Search engines are the vehicles that drive potential customers to your websites. Specific and effective road signs are needed to direct these visitors to your site. You do this by creating carefully chosen keywords. The right keywords are, to phrase it lightly, the ‘Open Sesame!’ of the Internet.

The right words or phrases will bring an unlimited amount of traffic to your site. However, if your keywords are too general or over-used, the possibility of visitors actually making it the way to your site, or of you seeing any real profits from the visitors who do arrive, decreases at a dramatic rate.

Your keywords serve as the foundation of your marketing strategy. If they are not chosen carefully, the right people may never get the chance to find out about your marketing campaign regardless of how carefully planned and effective it may be. Your first step in plotting your strategy is to gather and evaluate keywords and phrases.

You probably think you already know the exact words to use for your search phrases. Unfortunately, if you haven’t followed certain specific steps, you are probably wrong. Objectivity is difficult when you are in the midst of your business network, which is why you may not be able to choose the most efficient keywords from the inside.

You need to think like your customers. And since you are a business owner and not the consumer, your best bet is to go directly to the source.

Instead of plunging in and scribbling down a list of potential search words and phrases yourself, ask for words from as many potential customers as possible. You will most likely find out that your perspective of your business differs significantly from that of your customers.

The consumer is an invaluable resource. You will find the words you accumulate from them are words and phrases you probably never would have considered. Only after you have gathered as many words and phrases from outside resources should you add your own keywords to the list. Once you have this list prepared, you are ready for the next step: evaluation.

The aim of the evaluation process is to narrow down your list to a small number of words and phrases that will direct the highest number of quality visitors, or those consumers who are most likely to make a purchase rather than just cruise around your site and take off for greener pastures, to your website.

In evaluating the effectiveness of keywords, bear in mind these three elements: popularity, specificity, and motivation.

Popularity is the easiest to evaluate because it is an objective quality. The more popular your keyword is, the more likely the chances are that it will be typed into a search engine likely to direct visitors to your URL. You can purchase software that will rate the popularity of keywords and phrases by giving words a number rating based on genuine search engine activity. Software such as WordTracker will suggest variations of your words and phrases.

The higher the number this software assigns to a given keyword, the more traffic you can expect to be directed to your site. The only fallacy with this idea is that the more popular the keyword is, the greater the search engine position you must obtain. If you are down at the bottom of the search results, the consumer likely will never scroll down to find you.

Specificity is also important. The more specific a keyword is, the more likely that the consumer who is ready to purchase your goods or services will find you. Let’s look at a hypothetical example. Say you have obtained popularity rankings for the keyword “automobile companies.” However, you company specializes in bodywork only. The keyword “automobile body shops” would rank lower on the popularity scale than “automobile companies,” but it would serve you much better.

Instead of getting a slew of people interested in everything from buying a car to changing oil filters, you will attract only those consumers with trashed front ends or crumpled fenders. In other words, consumers prepared to buy your services are the ones who will find you immediately. Not only that, but the greater the specificity of your keyword, the less competition you will face.

The third factor is consumer motivation. Once again, this requires putting yourself inside the mind of the customer rather than the seller to figure out what motivation prompts a person looking for a service or product to type in a particular word or phrase. Let’s look at another example, such as a consumer who seeks job as an IT manager in a new city.

If you have to choose between “Seattle job listings” and “Seattle IT recruiters,” which do you think will benefit the consumer more? If you were looking for this type of specific job, which keyword would you type into a search engine? The second one, naturally, as it targets people who have decided on their career, have earned the necessary experience, and are ready to enlist you as their recruiter, rather than someone just out of school who is casually trying to figure out what to do with his or her life in between keg parties.

You want to find people who are ready to act or make a purchase, and this requires subtle tinkering of your keywords until you find the most specific and directly targeted phrases to bring the most motivated traffic to your site.

Once you have chosen your keywords, your work is not done. You must evaluate performance across a variety of search engines on a continuous basis, bearing in mind that times and trends shift, as does popular lingo. You cannot rely on your log traffic analysis alone because it will not tell you how many of your visitors actually made a purchase.

Luckily, some new tools have been invented to help you judge the effectiveness of your keywords in individual search engines. Software is now available that analyzes consumer behavior in relation to consumer traffic. This allows you to discern which keywords are bringing you the most valuable customers.

After all, numbers alone do not make a good keyword; profits per visitor do. You must find keywords that direct consumers to your site who actually buy your product, fill out your forms, or download your product. This is the most important factor in evaluating the efficacy of a keyword or phrase, and should be the sword you wield when discarding and replacing ineffective or inefficient keywords with keywords that bring in better profits.

Ongoing analysis of tested keywords is the formula for search engine success. Although this is a labor-intensive process, the amount of informed effort you put into your keyword campaign will ultimately generate your business’ rewards.

John DeLellis asked:


Search Engine Optimization is a process which provides improved, preferential positioning in major search engines and directories, including Google, Yahoo, and MSN. Many companies feel that to get onto page one is next to impossible and that search engine optimization is a mystery. Search Engine Optimization is something that everyone talks about but few people really understand. Search engine optimization is just a matter of understanding what search engines look for when they visit your site. Organic or Natural Search Engine OptimizationOrganic or natural search engine optimization is the process of a comprehensive analysis of keywords and phrases and the implementation of ethical programming techniques for optimal natural (non-sponsored) placement in search engine results. The option of adWords is very good to a certain point and in general the Search Engine Optimization is the tool that gives the ROI for a long time for each website.

The world wide web is a highly competitive market. Companies vie for the attention of billions of internet users in the search for better revenue. A lynch pin to the internet marketing war is the search engine.

Search engines are internet venues where billions of people congregate to search for information. The most prominent search engine giants are Google and Yahoo. The kind of traffic these dot-com companies receive per hour is phenomenal.

So naturally, companies would gravitate towards placing their links and sites in an attempt to garner more visits to their web sites.

In order to maximize ranking and placement, companies have used tools such as search engine optimization or SEO. Search engine optimization is the method or process of improving a web site’s ranking in a search engine listing.

Legitimate search engine optimization practices focus on the improvement of a page’s ranking in the search engine list by improving site content, usability and using legitimate methos of promotion through web phenomena such as viral marketing.

Search engines all use complex algorithms in keeping their relevancy in the web and to keep illegal and abusive search engine optimization methods from prospering. However, “black hat” SEO users will always be around so it is expected that search engine giant such as Google and Yahoo will continue to make more complex algorithms to filter the garbage out.

Organic searches are searches conducted by web users in a search engine that is free from solicitations. A study from Jupiter Media stated that 5 out of 6 commercial online purchases came from organic searches versus paid online ads.

This has made SEO much more in demand in creating revenue for companies as SEO is not a paid ad but a method of intrinsically improving content.

Here are a few tips on improving content for a much more improved result in organic searches:

1. Expertise. Follow your strengths. Sites you set up must be on subject you consider yourself an expert on. People can smell an amateur a mile away.

2. Plan the site. A good layout for the site can improve usability. This in turn will not unnecessarily aggravate the browser.

3. Research. Check out the competition and see what they have set up. See what works and what does not. If possible try to communicate with users in forums and get feedback on what should or can be improved further.

4. Decide on important keywords. Decide on the most important keywords to use for your sight. Include these keywords in the metatags, copy page, page title, and file names.

5. The Search Engine is your friend. Make friends with your search engine and don’t give it a hard time. Being nice and friendly to it will make its job easier to serve your site up to your target audience.

6. Focus. Focus on the topic at hand and nothing else. The rule is one topic per page.

7. Join the directories. Directories are repositories of knowledge done by human hands while search engine are huge databases collected by mostly machine methods. The relevancy of your page when joining the right directory may shoot through the roof. Of course, make sure you know what you are talking about.

8. Start a linking campaign. A most effective SEO method. This is a must to do. Ask your allies, strategic partners, friends and acquaintances to place your site’s URL link on their sites. With a short description this can draw traffic from other sites and increase exposure. Google especially ranks the importance of its sites by the number of sites linked to it.

9. Repetition is the key to victory. Keep repeating the above tips, supporting and increasing what works and killing what does not as fast as possible until the desired result is achieved.

In the world of search engine optimization, content matters a lot. If a site has amateur or worse falsified information, fewer and fewer browsers will want to visit it. They will even spread bad news faster than good news so expect a garbage site to be ignored even in a week’s time.

A company mostly relies on its official web site to build a reliable customer base, to interact and get feedback from customers, and to use the site for advertising purposes.

With search engine optimization, some techniques are employed so that a web site will be listed on top of the list of results when a user types in a keyword by going to Google, Yahoo, MSN, or other search engines.

Emerging on top of a search list would lead more business your way that is why search engine optimization or SEO tactics are employed.

Some companies employ the services of establishments or individuals who deal with search engine optimization.

This would involve the development of a more informative and user-friendly web site. It may also include pay-per-click or adwords services, such as the one offered by Google.

Another thing that can yield positive results at a lower cost, as compared to an adword campaign, is optimizing a web site for organic search.

This would mainly require keyword density which would result to more traffic going to your web site.

In effect, you will have an added clientele and this should lead more business your way.

If you would like to have a hands-on experience with search engine optimization and you would not like to get a third-party SEO service provider, there are some techniques which are easy to learn so that you can do it yourself. Take a look at the following:

1. Take a lot of time with developing your web site’s content.

For most web sites, content is the key. When writing the content of your web pages, insert vital keywords which relate to the products and services that your company offers.

Make it brief and concise, yet informative.

You might see that Internet users do not actually read a web site’s content word-for-word.

They just skim through the text and concentrate on the articles that they need and the data which they find interesting. A 600-word article may be too boring or too long for a user to read.

Keep your facts up-to-date so that users will visit your web site more often. Do not forget toinclude a lot of helpful links, articles and guides that users can forward to another user and add to your customer base.

2. Make the overall design user friendly.

In most cases, the rule the simpler, the better applies. Do not design your web site in an overly-complicated way that users will find it too “frightening” to browse through.

Adapt the design to your target market. If your target audience is of a younger age, make sure that the colors and designs are funky, youthful and attention-grabbing.

For a more mature audience, you can use subdued colors and have a more elegant theme and overall web site design.

3. Vary the keyword for each individual web page.

Think of every possible keywords or phrases that will apply to your products and services.

Each user is different and may not necessarily use the keyword that you expect them to type in the search bar. Search engines offer tools which will guide you through finding the correct keywords for search engine optimization.

4. Make sure that your hyper links are visible, accessible and informative.

Providing users with hyperlinks or HTML links which are useful and easy to find is yet another way to optimize your web site.

5. Learn how to lead traffic to your site.

Seek the advise of experts on this field if you do not know how to lead traffic to your site. Develop a plan and learn how to use the necessary tools pull traffic your way.

Gather all the statistical data that you can use to keep your web site on top of the search engines’ list.

Vary your web site’s contents and keywords to adapt to the current trend. If there is a particular word or phrase that you have not used when searching for keywords, use it instead to lead more traffic your way.

Be flexible enough to change the web site’s contents and fulfill the ever-changing needs of the online users.

All in all, you would have your work cut out for you if you want to employ do-it-yourself search engine optimization techniques.



EMERSON

Diana Barnum asked:


Search engine optimization (SEO) tips from successful Internet marketers can offer popular means of bringing more search engines and people to your websites. And more search engines plus more people is a simple formula for more clicks and sales, a win-win for online marketers in all niches.

So let’s cut to the chase, here are some top SEO tips form those who’ve been there, done that, with successful results:

1. Select a Keyword Rich Domain Name

This may not always be possible in many niche markets for the more popular keywords. Therefore you can focus on creating mini-sites that are keyword based. For example, if your website is about web hosting, you can create mini-sites about web hosting but with a lesser known keyword such as “low cost web hosting”.

2. Choose Search Engine Friendly URLs

Use search engine friendly URLs when possible. You want to be sure to use hyphens and underscores in all your URLs and preferably have the URLs be the keyword that relates to the page. For example, if the web page is about web hosting, then the URL could be web-hosting or web_hosting.

3. Check out your IP Address

For the websites you believe to be most important, ensure that they have unique ip addresses for each site. The reason this is important is many sites on a “shared” hosting service share the same ip address. If any of these sites have been banned by the search engines, it could affect your site’s ranking or even result in your site being banned as well, since it is sharing the same ip address.

4. Do some Keyword research

It’s important to do thorough research before deciding what keywords you’ll focus on when optimizing your website. A popular tool you can use is Good Keywords, a free keyword research software application.

Give these SEO tips a try and check your own results. See what works best for your products and services, and then repeat accordingly with new campaigns all year long to keep a healthy flow of traffic, clicks and sales coming your way.



ALVA