" which are not considered significant by search engine spiders and, some people say, are "stop" words that reduce search engine impact.
The headline of your web page - The headline is the main line of text at the top of the page. On this page it is blue type and set in Arial bold. Many web pages do not have a headline, or they use graphics for headlines. Search engine spiders cannot see graphics or pictures. They can only see text. To see what a spider sees, go to the top of your browser, click on the View menu, and select Source. A page which is search engine optimized will have the headline marked with top-level headline tags that look like this: Some Kinda Headline. A page which does not have its headlines tagged like this is deficient in search engine optimization. Also the closer the keywords are to the start of the headline, the more they tell the search engine, "these words are of prime importance."
The text of your web page - Text is what you are reading now. It is the main body of the web page. Your keywords should be as close to the start of the text as possible, near the end, and sprinkled in between in a normal manner. For example, this page was not written by straining to use the term "keywords" over and over again. Too much of that can be considered "keyword stuffing" by the search engines. Let it be natural. Maybe 5 times per page. In general what people like to read, search engines like also.
The links on your website - Navigation links are the clickable words, usually on the left, right or top of a page, which let you move from page to page on a website. Keywords in those navigation links tell the search spiders that they are important for the site. For example this website uses "keywords" as a navigation link. That is important. It does not use "page" as a link. While pages are important, there is no content specifically identified by that word, so there is no link using that keyword.
Links to your website from other sites - These are usually called backlinks or inbound links. The keywords in these links is especially important. For example if there was a link on a major site like CNN.com that said "search engine optimization" with a clickable link to this website, that would enhance our rankings in the search engines. Getting inbound links is extremely important for good search engine ranking, as we explain on our inbound links page. And the more often the links on external pages contain the keywords which are important for your website, the more it benefits your rankings.
Finding Good Keywords
Keywords can be found or generated a number of ways. In the past, a favorite free tool was the Overture keyword selector tool available at http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
However, since Yahoo bought Overture, this tool does not always work. So another option is the free keyword suggestion tool at SEObook.com, http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword/
This excellent tool will generate a table of keywords that are variations on your primary keyword. The far left column shows the keywords from Overture, which now represents the Yahoo network including Yahoo.com and several related sites. The program also estimates the number of searches per month for the same term on Google and MSN Live. And it includes links to other keyword suggestion tools.
A current favorite for many in the SEO world is Trellian's Keyword Discovery service. You can get 100 keywords for each search free, or pay a monthly fee and get many hundreds more, as well as other features not available for free. Keyword Discovery results are shown in the KD column of the SEObook table. For more details, click on the topmost word in the KD column and go directly to the Keyword Discovery website. There you are asked to re-enter the search term and a code in a "captcha" box to prove you are a real person and not a spammer's robot. KD will then show you the top 100 related keywords for your search term, along with an approximate count of searches per month.
But what if you are planning to create a website to try to sell something that is very competitive? Suppose you enter a search term like "furniture" or "television." You may be excited to find that many thousands of people per month are searching for these terms - but they are so competitive, the chance of your new site rising to the top are very slim unless you have a lot of time and money to invest. A good way out of this dilemma is to use a tool call Wordtracker (.com). You can enjoy unlimited free trials of its basic service. Wordtracker will show you not only how many searches per month are being conducted for one search engine (current MSN), but also how competitive each keyword is.
A very smart guy named Sumantra Roy invented something called the Keyword Effectiveness Index or KEI. Briefly, this is a measure of the number of searches for each keyword compared to the competition for it. A keyword that has a pretty high number of searches but low competition can generate a KEI over 100, which is quite good. Keywords that have high competition, even if there are a lot of searches for it, may generate a KEI of less than 10, or sometimes even less than 1, like 0.27. Ugh. Those low KEIs mean that these keywords are going to be either extremely competitive, or unpopular in terms of search volume, or both.
You can play around with the free version of Wordtracker for hours, but the paid version is so much better, we highly recommend that you purchase a subscription at least for a week so that you can experience the full benefits of all its resources.
Overture, Keyword Discovery, and Wordtracker will all give you numeric ratings for each keyword they suggest based on the prime keyword you enter. But if all you want is a list of many related keywords (no numeric ratings), it's hard to beat Google's own keyword suggestion tool. This is accessible inside each Adwords account. It is also available as a standalone, currently located at https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal.
Learn more at About AuthorBuck Lawrimore is president of /www.seoim.com>Search Engine Optimization Internet Marketing blog.
Source: ArticleTrader.com
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