SEO: 2 - Keywords and Your Web Site

Keyword… that is the term you hear associated with search engine optimization all the time. In fact, it’s very rare that you hear anything about SEO in which keywords aren’t involved in some way.

There was a time when the keywords that were used to rank a page were one of the most important factors in obtaining a high-quality score.

Keywords are still vitally important in web page ranking. However, they’re just one of dozens of elements that are taken into consideration.

What are Keywords

Keywords are the words or phrases that potential visitors enter into a search engine's Search box to find a web site that is related to a particular subject. Simply put, keywords are the words that are used to catalog, index and find your web site.

Before you take the plunge directly into the keyword search tools, spend some time analyzing your target market… you will need to learn as much as you can about your potential customers and your competition, so you can choose the proper keywords for your site.

Additionally, for each page on your site, you will create a list of keywords or keyword phrases that you will write into your site's content... these keywords or phrases will also be placed into your keywords tag (tags will be covered in 4 - Optimizing Your Site with Tags. The keywords or keyword phrases that you implement into your content will be unique to each page of your site that you produce.

Placing Right Keywords for Your Site

Your chosen keywords and phrases will play a large role in determining where you will land in the search rankings. Placing these keywords in the content you write will make the difference between your page being found in cyberspace or not.

Selecting the proper keywords for your site may mean the difference between not being found anywhere on the web, or being the first site that users click on when performing a search. Let’s start by looking at the two types of keywords… brand keywords and generic keywords.

Brand Keywords are keywords associated with your brand. If you don’t use the keywords contained in your business name, business description, and specific category of business, you’re missing out.

Generic Keywords are all the other keywords that are not directly associated with your company brand. Example, if your web site, TeenFashions.com sells teen clothing, then keywords such as clothing, tank tops, cargo pants, and bathing suits might be generic keywords that you could use on your site.

You should also know that there are two categories of keywords… keywords or phrases that you pay a fee to use (called pay-per-click), and naturally occurring keywords that work for you without the need to pay someone to ensure they appear in search results (called organic keywords).

Broad Keywords & Phrases, Compared to Specific Keyword Phrases

As you begin considering the keywords that you’ll use on your site, the best place to start brainstorming is with keywords that apply to your business. Every industry has its own set of buzzwords that people think of when they think about the products or services related to their business.

Start your brainstorming session with words and phrases that are broad in scope, even if they may not bring great search results. Then narrow your selections to more specific words and phrases, which will bring highly targeted traffic to your site.

Below is an example

Broad Keywords and Phrases

Knives
Indian Knives
Damascus Knives

Specific Keyword Phrases

Hunting Knives
American Indian Knives
Vintage Damascus Knives

Now that you have the idea about broad compared to specific keyword phrases, let’s move on.

Below is my favorite keyword research tool

The Google Keyword Suggestion Tool,

at   -   https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Type the keyword or keyword phrases in the box, click search and watch the results. As mentioned above, you will want to choose the most specific keyword phrases and their synonyms that you will be writing in your content or article.

Another tool for you to check out is Wordtracker Keyword Suggestion Tool

at   - http://www.wordtracker.com

Wordtracker offers a useful keyword suggestion tool that comes in free or subscription-fee versions. Wordtracker provides you with a list of related keywords and the estimated search volume for each keyword. Wordtracker collects search volume data from two search engines, dogpile.com and metacrawler.com.

Given the large size of the Wordtracker database, search volume estimates have proven to be fairly reliable and should provide you with a good idea of the kind of volume a given keyword generates across various search engines. Wordtracker breaks search volume estimates down into daily figures, as opposed to monthly numbers the Google Keyword Suggestion Tool provides.

Stemming Keywords

Keyword stemming is the growth of one related word from another, using suffixes and prefixes.

It can also include the addition of words on either side to extend the keywords scope. A major factor in search engine optimization is the hunt for relevant keywords that are under optimized by competitors, yet frequently used by searchers.

For example, if you’ve chosen “book flight” for your travel web site, then the stemmed keywords for that phrase might be as follows:

Booking flights
Book flights
Pre-book flights
Re-book flights
Re-booking flights
Pre-booking flights
Re-booked flights

There has been some discussion about the effectiveness of keyword stemming in your web site content. The consensus states that stemming is a good method to boost the number of times that you can use a keyword or keyword phrase on any given page.

Remember that rankings are achieved through a complex combination of factors from the algorithms that crawl your site. It goes back to what I said before… create pages for the user, not search engines. These are guidelines, but they will help you create a standard for how you use your keywords.

Using Semantic Indexing (LSI) Keyword Research

Semantic Indexing allows the search engines to determine a page’s relevance based upon its subject matter, rather than keyword density.

You can construct your sentences and paragraphs using semantically linked words to help make your pages extremely relevant to your particular search terms; covering as many thematically linked terms as possible helps establish high relevancy and a natural tone within your content.

In the world of organic search, latent semantic content refers to words that are connected thematically to a specific search query. For example: Computer, QuickTime, Mac, iPod, Macintosh, iPad, Mac Computer are all related terms synonymous for Apple Inc.

There are Google tools available to assist you in finding terms related to your search.

There are Google tools available to assist you in finding terms related to your search.

If you go to http://www.google.com/

type in the search bar “~apple” (don’t forget the “~” you’ll find next to the keyboard key # 1), even if you are using the new Google instant search, be sure to click the Search button to see the results in BOLD lettering.

Let’s take it one step further… with your search word “~apple” still in the search box, click on the link to your left “More search tools”, when the drop-down menu opens, scroll down and click on the “Related searches” link to come up with possible additional words at the top of the page.

For the word Apple, I did not see many additional synonyms that could be used, but when I typed in the words “~301 redirect”, I received many more usable phrases after I clicked on the Related Searches link, but not before. I guess it can vary with each word or phrase.

Another great source for semantic keyword research can be found at -

www.Quintura.com/

Navigate to quintura.com, type in the word “Apple” and on the search results page. Position your mouse over the word iPod in the keyword cloud. Notice the terms that appear such as nano and itunes? These terms are related to the term iPod.

Domain Name Tips

These are tips for the person thinking of re-naming their site, or just starting out. The question of what to name a web site is always a big one. When selecting a name, most people think in terms of their business name, or a word or phrase that has meaning for them. What they don’t consider is how that name will work for the site’s SEO.

Does the name have anything at all to do with the site, or is it completely unrelated?

Have you ever wondered why a company might be willing to pay millions of dollars for a domain name? The domain name business.com was purchased for $7.5 million in 1999 and was recently thought to be valued at more than $300 million today. Casino.com went for $5.5 million and worldwideweb.com sold for $3.5 million.

Where SEO is concerned, the name of your web site is as important as many of the other SEO elements that you need to consider.

Using a domain name containing a keyword from your content usually improves your site ranking.

A few things to keep in mind when you’re determining your domain name.

          1 - Keep the name as short as possible. Too many characters in a name mean increased potential for misspellings. It also means that your site address will be much harder for users to remember unless it’s something really startling.

        2 - Avoid dashes, underscores, and other meaningless characters. If the domain name that you want is taken, don’t just add a random number or piece of punctuation to the name in order to “get close”. Close doesn’t count here. Instead, try to find another word that’s relevant and possibly included in the list of keywords you’ll be using.

         3 - Opt for .com name whenever possible. There are a lot of domain extensions to choose from, such as info, biz, us, tv, etc., but if the .com version of your chosen domain name is available, that’s always the best choice. Users tend to think in terms of .com and any other extension will be harder for them to remember. .Com names also tend to receive higher rankings in search engines than web sites using other extensions.

My favorite web site to search for available domain names is GoDaddy.com at the following address

http://www.godaddy.com/.

If you find that the domain name is taken, you can click on the “Smart Search” link that is located directly below the search box with the words “Search for another domain” (scroll down just a little bit on the GoDaddy.com page to see the box).

If you found that the perfect domain name that you want is unavailable, Wordoid.com is another great web site to help you figure out some additional domain names from the one you like so much…

you can check it out at http://wordoid.com/

Again, it’s important to realize that domain naming is only one facet of SEO strategy.

It won’t make or break your SEO, but it can have some impact.

Therefore, take the time to think about the name you plan to register for your site and then how you plan to structure your URL’s as your web site grows.