Keywords for Better Search Engine Results

November 1, 2010 by Ray

Keep the search engines happy!
Website traffic received from people finding you in search engine and directory listings is a beautiful thing. Not only is it cheaper than advertising, you automatically have motivated prospects, assuming the search term they entered is the main topic of the page on your site that they land on. It’s many times more difficult to rank on the first three pages of results than it was just a couple years ago, due to the exponential growth of
the web. Use every tool at your disposal to shoot for the top!

Generate a list of keywords
Keywords and keyword phrases are the “search terms” entered into Yahoo or Google or any other listing of sites. If your site is built to satisfy human visitors, you’re off to a good start with the search engines as well, but
a little tweaking can squeeze out a lot more visitors. Any word or phrase that someone may use to refer to a subject should be considered as part of the text in the page(s) discussing it. When keywords are part of your text, you have a chance of appearing in search engine results for those keywords. When you don’t specifically include them in your text, you’ll be out in the cold.

If there are lots of possibilities, the most popular and targeted words or expressions should be incorporated to increase your odds for the most traffic possible. For example, a website for “used cars” should consider various synonyms such as “autos”, “automobiles”, “sedans”, “pre-owned cars”, and particular makes and models. Any one page could use several terms interchangeably or distinct pages could be created for each term.
Your home page can contain more general terms and supporting pages will target more specifics.

Analysis of “key phrases” is a critical step for both SEO and SEM (Search Engine Marketing = Pay Per Click marketing) so it is doubly important. Both entail determining what potential customers type when looking for information and using those exact words and phrases to increase visibility in the search results for the most relevant terms for your business. Yes, web surfers help you write your text!

Generate a list of your keywords, considering technical terms, common usage, and even slang terms and phrases since different people will search for your product in different ways. Prior to finalizing your text, research, brainstorm, visit other websites, check a thesaurus for synonyms, ask your friends and definitely use tools such as the Google Keyword Tool. For many sites, your state or city or town can be an important keyword, since surfers may type in a search for “buy cars in Boston”.

The Google Keyword Tool is the top device for helping you climb the charts, and is free! Enter what you feel is a generic phrase into the Keyword Variations Tab and your results are the most important terms (when ranked by ‘search volume’) for that topic which searchers use to describe it. For pay per click advertising, it even shows the terms where there is the greatest and least competition.

Google Traffic Estimator is also free and uses historical results to predict traffic for selected phrases. WordTracker is another popular tool for determining keywords. Abakus Topword Key Phrase Density checker can also assist with creation of “Title” and “META tags”. These are important coded instructions that appear in the invisible, or HEAD section of a web page and are used by Search Engines to help “index” the page in appropriate
SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages). Finally, SEObook website provides a search volume comparison tool.

Search term comparison is a great way to compare popularity of terms and company names, so you can concentrate on including the terms most likely to be searched for. Use the free tool: Google Trends.

Choose your favorite tools and go ahead and ask your customers what they search for! Learn more in my Boost Your Website’s Profitability book!

Getting Serious about Web 2.0

September 29, 2010 by Ray

The Internet is changing at the speed of light. It’s important to keep up with new developments (and new opportunities) if you want to make the most of your online marketing. Social Networking sites have exploded in popularity, even as we all try to figure out how to best use them.

Go ahead and dive in! Most sites are free and you only learn by doing. What I do can be an example for you… Webmaster Ray (and entries in this blog) can now be found on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social networking sites. The list will grow. Each of us needs to experiment to see which site(s) and which tools benefit us most. This is true both for business or personal use such as my running sites.

Internet Marketing- Your Home Business

September 20, 2010 by Ray

Internet Marketing usually refers to an eCommerce site, but the concept can be used by any business or organization.

You may have a home business, side business, MLM (Network Marketing, Direct Marketing) business or even an individual product or service you wish to promote. “Internet Marketing” is simply the online promotional techniques to increase traffic to the website you’ve created for it.

How To Make Money in MLM / Network Marketing Even If You’re Not A Salesman!

Network Marketing (aka Multi-Level Marketing or MLM) can be the ideal home-based business. On the surface, the lucrative cash earnings potential for Network Marketing draws our interest. But we all realize that a certain amount of sales skills are necessary for any business to be successful. This is even more true with MLM, since product prices are often higher than the retail store competitors.

You don’t have to have a “Type A” personality to make money!
There are so many Network Marketing opportunities around that we’ve all come into contact with a friend or relative “trying to sell us something”. This brings up all the negative feelings associated with “in your face” salesmanship where the prospect often feels so uncomfortable that they may not even want to hear about something they’d otherwise be interested in.

These days, with so many product and service options, and everything accessible through the internet, many of us would prefer to make our own decisions instead of being sold something by a salesman (especially when he’s your brother-in-law). To take advantage of people’s ability and desire to make their own decisions, we need to offer our product instead of sell it. For softer spoken (or even reserved) MLM’ers, go for the soft sale, rather than the hard one for better results. Here’s a list of ways to do that successfully:

1. Market a product you believe in, and use it!
2. Allow prospects to find you, from around your area or around the world.
3. Be your own affiliate, for an even softer sell.
4. Email marketing makes MLM more personal.
5. Prove that you are reputable and proficient in your field.
6. Treat it like a REAL business.

See details of this list here.

Articles and Press Releases for SEO

July 7, 2010 by Ray

Sending articles and press releases to the internet can bring traffic in two ways. First, a good article will lead readers to your site for more information. Also, when articles are posted at various internet directories, the embedded links to your site improve it’s quality rating with Google.

Article Writing and Syndication
Writing articles is a popular method of generating links, if your content is appealing to visitors and to webmasters. One good article could create many links and significant traffic to your website.

Write articles and submit them to syndication websites such as GoArticles, AcmeArticles and ArticleDashboard.com. You should include a brief bio and links to your site with each article submitted. When others are searching for content for their own site, they might use yours, which includes the link to your site. There is no cost and you can often choose your own anchor text (keywords) and pages to link.

You can join several of these article directories and submit the same article to each, simply logging in after you’ve created your account with each. Post as many as you have time for. Others include http://ArticleMarketer.com, http://Add-Articles.com.

Prepare material for other websites
Similar to writing articles, in this case you are directly supplying content to a related website, with your “payment” in the form of links to your site and possibly enhancements such as “partner” status. Everyone wants good unique content, so others may find it in their interest to publish your work. Approach webmasters or look for announcements on related websites.

Press Releases
Press releases can drive interested traffic to your website and some PR wires allow authors to include website links. Some services charge and others offer free options. If you pay, your releases are made available to a larger market. http://PRLeap.com and http://PRWeb.com are two popular examples. More marketing tools are available at http://www.attractweb.com/products.php

Keywords bring traffic

June 18, 2010 by Ray

Provide quality content, including the specific keywords that visitors are looking for.

Keywords and content are the most important factors for your pages to rank high in search engines (at no expense to you). Make it easier for people to find you by incorporating the words and phrases they’re searching for. Short paragraphs and bullet points are easiest to glance over.

Keyphrases are strings of words typed into search engines to produce more relevant results. If someone is looking for a pest control service in Denver, they may punch in “pest control Denver”, so if you own such a company in that area, you want those words to appear in the text of your home page.

Directories and search engines are becoming more powerful in producing the most suitable results for each keyphrase. So put yourself in your customers’ shoes and consider the most popular terms to include. Ask Webmaster Ray about the “Google Keyword Tool”.