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Important Reminders About Keyword Research

On February 28, 2010, In SEO, by Nick Stamoulis

Depending on what type of website or business you have you will most likely be conducting different types of keyword research during the initial onsite search engine optimization process. If you have a smaller service based business with ten pages on your website you will take a different approach than if you have an ecommerce [...]

Depending on what type of website or business you have you will most likely be conducting different types of keyword research during the initial onsite search engine optimization process. If you have a smaller service based business with ten pages on your website you will take a different approach than if you have an ecommerce site that has a thousand pages. Either way, I recommend that you use a professional keyword research tool, such as Keyword Discovery or Wordtracker.

When conducting keyword research for an ecommerce website you have to take into account all your categories and products. Don’t assume the search volume is going to be generic across the board. There will be many different types of branded keywords along with category based keywords that you will come up with. The goal is to not overwhelm yourself. If you are relatively new to the search engine optimization industry take things slow at first. Start with all your high level pages and maybe category pages and make a column for each URL in your spreadsheet. Now start conducting keyword research while thinking really hard what a person would type to make it to that specific page. If you are feeling good about it you can include all your product pages as well and get it all done in one swipe. Get ready for very large lists of keywords though. Don’t be surprised if some pages generate thousands and thousands of keywords. It will take some time to really sift through all of them and chose the cream of the crop. Remember that you should never target more than 5 keywords per page so if you see a page is generating hundreds and thousands of keywords and you feel confident with what you already have will work feel free to move onto the next one page.

Keyword research is a very important step when optimizing a website. Don’t worry though because if you find out later on that you missed a really good phrase or word to target you can easily introduce into the website at that point in time. In fact, I typically recommend keyword research is completed (after the onsite optimization is completed) every 1 to 2 years. This is because of the long term nature of SEO and also this will give you enough time to gather data about the keywords that you have incorporated on your website.

Some industries keywords change all the time because of new industry buzz terms springing up frequently. Imagine what those websites must have to go through. For the most part though once you optimize a website you don’t have to do it again unless you change your content or find that there are new buzz words in your industry that have made their way into search volume.

http://www.searchengineoptimizationjournal.com

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To What Extent Is PPC an SEO Tool?

On December 13, 2009, In SEO, by Nick Stamoulis

Over the years you’ve probably heard search engine optimization and other Internet marketers refer to pay per click advertising as an SEO tool. It is, of course, its own form of marketing and whether or not you use it as an SEO tool has no bearing on the effectiveness of it as marketing tool. [...]

Over the years you’ve probably heard search engine optimization and other Internet marketers refer to pay per click advertising as an SEO tool. It is, of course, its own form of marketing and whether or not you use it as an SEO tool has no bearing on the effectiveness of it as marketing tool. But even I have referred to PPC as an SEO tool on several occasions. But to what extent? First, but not foremost, PPC can be used as keyword research. It can be used to discover new keywords to target for your SEO campaigns and it can also be used to test keywords for your SEO campaigns.

On discovery, let’s say you have your list of keywords and you design a PPC campaign around a tight grouping of keywords. You type in your primary keyword for the campaign into the Google PPC Keyword Research tool and the tool returns to you a list of related keywords. It is quite likely, especially if you have not conducted a thorough keyword research in the first place, that you’ll find keywords on that list that you have not explored.

Then there’s the testing aspect of keyword research. If you take your lis of keywords you can devise PPC campaigns around those keywords to find out which ones have the highest CTR – click through rate. By determining CTRs for your keywords you are effectively testing them to see which ones are capable of the greatest returns. You can then take your high-CTR keywords and devise SEO campaigns around them. Beyond the keyword research component of PPC as SEO, there are also opportunities for you to engage your audience with PPC and SEO simultaneously. This is where PPC can itself be a kind of SEO aside from your SEO campaigns. If you target the same keywords in your PPC campaigns that you target in your SEO campaigns then you increase your overall marketing effectiveness.

It is a known fact that 80% of searchers click the organic listings more than the PPC. But if you focus your PPC efforts on those 20% that click the PPC ads then you are missing out. When a searcher sees a PPC ad for the same URL as a related organic listing sitting next to it then that itself makes the organic listing more desirable to click on for the searcher. It adds a level of credibility that an organic listing alone doesn’t have. Advertisers who use PPC in conjunction with strong SEO campaigns see their organic listings receive more click throughs overall. And that’s where PPC can best be used as an adjunct SEO tool.

http://www.searchengineoptimizationjournal.com

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What To Do If Your Website Has Google Penalty

On December 9, 2009, In SEO, by Nick Stamoulis

First off don’t panic and remain calm. These things happen to website owners and business owners from time to time. If you feel that your website has been given some sort of Google penalty then the best thing you can do is to first stop any new online marketing and make a list of all [...]

First off don’t panic and remain calm. These things happen to website owners and business owners from time to time. If you feel that your website has been given some sort of Google penalty then the best thing you can do is to first stop any new online marketing and make a list of all your search engine optimization and internet marketing efforts that you have executed for the last year. Sometimes the problem could be one minor link sitting on a website or it can also be a much deeper rooted issue that has been building for some time. You might have been given a penalty at Google if your rankings suddenly dropped (not the normal ranking fluctuation) or visitors from Google dropped over time. In drastic situations, your website is unlisted from Google. If your SEO efforts are white hat (following Google’s webmaster guidelines) then there are places to start your hunt and discovery to solve the Google penalty problem.


Here is a short list of some suggestions to consider if your website has been given a Google Penalty:

• Google Webmaster Tools: If you don’t have Google webmaster tools installed on your website yet even without the penalty this should be the very first step you take. Google webmaster tools allows you to see what types of links are pointing directly to your site. This will be a very good and important starting point for your investigation. Once Google webmaster tools is installed take a step back and go through all your links. Make sure none are point from any spammy or irrelevant websites. If you have found any that might not be right for your website you will have to contact blog and website owners to remove the links. By installing Google webmaster tools on your site you also show the search engines that you have nothing to hide and you welcome them to look at your efforts.

• New Website Changes: If you have made any website changes over the last six to twelve months go through all those changes. Identify any new content that might have a bit too many keywords listed in it or if you have updated any links to any of your pages make sure you did not add to many links or links pointing to sites that Google does not like. Per Google guidelines a web page should not exceed fifty links. You don’t want to make too many changes backwards just yet. Make some and then wait and give it some time to see if that was the issue. Once you have a penalty it could take some time along with trial and error until you find the problem.

• Google Analytics: Check your Google analytics (or your web stats program) to see when the problem first started occurring. You will quickly be able to see where the dip in traffic occurred and allow you to associate with what possible marketing efforts where conducted at that time for the problem to occur.

In conclusion stay calm and use your analytical hat to be sure you have covered all of the bases. Also, be sure to spend time learning (before there is an issue) search engine optimization best practices and Google’s webmaster guidelines as well.

http://www.searchengineoptimizationjournal.com

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Some of The Basics Of Keyword Research

On October 31, 2009, In SEO, by Nick Stamoulis

Keyword research is a very important step in website development and search engine optimization. I’ve talked to some Internet marketers, newbies of course, who purchase a domain name before they do their keyword research, if they do it at all. Why? It is pretty well established that your keyword in your URL is a very [...]

Keyword research is a very important step in website development and search engine optimization. I’ve talked to some Internet marketers, newbies of course, who purchase a domain name before they do their keyword research, if they do it at all. Why? It is pretty well established that your keyword in your URL is a very important aspect of search engine optimization and attaining the rankings you want for your website.

There are some simple basics to keep in mind for keyword research, however. It’s a simple process, but if you go about it wrong you could end up in the wrong business, so to speak.

No. 1, there are two sides of the keyword equation. Supply and demand.

The supply is how many websites that are targeting a specific keyword. Just go to each of the search engines and type in a keyword and see how many websites come up for that keyword. That’s your supply number.

Demand is the reference to how many people are searching for your keyword each month. Keyword Discovery, Word Tracker and a few other tools are available to help you figure that out. But what you want to do is get your hands on the number of people who are conducting searches for each of your potential keywords.

Next, you need to figure out the profitability potential of each keyword. Some people call it a keyword effectiveness indicator (KEI), or index.

To figure your KEI you’ll divide your demand number by your supply number. In other words, if Google shows 1,000 websites for the keyword phrase “redheaded midget wrestling” but you find that 400 people per month are searching for that phrase then your KEI will be .4. That’s a 40% ratio.

Of course, this number by itself means nothing. It can only have meaning relative to other keywords. So put all your keywords into a spreadsheet and sort them by KEI. The higher the number the more valuable that keyword is. Even still, a highly valuable keyword may not be any good for your site concept so be sure that you toss out any keywords that doesn’t match your concept.

That’s a quick way to determine a value for your keywords and decide which ones are the most valuable for your website.

http://www.searchengineoptimizationjournal.com

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