IDEA ONE: THE IMPORTANCE OF KEY WORDSIn the world of marketing online, one topic comes up over and over with great regularity: site rankings. It can sometimes seem to be the 'holy grail' inside the highly competitive world of online marketing, where search engines principle supreme. The reality is that unless you have deep storage compartments indeed, SEO optimization in the long run will be cheaper than simply buying placement with click campaigns and advertisements.
Here is the good news. The bad news is that the process will be slow, and it can take months (and months and months) of dedicated effort to accomplish decent rankings (one reason you don't want to abandon people paid campaigns while optimizing your site). But it is well worth the time and effort in the end, since it addresses the one issue that is foremost any time marketing your product and services online: people use search engines for instance Google and MSN to do their looking. And search engine listings which can be highly ranked consistently outperform 'paid listings'.
So how do you obtain your site listed and ranked highly? Does it take dedicating your daily life fulltime to this effort, or specialized knowledge? The answer will be "yes" and "no". It can help tremendously to hire the assistance of a firm that specializes in SEO (and, in fact, that is highly recommended). They can give you professional guidance in this kind of arena, and steer you away from common mistakes.
But for those with a limited budget (which is many of us, nowadays, it seems) it's also possible to do your web page optimization, and work on a long-term campaign to help your internet site rise. It isn't easy (unlike those ads and books online that promise overnight success without effort), but by rolling up your shirtsleeves and diving inside, you can learn a tremendous amount, and help your site get found when people type in your products into search engines.
TIP TWO: SELECT YOUR KEYWORDS CAREFULLY
Search engine keywords are what lead people (as in potential customers) who enter phrases in their favorite search engine to your site. If they go onto Google, Excite, or other search engines and websites, and are looking for a specific item, keywords are those who they type in during their search.
To market effectively in their mind, you will need to think like them (this is the cornerstone of all excellent marketing). You will want to determine:
What phrases people enter when looking for your product, service, or content during their online searches (including the most frequent
misspellings, by the way). Not sure? Try looking at your web stats to your site. You should see an extremely valuable area called "search strings", with a listing of words underneath it.
These search strings are the phrases that truly brought people to your web site. Which ones were the most used? You'll want to note these. But you'll want to increase more.
Sit down for a minute, and think of every possible phrase people might use for looking for your product. At this point, don't edit yourself, just allow the words flow and write them down. If you sell employed Chevrolets in Alexandria, VA, you might come up with "used automobiles, used Chevrolets, vintage cars, reconditioned cars, Chevrolet dealers, Alexandria VIRTUAL ASSISTANT car dealers, Alexandria VA used cars", as just a commence.
By now, you should have a list. Go through that again, and decide which ones seem the most focused for your products or services. You want search engine keywords that will bring targeted customers in your site, who are interested in doing business with you, as well as the right keywords can help accomplish this. Be specific and relevant within your choices. Then, alphabetize your list, since some search engines and also directories list pages alphabetically; so use your best phrases in alphabetical order whenever feasible for better optimization.
Next, analyze which keyword phrases are reasonable for obtaining high rankings. While you may sell used automobiles, and want to get top rankings for that term, 'used autos' can be an extremely popular and general phrase, and odds are, difficult to have good rankings for. But if you sell used Chevrolets inside Alexandria, Virginia, then it's realistic to hope for high rankings for search results phrases for 'Alexandria used Chevrolets'. You'll also get a more targeted audience (think 'more more likely to buy from me'), since most of your customers will probably result from your locale).
At this point, you should have a set of keywords. If you have a very short one, or are receiving trouble thinking of some, you can gain access to specialist software at minimal cost. Just start a Google adwords strategy, or a CPC campaign on Overture. Each of these sites have "keyword suggestion" tools that will provide you with several keywords based on your product or service, and should include the relative popularity of each one.
TIP THREE: PLACE KEYWORDS AND PHRASES CAREFULLY
Once you have your keywords, you'll want to have used them in the right places. The goal is to help engines like google find your site for those phrases, so you will desire to place them in spots the engines look closely at. Such as the page Title, inside the meta tags, inside the planning tag, in the domain name (more about this in any later lesson), and the keyword tags.
You will also desire to sprinkle them liberally throughout the content (text) of your web site, with special consideration for the top of your page and its particular first paragraphs. This is especially important on your home (index page), which is one that most search engines will cache when spidering through. And you should, have some real content on your page, and not just a listing of keywords, or your site could go down in its search positions. Search engines do rank according to content relevancy, and your website that says "Our dealership provides quality used Chevrolet cars, reconditioned to fulfill our customer's needs, " (with at least 100 words regarding good, relevant content) will always rank higher than the web site that says, "cars, cars, cars, buy quality used Chevrolet automobiles, quality used cars are here". In addition, you won't drive away customers offended by poor quality writing and obvious over-usage of marketing phrases.
But you do desire to maintain a certain ratio of keyword density in your text message; a keyword density of 5 to 7% is usually advised. If you don't feel comfortable writing copy using keywords, a professional copywriter who specializes in online writing can assist you.
THREE COMMON MISTAKES TO AVOID
Mistake #1: One common error that numerous people make is to forget to place ALT tags for graphics. You may have a beautiful logo or graphic on your own web site, but if you don't have an alt draw, the search engines can't "read it". Be sure to spot keywords there, and to label graphics with names that mirror keywords.
Mistake #2: Always have text on your site. When making your site, search engines depend upon text to decide what your internet site is about. The more relevant the text, the better. The spiders and bots can't "read" graphics as stated above. Don't just make the text for the site a single big graphic, as some firms do. The search engines will skip on the graphic, and assume you have no content at all.
Blunder #3: Finally, please don't spam (by trying to 'hide' your keywords with a font the same color as the background, or repeating keyword phrases repeatedly in the title and meta tags). Search engines are now excellent at finding those that try to break the rules (and their technology for this is getting more sophisticated all the time), and will drop spammers from other indexes like a hot potato. So play by the principles, and when in doubt, ask an ethical SEO firm regarding advice, or visit one of the many excellent forums online (such as Jill Whalen's High Rankings Search results Forums).
Your site will rise more quickly, and enjoy increased rankings, if you follow these tips and their advice. Along with your traffic will increase, at no cost to you!
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