|
How to choose the right keywords for your
site
Selecting the right keywords is a crucial step if you want
to promote your web site to the search engines.
Keywords are words which users enter into a search engine
to find information on the subject of his interest. In contrast
to keywords, key phrases refer to two or more keywords that
users combine to form a search query, for example "music"
is a keyword and "music shop" is a key phrase.
It's important that your web site is found for the right
keywords and key phrases. The "right keywords" are
keywords that your potential customers are actually looking
for.
High search engine rankings for the wrong keywords will not
bring your business many customers. On the other side, you'll
get many new customers if your site is optimized for keywords
and key phrases that your customers often use.
To find the right keywords and key phrases for your site,
do the following:
Step 1: Build a key phrase list
Many people think that they know their ideal key phrases.
They are often wrong. The reason for that is that it's hard
to separate yourself from your business and to find out
what and in which ways your customers think.
To find out which key phrases work best for you is to ask
your customers, your friends and other people from outside
your company. Business owners are often surprised that their
customers don't speak the same language that they do. For
example, if you have a web site about "rhinoplasty",
your customers might search for "nose job" because
they simply don't know the word "rhinoplasty".
Step 2: Evaluate your key phrase list
Once you have build the key phrase list, you have to find
out which phrases will bring you the highest amount of traffic.
You should consider the following three important aspects
when choosing your key phrases:
a) Popularity
People must really use the key phrases for their searches.
Services like Wordtracker
help you to find out how many people search for a certain
key phrase.
The higher the number, the more traffic you can expect
from high search engine rankings under that keyword.
But don't stop at this point. The popularity of a
keyword is not enough to determine if you should use the
key phrase on your web site.
b) Relevance and specificity
These two aspects are equally important as the popularity
of a key phrase. Let's assume that you want to have a high
search engine ranking for "cars". Let's also assume
that you only deal with Toyota cars and only in Chicago.
Although "cars" might have a much higher popularity
score than "toyota cars" or "toyota dealer
chicago", the keyword "cars" would also be
used by people looking for Chrysler cars, Volkswagen cars
and even car magazines.
With the third, longer key phrase "toyota dealer chicago",
you can be reasonably sure that a much higher percentage
of your visitors will be looking for what you offer. The
longer phrase will also make it much easier to obtain high
search engine rankings because longer key phrases are less
competitive.
c) Motivation of web surfer
It's also important to understand the motivation of the
user. While web surfers searching for "cars" or
"toyota cars" might be interested in learning
more about cars or Toyota cars, people searching for "toyota
dealer chicago" are interested in purchasing a car.
Even if the first two keywords might have higher popularity
numbers, the last key phrase will deliver better results
for you. Even subtle distinctions between key phrases can
make a difference on the quality of the traffic they attract,
for example if the key phrase contains the word "free"
then you might not get the visitors who are ready to buy
from you.
Finding the right key phrases is vitally important for your
search engine optimization campaigns. High search engine rankings
for the wrong keywords can only deliver poor results.
If you start your search engine optimization campaign with
the process described above, you can dramatically improve
the performance of your web site.
|
