Drive Traffic To Your Website Using The
Right Keywords
Author: Shirley Kelly
Search engines are the #1 tool people use when
shopping for products, services or information
online. Optimize your website with the proper
keywords or keyword phrases for your content
and watch your traffic explode. If you gain an
understanding of how to properly promote your
website your efforts will reach it's full
potential. To rank relevantly within search
engine results, each website must be
consideredrelevant to a particular search
algorithm for a given keyword or keyword
phrase. Keyword selection can be a challenge
to both experts and neophytes. While anyone
can come up with various words that may be
used when searching for their product or
service, these words may not be the ideal mix
for search engine ranking. Why? If a marketer
chooses popular keyword phrases, he or she and
a million other businesses compete for top
placement. Top search engine ranking page (SERP)
placement is dense, searchers typically giving
up after the first three pages. To succeed,
one must use relevant keywords or keyword
phrases that are not being used by everyone
else and that are searched for quite often.
This may include misspellings and other
alternative data. After finding relevant
keywords and phrases, the results must
encourage conversion or success based on each
business criteria. For example, while it may
be possible for a DVD rental firm to get top
listings under the search criteria free DVD
rentals, the person who visits is looking for
free merchandise and will leave if its not
found. For optimal search engine rankings, a
page will be optimized for only one to two
popular but non-competitive keywords or
keyword phrases.
Keyword Coding
HTML coding are two words most people never
want to hear, especially in a learning
environment. But its important to understand
the basic web page header structure and where
the search engines look to find key words for
search engine ranking pages (SERP). Sites rank
highest when each page is optimized
separately. For instance, a business may have
one website with unlimited interlinking pages.
The top page must be named index.HTML. While
each sub-page may be named according to the
designer or programmers preference. Ideally
sub-pages are named according to the strongest
keywords or keyword phrases for each business.
Both the domain name and the URL or complete
web address string, are important factors in
determining search engine relevancy. Three
important META tags are on each individual
HTML page located between the head tags:
description, keywords and title. The webpage
description is the short sentence that
displays after the listing name is the SERPs.
The keywords are not viewed by the casual
surfer, but offer a clear-cut description of
what is found on the website or whos behind
it. The title is the most condensed of all
metatags. The title should repeat the top 1-2
keywords and describe what the site is about.
We can take the keyword theme as far as
necessary, yet success through search engine
optimization is not a 100% guaranteed way to
gain top rankings and can often dilute the
site and information quality by becoming a
string of repetitive keywords, not value-added
information. Some of these tactics include
adding pages of keyword-rich articles solely
to rank high. Another is developing a
mini-empire of interrelated sites not for
expert information, but solely to make the
sites appear more important and relevant to
the main site focus. To ensure a small 30-page
website is optimized, it must first renew
keyword use each month to find the most
popular terms for the three major search
engines, Yahoo!, Google and MSN. Each page
must be optimized for different but
interdependent terms to strengthen the site as
a whole. This involves new keyword research
and website content for each page every month.
An example of a good ecommerce site using paid
advertising instead of keyword optimization is
buy automotive.com. Notice the content is
relevant to the visitor entering and seeking
the product. In contract, auto anything.com, a
competitor site, relies heavily on keyword
content, uses text that has no purpose and
confuses the visitor with too many navigation
links and useless words meant for search
engines alone. Though this may gain rankings
with work and keyword saturation, it can also
damage a business reputation and ultimately
lead to less sales. Needless to say there are
far more aspects to choosing the right
keywords than I can cover in this article but
the information provided here should give you
a good insight into understanding how
important it is to design a website that is
keyword friendly. Lets face it, there is no
magic bullet when it comes to successfully
promoting your online business. There are pros
and cons to almost everything you do. If you
never develop a plan and put that plan into
motion, youll never know if thats the plan
that will ultimately be the magic bullet that
launches your online business to new found
success. Do give up! If at first you dont
succeed, TRY, TRY, AGAIN! There is a lot to
learn when starting a online business. Give
yourself a break and dont set unrealistic
goals. Contrary to popular beliefs, having a
successful, profit making, online business
doesnt happen overnight. So, Good Luck, Make
Money and Have Fun Doing It - Shirley Kelley
About the Author:
Shirley Kelly is a full time internet marketer
who has written over 200 articles in print and
5 published ebooks. To read her latest ebook
The Newbies Guide To Internet Marketing visit
her online at http://www.websitemarketing2.com
