targeted key phrases

[toddieg]

Targeted key phrases

One of the most important things to keep in mind when marketing your website is your key phrase. You don't want to be lost somewhere deep in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) because surfers will never find you. Usually, if you don't come up within the first 3 pages, your site will be overlooked. In this article I will discuss some of my methods for targeting search phrases that best suit your website, and will bring you qualified traffic.

Think about it as a race for 1st place:

Let's pretend you're an online store that sells hats. Type in the phrase 'buy hats' into google and look at the number of results that come up (right now there are a little more than 3 million). Now pretend that each one of those pages are competition in the race for 1st place. Now winning the race might not be possible, placing somewhere within the top 30 can generate some traffic / business to your site.

Todd's TIP: Even though the search phrase 'buy hats' is extremely popular, the competition is fierce. Instead of targeting something like 'hats' or 'buy hats', you should pick something less generic such as 'buy mesh hats', 'buy military hats' or 'buy baseball hats' (Assuming you sell these products). When you type these phrases into the search engines you will see a much lower number of 'competing pages', giving you a much better advantage to get within 1-30. In addition, this technique generally brings more qualified traffic as opposed to visitor's who just surf on in and leave because you don't carry what they want.

How popular is your search phrase?

There are a couple of free tools out there that will give you a good idea of how good your key phrase is. The one I turn to first is usually overture's suggestion tool. (http://inventory.overture.com). Keep in mind that this is just a rough estimate. The results only come monthly and certain seasonal industries, such as travel, might see drastic changes in results depending on the time of year.

Word Tracker (www.wordtracker.com) is another great free tool to use. Word Tracker allows you to choose up to 30 key phrases for free and get an in-depth analysis on the popularity of the phrase. There is also a paid version available that has more phrases, more support and more features. I haven't personally used the paid service, but I hear that it is very worth it if you are serious about your online business.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You can freely reprint this article provided that you include the following resource box and live link(s).:


Todd Going is the Vice President of Site Tutor.com. He specializes in Search Engine Optimization, Web Development, Internet Marketing, Photoshop and Webmaster Resources. Please visit http://www.sitetutor.com for Tutorials, Information and help with your website.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------