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First, you must know the basics of how keywords
work. Keywords and keyword phrases are the exact
words someone types into a search engine to find
what they're looking for online. If you have a site
on "website design" then your goal is to get a top 10
ranking for the keywords "website design".
Now if no one searches for "website design" it would
be a useless keyword, you would get no traffic no
matter how perfectly your site is optimized for that
keyword.
To find out if the keyword is good, you have to do
some keyword research on your particular keywords.
You can use this
free keyword tool.
Now if you check "website design", you will find it
receives around 12,767 searches each day. That's a
lot of traffic but you must realize that it may be too
good, or rather too competitive for your purposes,
especially if you have a new site.
The most common mistake most make is targeting
keywords which are too competitive. You simply will
not be able to compete or place for extremely
competitive keywords. Well established sites and
businesses with deep pockets have the resources to
completely dominate those keywords.
While it is not entirely a waste of time to concentrate
your efforts on highly competitive keywords, you will
have better success if you target low to medium
competitive keywords.
Usually longer, more descriptive keyword phrases are
the most lucrative. These phrases deliver traffic which
is better targeted and more likely to convert into a
sale. "website design indianapolis" which gets
around 10 searches a day will be more targeted than
the general term "website design".
Always keep this keyword strategy in the back of your
mind as you implement the following steps to achieve
your own Top 10 Rankings in Google.
1. Make a Master Keyword List
Your first step is to make a master list of the keywords
you wish to target. Obviously these should be closely
related to the theme of your site. Check the keyword
competition by seeing how many sites are listed in
Google for that keyword. You should also check the
Google Page Rank of the sites that hold the top 10
positions. If all those sites have a page rank or 6 and
above it may be hard to get ranked high for your
keywords.
2. Choose Related Keywords
Once you have your master list of keywords, find
longer related keywords to target. Again, check out the
competition and daily searches made for each
chosen keyword.
3. Use Quality Content for Your Keywords
Creating quality content should always be your main
goal. Write for actual visitors who will see and read
your content. First and foremost you must have good
useful content that your visitors will use themselves
and recommend to their friends or colleagues. Tie this
quality content in with your chosen keywords. Use one
keyword phrase per page.
4. Keyword in Domain Name, Title and URLs
Having your keyword in your domain name will score
big points from search engines. Plus, each page of
content should contain your keywords in the title &
meta tags for that page. Most experts also suggest
you have your keyword in the URL and use hyphens to
separate your keywords.
5. Do on Page Optimization
Keyword ratio is a much discussed topic by SEO
experts and many suggest you should have your
keyword in the H1 or headline title of your page.
Sprinkle your keyword and variations of it throughout
your page. Don't over do it but make sure the
robot/spiders will clearly discover what your page is
about. Many make sure they include their main
keyword in the first and last 25 words on their pages.
6. Use Traffic Modules
One technique that works extremely well in Google is
clustering a closely related topic or subject into a
distinct separate section on your site. For example, if
you have a marketing site, you could create a whole
section on article marketing where you would have 50
to 100 key worded pages all relating to your subject.
Writing articles, formatting articles, submitting articles,
article software... place a keyword linked menu on
each page to connect all your pages together.
Keep in mind, your main objective is to supply quality
information to your visitors. One reason Google may
favor this type of structure is because they want quality
content returned in their SERPs.
7. Try Article Marketing
Article marketing is writing short informative articles
on keyword topics related to your site. You then submit
these helpful key worded articles to ezine directories
on the web. When your articles are picked up by
related sites, you receive quality One-Way links. The
higher the quality of your article, the more links you will
receive.
Another ranking tactic to use: If you're just starting out
your site will probably have a low page rank and you
will find it hard to rank for even modest keywords.
That's why it's useful to take advantage of the higher
Page Rank of the major ezine directories. Your key
worded articles on these high page rank sites will get
picked up by Google and displayed in the top 10
rankings. Now the displayed URL will be the article
directory site but the links in the resource box will be
pointing back to your site. Over time this article
marketing technique will raise your own site's
rankings for those keywords.
8. Anchor Text And One Way Links
Off page optimization is important in obtaining high
rankings in Google. Getting quality One-Way links is
very important. Anchor Text simply refers to "the
underlined clicked on words" in your links. Most
include their keywords in their anchor text
as this tells the search engines exactly what the links
are about.
9. Tags, Blogging and Web 2.0
Take advantage of Web 2.0 by using blogs, RSS feeds
and the social bookmarking sites like Reddit and
Digg. Try AddThis.com for a simple social
bookmarking system. At the very least your site should
have a blog and RSS feed attached to it as this is an
effective way of boosting your keyword rankings.
Tags have become very important for getting higher
rankings. Keep in mind, in free blogging software
such as WordPress, categories will automatically be
seen as tags. Blogger, which is owned by Google,
now has a form where you put your keywords (tags)
for each post you make.
10. PPC vs Organic Search
Of course, one of the fastest ways to get your links
displayed on Google is to pay for them. Your ad and
links will sit side by side with the organic link results.
In Pay Per Click advertising you bid or pay so much
per click for your keywords and you only pay when
someone clicks your links. But smart marketers also
know since you're getting millions of impressions
advertising your products, acquiring name recognition
and branding through PPC advertising can be a major
side-benefit.
However, most would say that organic
links (SERPS) will return better traffic than paid links
or advertising. In most cases, this may be true
because Google's organic rankings are becoming
more respected and more trusted by users. They
simply carry more weight with surfers.
This makes it even more beneficial to obtain top 10
rankings for your keywords in Google. Depending on
the competitiveness of your chosen keywords
reaching the first page listing or even the favored
number one spot is well within anyone's
reach. Just go for it. The rewards are well worth your
efforts.
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