The Importance of Selecting Effective SEO Keywords for your Website
My Friends at Search Engine College just sent a great article out on Keyword Selection
Worth repeating:
“The Importance of Selecting Effective SEO Keywords for your Website”
By Micky Stuivenberg
Keyword research is often vital to the success of your website.
The only time keyword research might not be needed is if you’re lucky enough to operate in a market with no or very few competitors. In that case, if you use common sense and accurately describe in your website content, page titles and META tags what you offer, your website should be found by your potential customers.
However, in most cases the market will be more competitive. Particularly if your website is still new, or you have only just begun to optimize it, it can be incredibly difficult to rank well for the keywords you think describe your products or services best.
You could be competing against hundreds, if not thousands, of other websites that are targeting the exact same keyword phrases as you. And it will be hard to outrank your competitors, because they may have many advantages over yours, such as:
- Their websites may have been up for years and have ‘proven’ their worth.
- They may have many more pages of content than you do.
- They probably have a lot more incoming links to their site than you do.
Google and other search engines are bound to rank those websites higher than yours in searches for those popular keywords – especially if your site is new, doesn’t have a lot of content yet and no or few incoming links. This is regardless of how good your content is or how well you have optimized your site for those keywords.
If you start a new website, you have to be realistic with your expectations of SEO.
Here are two observations that may seem obvious but are still worth pointing out:
· The more general and popular a search term, the harder it will be to be able to rank for that phrase.
· Single keywords are way harder to rank for than keyword phrases consisting of 2, 3 or 4 words.
What can you do to still get your website found?
- Find out what people type into search engines. Do keyword research (or have someone do the research for you) using a keyword research tool, so it’s not a guessing game but you actually KNOW what people are searching for. In addition, you can ask a number of different people what they would type into a search engine if they were looking for your kinds of products or services.
- Check out the competition. Type some of the relevant search phrases you have found in your research into Google (or other search engine you want to optimize your site for) and see how many results you get. Decide whether it’s worth it or even possible to compete on those phrases.
- Think of alternative keyword phrases. Many keyword research tools give suggestions for related words. You may hit upon a slightly different description that people use in their searches as well, but not many other websites are targeting. That gives you a great opportunity to optimize your site for that phrase and rank well for it.
- Target so-called ‘long tail keywords’. These are longer and quite specific keyword phrases that maybe only a handful of people search for each month but have very little competition because nobody else has thought of optimizing their pages for them. Blogs are great for targeting long tail keywords because you can keep adding new pages, each optimized for a different long tail keyword phrase. An added benefit is that because the keyword phrases are really specific, they often attract very qualified traffic so your conversation rate from those pages is often higher.
- Start small: Go local. Rather than immediately trying (probably unsuccessfully) to capture the market in the entire country or world, consider starting smaller. Focus on your town, city, region or state. You’d be surprised how many people type in their location after a search phrase because they are looking for a business in their area. Targeting “web designer Newcastle”, for example, is likely to be much more successful than only optimizing your site for “web designer”, a generic and popular keyword phrase that just has way too much competition. Also make sure you claim your Google Maps/Local Business Center listing and submit your site to various local and regional directories. Once you are successful locally, it’s a natural progression to target a wider audience. Of course, this option may depend on the type of products or services you offer, but for many businesses it’s a good way to start.
Finally, a few more tips for your website to be found and be successful:
Unique pages: Target different keyword phrases and combinations with each of your web pages and ensure you have different page titles and META descriptions in place for each page.
Professional content: Have clear, concise and compelling content on your pages to engage and retain your visitors, plus obvious calls to action to convert those visitors into customers or at least get a sales lead. Consider outsourcing the content writing if that is not your or your web designer’s strongest point.Link building: Try to obtain valuable links back to your website from ‘authority websites’ with some of your targeted keywords in the link text. It’s best to get links from a variety of different types of websites, including social media sites, to different pages on your site and with slightly different link texts. The idea is to mix it up for more natural results and gradually build up your links over time.
And last but not least: don’t expect miracles overnight.
Article by:
Micky Stuivenberg of Content Writer and tutor for Search Engine College. Micky specializes in professional copy for both web & print and helps clients improve their online presence through quality websites and SEO. Micky offers a variety of affordable website copywriting and optimising services at http://www.contentwriter.com.au
Read MoreSome Humor with SEO
From: http://wiep.net/talk/category/seo-humor/
Some SEO humor. With special thanks to the DIY Motivator Tool
How to ask a customer for a review or testimonial
Customer reviews are one of the mainstays of customer confirmation and is paramount to getting found online. But how do you ask a customer for a review or testimonial for your product or services? Here are a few tips to get you started in requesting customer reviews and testimonials to hasten your business status online:
1. Simply Ask.
Amazingly this step is often overlooked. Sales people, at the end of the transaction often don’t want to bother the customer or just want to finish the sales and move on. However, asking for customer quotes or testimonials can be a way to build stronger relationships with the customer. A customer, especially a happy one, will be flattered. They will want to talk about their experience and often do by telling others about your business. Why not lead them to ask for a referral or testimonial online?
2. The key is to lead them to where to leave a referral.
Make sure it is easy, simple and quick for customers to provide the review. Provide links to sites you prefer they leave testimonials on. A good place to find sites that you want to promote reviews on is to find where your customer leads are coming from. Website Analytics (Google Analytics, Urchin…) are a great resource for this information under “Referring Sites” or better yet, ask your customers where they found you.
Don’t be afraid to give your customer guidance on what you are looking for. Tell them what you are looking for. “John, I am so thankful you are happy with our service. Would you mind giving us a review online?” Then hand a card to them outlining where and how to post a review. Clearly you would like them to indicate their name and company to the review, but it is OK if they’d like to remain nameless. An unidentified review is better than no review at all.
If the customer has practical feedback, give them an alternating path to provide that information rather than letting it go into a public review. You want to be sure to capture and address specific comments or concerns, so as to direct them to the appropriate person, email or site. Management of bad “press or reviews” can help your business grow.
3. Get easy one’s first.
Ask your happy customers for testimonials and reviews. They will be happy to assist and you can then get the ball rolling to integrate a process of asking into your sales process. Requesting past customers for reviews will let you see the value as well by demonstrating the return through more leads. A recent case is one of our clients at LuCorp Marketing said a majority of their leads come from Kudzu.com because of the testimonials posted. Through 8 reviews his company is number one on the Kudzu website for services his company provides. He gets leads all the time off the positive reviews on the Kudzu site.
4. Combine requests with an existing marketing program.
If there is a newsletter going out to all your current customers, you may want to include a message about reviewing your product or service. On your billing invoices you may want to add a thank you and “if you liked our services please consider reviewing us on….” But make this personal to the customer if at all possible.
5. TRY NOT TO BE IMPERSONAL.
Really try to take a personal and targeted approach. Determine who your most satisfied customer is, who you feel will give a review for your service or product. Be careful here though! Do not pay for reviews. The Federal Trade Commission is coming down hard on companies that pay for reviews in the future. The reviews will need to be transparent and follow a business trail. Be above board on all of this and you won’t have issues in the future!
The point is to ask and you shall receive. Many customers are happy to give their input. That’s why Yelp and Kudzu are such strong websites! People want to hear other’s experiences in this high-tech world!
Read MoreQ&A for a Good Social Media Strategy
Here’s some great questions to ask yourself or company when setting up a Social Media strategy:
Who do you want to talk to?
How will you engage them?/
How will you market your messages?
Where do you find people to listen?
Do you know what people are saying in the target market you are in?
What do you do to help customers become part of the process? Is there something you could do or say that would entice a customer to work with you in conveying the message?
What are your goals for the Social Media plan?
Can you build a stronger relationship with your client through Social Media?
AND, probably some of the most important things to consider: Are you able and willing to maintain consistency, maintain postings regularly? If not, don’t attempt a program unless you want it to be short lived. Also consider that Social Media should become a part of the overall marketing and communication programs for your company.
If you haven’t consider these things, be sure you do! Hire someone to give you guidance if your not sure how to set things up and to develop a strategy a plan for your company. You could also hire a company to do your postings and manage the programs for you as well. Many companies decide to do this in an effort to become consistent.
LuCorp Marketing’s affiliate company, Social Media Management Company provides both marketing strategies and Social Media Management for small to mid-sized companies.
Read MoreFacebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Blogging …Social Media Management for Business
Let’s talk about social media use and why it is very important to have a strategy when dealing with Blogging, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter…
We’ve all heard that we should be using these tools to build out online presence, develop our brand and drive business to our website. And sometimes, it seems like business owners are jumping into “social” media and focusing a little too much on the chatty, social aspects of these mediums as opposed to using a smart marketing strategy to drive their messages.
Let’s face it, staying on top of social media accounts can be time consuming. This is a new frontier for many business owners who may not be aware of how to use these outlets most efficiently and effectively.Ask yourself: Are your postings driving customers to your site to find out more about your services? Are you posting to engage or educate? Are your postings telling a story about your business? Are you engaging your vendors, affiliate partners, network in the conversation?
We all want some of our personality to shine through, and this can be a way to engage potential customers, but don’t lose sight of the greater marketing opportunities available through social media. Use your postings as sales “touches” that educate your prospects and customers, and differentiate your business from your competitors.
And let’s not forget the power of using keywords in your updates to provide “find-ability” for the Search Engines. Marketing professionals know that this maximizes the value of your posts from a marketing and brand development perspective. Why waste your valuable time as a business owner on posting “Hey Dude” or blog posts that have nothing to do with your business?
So….the moral of the story is this: Don’t fall in love with your words and ideas until you consider the target audience, keywords customers use when searching for your business, what value offering you are talking about, and how a customer might interact with the posting. Don’t guess!
You are a professional in your own field. If you find the idea of writing concise, targeted business pieces daunting, or don’t know the first thing about keyword research, consider hiring a professional company (like LuCorp Marketing) to help you develop or manage a strategy for social media. We have some great case studies that prove time and time again what a good strategic plan can do from increased click through rates, to vendor engagement success stories, to press coverage from blogs posted.
MY mission: To get businesses to THINK before they “speak” and get the most value out of social media. I thought so much about this I ended up partnering with Tom Healy to develop Social Media Management Company to manage and develop Social Media Strategies for companies.
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