by Matt McGee
One World Telecommunications
posted: March 26, 2004
First, let's make it clear what this article is NOT about: it's
not about the words you will choose to place in your META "keywords"
tag. (The keywords tag is almost useless these days, anyway.)
This is about choosing the right words and phrases to target with
your overall search marketing efforts. Without doubt, this is the
first and most important step of any search marketing effort. Whether
you're using paid search marketing (such as Google's AdWords program)
or trying to optimize your site "organically" to rank higher in
regular (free) search results, you must target the best words and
phrases for your site and your customers.
Your ultimate goal is to get targeted traffic visiting
your web site. "Targeted" is the key there. It doesn't matter if
you get
10,000 visitors a day looking for "green widgets" if the only thing
you sell is "purple wudgets". You'll have a lot of traffic and
no sales. But if you get 1,000 targeted users -- people looking
for purple wudgets -- you're bound to convert some of that traffic
into sales (assuming your web site is good enough to convert visitors
into customers).
Pretend You're Your Customer
So how do you begin to choose the right keywords and phrases to
bring in targeted traffic?
A good first step is to get inside your
customers' brain. If your customer
is
using
a search
engine
to
try to find
information
about your product or service, what words would he use to search?
You know your
products
and you know what distinguishes them. Focus on those things.
In other words, there may be 100 kinds of widgets. If your business
sells electronic widgets instead of manual, there's one direction
to target your key words and phrases. Ditto if you sell widgets
for businesses instead of home users. Using "electronic business
widgets" as a key phrase should bring in more targeted traffic
than just "widgets", which is too general. Do some brainstorming
to come up with an initial list of words and phrases you think
you'll need to target. This list should be at least 10-20 words
or phrases long, and perhaps a lot longer depending on the nature
of your business.
Use the Tools Available to You
Pretending you're a customer is a good place to start but it may
involve some guesswork on your part. You can reduce the amount
of guesswork and intuition by using some of the keyword-related
tools available to you. The goal now is pare down that list you
brainstormed into a shorter list of words and phrases that reflects
what your customers are actually searching for at Google, Yahoo,
or wherever.
None of
the tools listed below are perfect; each has limitations.
But in total, they'll give you
concrete
information
about the terms people use when using search engines. Take
your initial list of words/phrases and use these tools to
eliminate the ones that aren't used by searchers. Or, if your original list ended
up being short, use these tools to expand that to a larger list
based on actual search behavior.
WordTracker -
this is an online service that lets you see what words and phrases
are being searched for by search engine users. Access can be purchased
a day at a time, a week at a time, monthly, etc. There's also a
Tour that lets you see how it works, and you can sign up for a
free trial before buying.
Overture's
Search Term Suggestion Tool -- lets you see how often words
and phrases are searched for across Overture's distribution network
(which includes Yahoo, MSN, Alta Vista and many others as of this
writing). Note: this tool lumps plural and singular results into
one phrase, and it also ignores any punctuation -- two limitations
that may be important depending on the nature of your business.
Google
AdWords Keyword Suggestions -- part of Google's AdWords
system, but you can use this keyword suggestion tool whether or
not you create an AdWords account
and lastly, use your web site's Stats system. Most web stats software
(such as the Webalizer system OWT
offers to our Standard and Commerce Hosting clients) will include
data about search terms that visitors used when finding your site
from
a search engine. Pay attention to that list of terms and look for
opportunities to take advantage of the information.
Get Picky
By now you may have a much longer list than when you began.
This is when you have to get picky and narrow your list back down.
Choose the words and phrases that are most relevant to your web
site, your products and services, etc. Look for words or phrases
that will bring targeted traffic to your web site. Throw away 1-
or 2-word phrases that are too general, or have too many web sites
competing for those terms.
There's no magic number to aim for when narrowing your list down.
The nature of your business and industry will determine the appropriate
number of words and phrases to target.
Using Your Keywords
Now that you have a final list, it's time to put these keywords
and phrases to work for you. The most important words and phrases
-- your "main" group of 4-5 words/phrases-- should be written about
on your web site's home page. Second level words and phrases should
be written about on other pages of your site.
In fact, every word or phrase you select is an opportunity
to create more content on your web site. If one of your phrases
is "electronic business widgets", create a page on your site with
great content dedicated solely to electronic business widgets.
Do the same with other targeted phrases you've chosen. Don't worry
about "keyword density" on these pages -- write naturally about
the product or topic with your visitors' needs in mind.
Using your keywords and phrases to create more targeted content
on your web site means more pages can be listed in search engines.
It also means more potential for incoming links
from other sites, and more targeted traffic. Which is, as we
said above, the ultimate goal.
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