Congratulations!  You’ve now thought about keywords and should be beginning to see the impact they can have on your online success.  But doing the research is only half the puzzle — now you have to use them. 

The first step is to review of your list of potential keywords  and keyword phrases and pick the one or two, but no more than three, of them to target.  You may have a list of 25 potentially dynamite keywords, but you cannot effectively go after all of them at once.  For each keyword or keyword phrase, think about how you would use it in a headline or sentence.  Sometimes keywords pop up that have a decent number of searches and almost no competition — because they are almost impossible to use in regular language.  You can choose to target those — but understand that it will make your job just that much tougher.

Before you do anything else, pull up a Google search box and type in the keywords or keyword phrases you have chosen.  Make note of the top ten results.  You want to be one of them within the next 60 to 90 days (or sooner).

Now get to work on your copy.  If you have a traditional website, ideally, all three keywords will appear on your website’s home page:  include all of your keywords at the top of the page; put at least one keyword or phrase in a headline or a subhead; at least one or possibly even two of your keywords or phrases should be in the first paragraph of the page; and make sure you add at least one in the last paragraph of the page.  If you can make the targeted phrase a logical hyperlink to another page in your site, Google will give you bonus points in your search rankings.  Note:  Make sure your keywords are in text, not artwork.  If your headlines and subheads are graphics and not text, Google may ignore them.

Make sure you include one, two, or all three of your targeted keywords in your page’s title and meta description and of course, include them in your web headers as meta keywords.  You can target different keywords on different pages of your website if each page is indexed separately.  That may be a little advanced for a basic website, but it’s something to keep in mind.

If you are using a WordPress or other blog format as your platform instead of a traditional website, you will want to make sure that each post has one or two keywords in it and that your targeted keywords are included as Categories and Post Tags.   If you have added an SEO plug-in for your WordPress blog, make sure you include your targeted keywords in your Title and Meta Description.

But don’t stop with your website or blog.  Now go into every directory your site has been listed in and re-write the description to include your keywords.  Pull up your profiles in LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook and add your keywords.  Begin a concentrated, targeted online campaign emphasizing those keywords.  Try to use those targeted keywords in your Twitter updates, on your Facebook wall, in articles submitted to article directories, and in press releases.  Add your website or blog to different social bookmarking sites and include your keywords in your profiles.

Finally, set up Google alerts to track your keywords or keyword phrases.  As you start to use the phrases more and more, you should start to see your site or marketing efforts pop up.  This will give you an idea of where Google is recognizing the phrase and you can adjust your copy or marketing efforts accordingly.

Give it a shot.  I would love to hear your success stories in a couple months.

Here’s to your success,

Trina

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OK, so you have your list of potential keywords or keyword phrases that you think searchers may type into a search engine to find you, and you know what your competitors are using.  Now you need to evaluate those keywords to find the one or two that will be most effective toward moving you toward online success. 

This is the part of the process where a good software program, like the full version of WordTracker or Market Samurai, really comes in handy.  But if you only have one or two websites and you only do this process occasionally (which you should update your research every 6 months or so because phrases go in and out of popularity), then you can get good results by using the free Google keyword tool.

So surf over to https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal. This is Google’s free keyword tool and it is the model on which all other tools are based.  Google is currently Beta testing a new interface, which I don’t use because they limit your results to the top 100 keywords. As you’ll see, in really competitive niches, I will often look at 300 or more keywords and phrases, so the new interface makes it a pain.  So for now, if I’m going to use Google, I immediately click on the link at the upper right hand side of the page that says “Previous Interface.”  

Once I’m there, here’s the basic process that I have found works for me and my clients:

         1)  Select the second choice “website content” in the first section. 

         2)  Type in your website address in the search box and hit “get keyword ideas.”    This will create a list of what keywords Google is currently associating   with your site.  It’s not unusual to see some phrases that really don’t apply.

         3) For each “section” go to the bottom and hit the “add all” link.  This will create a  list of selected keywords in the right hand bar.

         4)  Compare this generated list with the list you created on your own.  Add any missing phrases to your list by scrolling down to the bottom and hitting the “Add Your Own Keywords.”

CAUTION:  DO NOT EDIT the list at this time.  Even if some of the phrases are just wacky, don’t remove them yet because they’ll just get added back in.

         5)  Once you’ve completed this list, hit the “Get more related keywords” box.   This will automatically move those keywords into the “get keyword ideas” box at the top of the page.  Type in the Captcha and hit “get keyword ideas.”

         6)  Go to the bottom of each section and add any new keyword ideas to your selected keyword list.  Again, don’t edit, just add. 

         7)  Repeat this process until very few new keywords come up – often takes 3 to 5 repeats.  You should now have a list of 200 to 300 or more potential keywords.

         Once you are satisfied that you’ve gotten more keyword ideas than you could possibly use hit the “get more related keyword ideas” one last time.  This time, though, go through the list in the top box and delete any obviously non-relevant words or phrases.  

         9)  Once you’ve edited your list, click on “Filter my results.”  Select the box that says “don’t show new ideas, give me data on my selected keywords” and then hit “Get Keyword Ideas.”

         10) NOW is when you really start to edit and refine.   Click on “Global Search Volume” heading.  This will sort the results according to volume.  Everyone is different, and your actual numbers will depend on your target audience, but I typically will remove every word or phrase that has more than 150,000 searches per month.  Those words and phrases are just going to be too competitive and it’s going to be almost impossible to get ranked for them, at least in the short-term. I then usually scroll down to the bottom and look at the phrases that say “Not Enough Data.”  I will remove all of these, too.  (Now, you are removing them from your list on the right hand side, not from the results box.  If it’s too confusing, you can go ahead and repeat steps 5, 8-9 to get rid of the phrases in the main results box.)

        11)  Find the box at the top of the results that says “Match Type.”  Change the selection to “Phrase.”  You’ll see the number of searches change.

        12)  Then you can start to evaluate the keywords and phrases you have left.  Look at the Advertiser Competition column.  Solid green means the phrase is very competitive, that alot of other sites are targeting those same words.  The gold is in the phrases that are NOT solid green, so start with those.

        13)  Now is when it gets fun.  Open up a new tab in your browser and open up a Google search box.  Type the phrase:  allintitle: followed by the search term you are interested in within quotes e.g.  allintitle: “divorce rules Ohio”.

        14) When the search results come up, look at the top right hand side of the page.   There will be “Results 1 of XXXXXX sites.”  This is the number of competing sites for that particular keyword or phrase.

         15)  Do this with every potential keyword phrase.  As you pull up the results, look at the sites that come up.  If Google is pulling up well-established competitive sites, it’s going to be hard to compete.  However, if the Google results are Wikipedia, and Ezinearticles.com, and directory listings, then, even though there may be more than 50,000 competing websites, they could be “soft” competitors and there is opportunity for you to dominate the phrase with an aggressive SEO campaign.

        16)  Create a spreadsheet that shows you the phrase, number of global searches, and number of competing websites.  You may also want to make a note of the top 3 or top 5 search results.  Look at the data.  Though there is no hard and fast rule, it is a common theory that the “sweet spot” for SEO is a search term or phrase that gets at least 2,400 global searches per month and has less than 50,000 competing sites. With dedicated SEO promotion, a site can often appear on the first page of Google results of a sweet spot term in less than 30 days.  If you’ve got one or two keywords that fall into that category, congratulations, you are on your way to online success.  Keep this data and compare the results in 6 months.

Congratulations, you’ve just learned the basics on how to conduct keyword research.  Next week, we’ll look at what to do once you have your target keywords selected.

Here’s to your success,

 Trina

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PART I of Three-Part Series:  Finding Your Keywords

The key to getting your site or profile found in an online search is keywords.  Period.  Whether it’s on Google or Bing, or even LinkedIn or Twitter, what words you use and how you use them will have a major impact on your results and ultimately, your online success.

Choosing the “right” keywords is part art, part science.   There are dozens of programs out there that will generate words and phrases for you.  I’ve used WordTracker, Market Samurai, and Good Keywords, in addition to the very accessible free Google Keyword Tool.  They all have their flaws and their biases.  But like so many programs, the outcome is only as good as the input.  “Garbage in, garbage out” as the saying goes.

The place you have to start is getting into the mind of your potential site visitor.  What words or phrases would they type into a search box if they were specifically looking for you but didn’t know your company name?  I don’t mean to burst anyone’s bubble, but few people with any sort of search engine experience will type in just “dentist” if they are looking for a new family dentist.  I know, I know, I hear you.  “But Trina, Google says “dentist” was searched 13,000,000 times last month.”  It was.  And those people received in their results the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Wikipedia, the ADA, and many directories for dentists.  Plus the local results for Google maps.  If you truly wanted to compete on the word “dentist” then concentrate on getting listed in the right directories, and get a listing on Google maps, don’t try to use the phrase as the keyword on your website.  It is more likely your ideal new patient would type in Dentist Clintonville or Dentist Clintonville Ohio, which had 36 searches.

So the first step is to create a list of all the phrases you “think” a visitor would type if they were looking for you, your products or your services.  Think of phrases that are 2 to 3, even 4 words long.  If you take a common phrase and narrow it, you’ve created a “long-tail keyword.”  Long-tail keywords are going to bring you lots more of targeted, specific traffic than the general, short-tail keywords.  An example of a short-tail keyword phrase would be “family dentist.”  “Family dentist Columbus Ohio” would be an example of a long-tail keyword. 

The next step, if you are running Google Analytics on your site (which you should), go to Traffic Sources report section and look at the list of keywords in the right hand column.  Click on the “View Full Report” under the list to see all of the phrases people have been typing and ended up on your site.  Aren’t you amazed at the variety?  I know I am.

The third step is one that many people skip.  Take a look at your competition.  Type in the phrases you think people are using, and the ones you pulled off Google Analytics into a Google search box (or Yahoo, or Bing, it doesn’t really matter) and then click on all of the competitors.   Put your cursor somewhere on the page near the top but under the header and right click.  Select “View Source” and up pops their site coding.  Near the top, you should see their meta tags.  Look for “meta name = keywords” and then copy down all the words and phrases they are using.  Then go back to their site and read their home page, looking for those words or phrases.  Make a note of how many times each phrase appears.  Now, it’s true.  Some sites will have 20 keywords in their tags, and only 2 of them show up in their text.   That’s not good optimization, but who am I to judge?  Now, with most blogs, it’s a different story, but that’s for another day.

You’ll now have a list of what you think people search for, and what your competition thinks people search for.  Next week, I’ll review what to do next.

So, what tricks or tips do you have to find the “right” keywords?  Do you believe your keyword selection is contributing to your online success?  If you’re willing to share, please let me know.

Until next week,

Here’s to your success,

Trina

P.S.  Yep, you guessed it.  I’m going to be offering a seminar in July:  “The Key is Keywords.”  Details are being worked out now.  Stay tuned.

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Like it or not, if you want your small business to be successful online, you need to have an understanding of Search Engine Optimization and you need to take steps to get listed in the organic search results of the major search engines, especially Google, Yahoo, and Bing. 

One of the ways you get noticed by the search engines is to develop backlinks. Backlinks are exactly what they sound like — they are links which directs others towards your site; they are also often referred to as inbound links (IBL’s). In the world of search engine optimization, the number of backlinks your site has is an indication of how popular or important it is according to your peers (other site owners). These are especially important because search engines such as Google will give more credit to those sites with a good number of quality backlinks. So they will then consider these sites more relevant than others in the results pages of a search query and will show your site higher on in the rankings.

Most search engines will want websites to have a level playing field, and so will more often than not look for natural links that have been built slowly over time. Although it can be fairly easy to manipulate the links on a web page in order to achieve a higher ranking in the short term, it is a lot harder to influence a search engine with external backlinks from another site. This is why these count so highly in a search engine’s algorithm.

One of the best ways to achieve quality backlinks to your site in a fairly short time is Directory Submissions.  Why don’t more small business owners do this?  I know it may have been some years ago, but you actually had to buy an ad to be listed in the  yellow pages, or at least buy a telephone line.  It’s no different online.  You actually have to DO something to be listed in a directory.

 It takes time, it takes effort, but it gets results. Believe it or not, you actually have to submit the link for your site to directories in order to be listed. Many directories allow free submissions. There are dozens more that want you to pay for the privilege of being listed. If you can afford it, DO IT. There are many sites around which offer a service where you can submit your site details to numerous sites. Do a search, you’ll find them. In some industries (like legal, for instance) there are well over 2,000 potential directories your business can be listed in. Every one of those listings then becomes a backlink.

But another benefit of submitting to directories, in addition to creating backlinks, is getting a boost in traffic. Imagine, some people actually use directories that they know to search for businesses instead of just Google search. The key to getting a traffic boost from directories is to actually write out a good description of your product or service and use your targeted keywords. I know, it begins to sound like a broken record, but if you use the same targeted keywords on your site, in your LinkedIn, Twitter & Facebook posts and profiles, in articles that link back to your site, and also in business directories, you will start to become associated with those keywords in the eyes of the search engines. You will start to rank higher and be seen as more relevant. Isn’t that what you want?

I almost feel like the directories I tell clients to submit their site to are a closely guarded secret, but they really aren’t. This isn’t my complete list, but here are some ideas to get you started. You should make sure your business is listed in: Local.Yahoo.com, Google.com/maps, MerchantCircle.com, Brownbook.net, Cityslick.net and if you can afford it, PR.com.

There, now don’t tell me I’m not helping to make you successful online. I don’t get paid to advertise these directories (though occasionally clients pay me to help them listed on all of them ). But because you are friends of mine, I feel like I need to at least give you a hint.

Here’s to your success,

Trina

P.S.  We’re only 10 days away from the How to WOW! Now Seminar.  Have you registered yet?  HowtoWOWnow.eventbrite.com

There’s now a discount for friends of mywebWOW!com, which I would be glad to share.  Just let me know that you are going to attend and I’ll get you a discount code for 50% off the ticket price.  What are friends for?

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Every small business online quickly discovers that you need to have traffic to make any website or blog successful.  Just as quickly, you’ll discover that traffic is an elusive thing to find.  Traffic, traffic, traffic. The fact: building traffic to a website or blog takes time. It doesn’t happen overnight. Even if you find the perfect keyword that has no competition so you’re on the first page of Google for that keyword, chances are it only gets a few hundred hits per month, if that. So unless you have the resources of Fort Knox at your disposal, you can’t effectively buy clicks for keywords that get thousand and thousands of clicks per day, especially if your site is not already highly ranked by Google.

What if they were all on their way to your website?!

Building traffic to any small business website or blog is a result of cumulative efforts. Traffic at first will be a trickle. The trick is to create a plan to exponentially expand your reach so that each effort builds on the next. Here are several proven no- or low-cost traffic-building strategies that should be in the marketing mix of every internet marketer.

First of all, make sure your website URL is connected with websites that get lots and lots of traffic. If there are ways to have direct links on your site to Amazon or eBay, do it. Even if the connection is tenuous at the beginning, it will help increase your visibility in the search engines.  Google ranks websites according to how “relevant” they think your site is.  Lots of links to and from your site or blog make it look more important.

Also, take advantage of the link and content opportunities available at sites like Squidoo or HubPages. Create a lens or a hub complementing your product or service and make sure your URL is either in the text (conservatively, of course, no spam), and in your signature and profile. Then promote these pages. Theses sites are highly ranked by Google, so if you can rise to the top in these formats, you will increase your own site’s relevance.

Write articles and submit to multiple directories, making sure your URL is in your author resource box.  Definitely get some articles in Ezinearticles.com, as it’s the biggest and Google loves articles accepted there. Different readers prefer different directories, so make sure you spread your work around. Go a step further and submit your articles to sites like Digg, Reddit, De.li.cious, Stumbleupon, and similar bookmarking sites. Again, traffic is a result of exposure so do whatever you can to get your links in front of eyeballs.

Learn how to use some of the social bookmarking and networking sites, like Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace.  Participate in forums, making sure you include your URL in your signature and profile. The more comments you make, the more the URL to your small business website or blog will be seen.

Make sure your small business site is listed in directories. There are thousands and thousands of directories. You can manually submit to several hundreds, or pay a service to submit for you.  I have been using TrafficBug.com lately, and I must say, the results have been impressive.  If you do it yourself, just make sure you submit your sites to categories that make sense.  How many newbie website or blog owners forget to even register with Yahoo?  It’s the simplest thing.  Just go to http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit and put in your URL.  It may take a few weeks to register, but doing that simple, 20-second submit will leapfrog your site over thousands of others that are waiting to be “found” by Yahoo.  Raise your hand, tell Yahoo you’re there and ready for business.

Never forget Google Adwords, as it can be very effective, though costly if you use the wrong keywords. But also consider advertising directly on Yahoo search marketing or even Microsoft AdCenter. These provide a great deal of traffic and are typically less competitive and less expensive than Google.  Personally, every head-to-head test I have run so far between Google and Yahoo, Yahoo has won every time as far as quality clicks for less money.

Just keep working on each of these traffic-building strategies and traffic will begin to build to your small business website or blog. The more traffic, the more eyeballs, the more Success. Just keep at it and you will succeed.

If you need help developing a traffic-building strategy for your small business website or blog, please let me know.  I would be glad to map out a step-by-step plan to build traffic and get the results you want.  I want you to reach your Success Point.

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