Internet Marketing for Beginners – Increase Search Engine Ranking and Traffic to Your Website
Search Engine Optimization is a huge topic and there is a great deal of information available on the internet. Keyword research is only a part of the entire package, yet for someone who is just starting a blog or article writing, understanding the basics of keyword research is enough to get started.
Today’s post is the third and final (for now) on the topic of keyword research. As I delve deeper into the topic and learn and apply more, I will share that information. The first post referred to was on basic keyword research and the second was on how to do keyword research.
Your goal in doing keyword research should therefore be to find and compile a list of keywords, keyword phrases or long tail keywords that have the following characteristics:
1)           A reasonable number of searches each month. Keep in mind that while you want to used words that people are looking for in your blog and article titles, headlines, and body, you’ll want to pay attention to the number of results.
2)           Your likelihood of getting on the first page of Google for your topic will be affected by your competition for similar keywords. For example, a keyword search volume of 2 million means that the keyword is popular, but there is less likelihood of you getting on the first page of Google using that keyword. Smaller results of 1,500 – 2,000 would indicate that there are people searching for those words or phrases but you’ll be competing with less websites. These are sometimes referred to as low competition keywords. Hence, the greater likelihood of appearing on the first page of Google Search results. So keyword count is important.
3)           Profitability of a keyword or keyword conversion is important if your goal is to monetize your site. An additional step may be helpful to determine if the keywords that met the previous two criteria also have a monetary value.
You can do this by checking if the web pages that show up in the results have any paid ads on them. This is by no means a guaranteed test, but it can give you a general idea if paid advertisers saw value in those keywords.
Your ultimate goal for doing all of this research is to find keywords that will allow your posts and articles to increase search engine ranking and traffic to your website.
FINAL WORDS: Enrich your posts and articles with keywords, but avoid ‘stuffing’ as that will have a negative effect on the search engines. Make sure to do a keyword density analysis so that your keywords have a density of 1 – 3% and flow smoothly throughout the post or article.
THANK YOU: I’d like to thank the reader who asked the question because in doing research to provide a comprehensive answer, I’ve learned more about keyword research so that I can better optimize my posts and articles as well and am able to share valuable information with my readers.
Yvonne
P.S. A good resource and a must read is “SEO Fast Start” by Dan Thies, which you can download for free at http://www.seofaststart.com/download
Thank you for the post Yvonne!
Going back to your #3…this is something that finally sunk in with me this year.
I actually go to the google keyword tool and take a look at number of searches as well as estimated PPC costs. Gives you that general idea which let’s you know if and how much advertisers are spending.
1You totally laid out how to do keyword searches and how important it is. I have to admit, I don’t keep up with it likeI should because when I write, I just go with the flow. Thanks for reminding me that I BETTER be paying attention to my keywords to keep my SEO going strong!
2You’re welcome, Jeff. I like that ‘finally sunk in’ bit because like you I’ve been hearing about the importance of doing keyword research but it took quite a while to sink in and for me to start doing it, and even now, I’m still learning.
3I know what you mean, Martha. Sometimes ideas just flow and you want to get your thoughts in writing and not disturb the flow, but it does make a difference. However, the thought of going over my close to 200 posts and adding keywords is too daunting a task.
What I now find helpful is to have certain topics in mind, do some keyword research, which I export to an Excel spreadsheet and print out the spreadsheet to keep on my desk or have the spreadsheets up on my computer. This way you can incorporate the keywords and phrases naturally.
4Great tips, Yvonne! Assessing the ease of entry of a niche (in terms of ranking on Google, I mean) is soooo important.
Have you ever heard of or used Market Samurai? It’s software that let’s you analyze your competition on the first page of Google (among other things). You type in the keyword you want to rank for and it shows the top 10 Google results with the number of backlinks they’ve got, the age of the domain, the domain’s PageRank, whether or not the keywords are in the title tag, description, meta keywords, etc. It just makes it a lot easier to assess the chances of you getting onto the first page.
You can also check estimated traffic, profitability, etc.
Anyway, it’s pretty awesome, and I’d recommend it to anyone serious about evaluating the niche they want to enter. And this isn’t a spam comment, I swear! I’m not a Market Samurai affiliate, I don’t promote it on my blog, and I’m not an employee or anything, I just think it’s a sweet piece of software.
Thanks again for the great post!
5Great wrap-up of your keyword research series, Yvonne, and thanks for the SEO Fast Start resource from Dan Thies (just wish it wasn’t 100 pages long!) Don’t know how “fast” I can get through it. 🙂
And I think I’ll take Tristan up on his suggestion to check out the Market Samurai software. Don’t let the cat out of the bag just yet, okay? But I’m heading into a totally different direction online and I’ll need to research my niche.
Write On!
6Thanks, Tristan and Melanie.
Tristan: Yes, I have heard of it but have never checked it out. As Melanie said it sounds like a valuable piece of software that’s definitely worth checking into. I’d first use it to evaluate my site then broaden my search for any new markets.
Melanie: It does sound as if Market Sumari would definitely enhance your research. All the best in whatever direction you take. You’re so welcome for SEO Fast Start. It is a lengthy document, but just picture it as the elephant you have to eat and take one bite at a time 🙂
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