Thursday, August 4, 2011

How to build a business web site - Keyword Selection - Keyword Research

Search Engine Optimisation and the Search Terms that you choose

It is a good idea to put together a business case for your site, to focus your effort on the goals of the site.You may change your mind, from what you originally intended the site to be after reading this article. Don't become too attached to those initial ideas just yet, you need to validate them, and change them if your research shows that you site will be better off if you refocus, due to your new found knowledge of your customers, competition and offering.


Search Term Selection

Hey! Are you listening?Concentrate, don't miss this information.To make it worth your time putting together a website, you need to make sure that it is making use of keywords that search users search for.When nobody is interested in the keywords you are using to drive traffic to your offer, you whole effort is a waste of time.

Advertising can drive traffic to your site, but at what effort and cost?Are there other opportunities, other keywords out there that are more easily attainable for you?

Research your websites' focus

First of all, you have a niche, right?You need a focus for your site; otherwise it will not make any sense.What you're trying to achieve is to send people to your site as THE place to go for information on your niche.Is there some aspect of your niche that customers are particularly interested in and how would you know?There are a number of ways that you can find what people really want - listen to people when they talk, look in the paper, look in internet forums and chat rooms that are associated with your niche.Is there something that people are looking for?Do people discuss your niche?Is there a subject that regularly crops up that would describe your niche?

Understanding your Competition - How do they rank, and why?

A good way to start to understand your competition is to open up your favourite search engine, let's use Google, most people do, and type in a search that you would expect would find your site when you build it.The number underneath the search box once you have performed the search shows the number of pages that were found.


Open up some of the search results - who are the competition, do they offer the same product or service that you are intending to offer? Is their location a factor in their domination? Could you offer a localised version of what they do? If your customers have been around for a long time, offer the same products and services, in the same location as you, you're going to have your work cut out for you, to beat them.

If you really wanted to get into the nitty gritty, you need to know for each of those sites, their age, the number of inbound and outbound links, page rank, body content - all these things are big factors in the ranking of that site.

Search Phrase Analysis Sites

Some utilities on the net will help you to discover the search volume per month, and levels on competitiveness for your search phrase.Varying levels of related search term suggestions can be generated that will help you find the term with the best combination of search volume and low competition.

Tools can be found from the following:

Google Adwords Keyword Tool - free

keyworddiscovery.com

Wordtracker

Siphon the free traffic - Pick the correct keywords

If nobody searches for the search term that you are focussing on, it makes it much more difficult to generate money.Without a clear set of keywords, your SEO results are very likely to be random. You may get traffic, but it will not be targeted, or the results will be less than could be expected from an alternative keyword.Don't worry, something can be done about it, but it entails refocussing the site toward the correct terms.

If your keywords are chosen correctly, your site is more likely to be structure in such a way that it makes sense in that context, through the choice of headings, categories, tags, page content, backlinks, anchor text, image names, and the search engine is more likely to be able to find your content and rank you well for it, as you deserve.As you can probably see from the list of items that feature in making the site rank well, changing from the wrong keywords to the right ones is likely to require a lot of rework.


Can you choose keywords yourself, or should you pay someone to do it?

Due to the importance of getting the right keywords for you site, it is a good idea to spend a great deal of time researching the best terms, researching your competitors, niches and so on, before jumping in to creating a web site.
There is nothing wrong with doing this yourself, although paying someone to do this is highly likely to yield sales way in excess of the initial outlay, and continue to do so for some time to come.

Article source: How to build a business web site - Keyword Selection - Keyword Research

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