Ben Wheeler

In the second and final part of this article I will cover the remaining 5 areas that relate to solid Search Engine Ranks for particular number of key phrases. Again, this will apply to any type of website, on any industry you are targeting.
Lets review the last 5 areas:

Provide a road map of your web site, and search engines will follow it.
Called the “sitemap”, this very simple page contains links to every page on a web site and serves one very important purpose. That is to get your sub pages crawled, and into a search engine’s index.

Search Engines look for the robots.txt file, so make sure you have it.
As its name implies, this is a text file that tells robots what to and what not to index. Its content consists of so-called records. Only mention files and directories that you don’t want to be indexed. All other files will be indexed normally if they are linked on your site. Having a proper robots.txt file gives your pages the rankings they deserve. If search engines know what to do with them, then they can give them good ranking.

Submit your site to related categories in niche directories.
Internet directories have become very important because they represent an easy path for inbound links creation. Now, when you submit your site to related categories in your industry you get that extra link factor, quality. Links from these categories can have a very positive effect on the search engine rankings of your web site.

Writing articles about your site, a great way to get new content.
This will help you get good positioning on search engines and quality incoming links as well. Always keep your articles as informative as possible. Other web sites will link back to your articles if you do. Write about the topics that your visitors are interested in, and don’t forget to send them to syndicate sites. They will in turn offer them to others. Just make sure that you always have a link back to your web site so that all sites who publish your article will automatically link to you.

Become an authority in your field. Visit relevant forums and blogs.

Only join forum and blogs that are relevant to your industry. Use your expertise as a site owner in your industry to give information and advice. Of course, put your URL into the signature of your posts. Being the authority is simply knowing your industry, and giving people the information they need to trust you and your site.

Sincerely yours,

Philipp

www.selfseo.com

The first thing you should know about SEO is that Consistency is the “key word”.
Because of that, in this first article I will cover the immediate things that relate to
solid Search Engine Ranks for particular number of key phrases. This will apply to any type of website, on any industry you are targeting. Lets review first 5 areas:

Search Engines Rank web pages, not web sites.
You should have unique Titles, Descriptions and Keywords in your pages. Therefore,
there should be only one page per keyword phrase you are targeting, highly focused
on that phrase. You can also target as many related combinations of your phrase as searches are using to find it, as long as you have individual pages focused for them.

Your web site has to be relevant to searchers, not just the search engine.
One very important area of SEO is to be well-balanced. There many variables that
matter when it comes to optimizing a site, there is not a specific area were all the
effort should be on. Instead focus on achieving a Top 10 Position, and here is why:
It is OK to be number 5 or number 3 in any given rank… If you are in the 1st spot and you are clicked simply because that spot gets more clicks, are you really going to get more of whatever your site’s goal is just because you are the number 1?

Less is more, when it comes to targeted keywords.
If you have like most, an average site, focus on 5-10 keywords. Build your entire site around these keywords. Remember to be relevant to searches using these keywords. You should rather have one keyword for which your site is on the Top 10 (first page), than ten that are on secondary pages. Put those keywords in your Title, Description, and Keyword areas, and remember the uniqueness factor.

Build real content for people, not for machines.
It is said that “content is king”, and for a good reason. When two sites highly optimized in a particular industry for a particular key phrase compete, this is
one of the most important areas Search Engines evaluate for relevancy, and
therefore positioning. Keep your content updated either by adding new, or by
editing existing one. The relation between content and its freshness is a must.

Tell me who links to you, who you link to, and I will tell you who you are.
Yes, linking is that important in SEO. You must have incoming links, but what really matters, is that you must have quality incoming links, and you must build them all naturally. Search Engines reward sites when their links are build steadily over time.

By the way, since we are talking about SEO tips – i strongly suggest you get the “Instant SEO tips” by Gareth Owen – this guy really knows what he is talking about and reveals a lot of his own SEO tips and strategies. This report is well worth the money:

http://www.selfseo.com/goto/instant-seo-tips.php

Best regards,

Philipp

www.selfseo.com

Many search engine optimization efforts are focused on pushing the home page of a site. This is a fundamental mistake that can result in the site missing out on a lot of traffic.

Go Wide, Young Man

In nearly every case, a site should be designed to draw traffic through both the home page and various internal pages. Home pages, obviously, can be tailored to the primary keyword phrases you are seeking, but don’t forget the minor pages.

I always find it odd when people ask which keyword phrase they should try to optimize for on their site. They become a bit flummoxed when I tell them to optimize for all of them. The only question is which keywords should appear on which pages.

For example, the site NomadJournals.com sells writing journals for outdoor activities such as fly fishing, traveling, hiking, bird watching and so on. So, which of these subjects should be used as the keyword phrase for the home page? None! Instead, the generic term “writing journals” was chosen. But what about the specific journal subjects?

The individual pages on the site promoting each journal are optimized for the specific product. The fly fishing journal page is optimized for fly fishing keywords, the travel page for travel keywords and so on. The end result of this is the home page is appearing high in “writing journals” search results, while each of the internal journal pages are also appearing high.

This can often lead to an interesting visitor situation. As you review your server stats, you may start noting a majority of your traffic is coming in through internal site pages, not the home page. In the above Nomad Journals scenario, the travel journal page far outdraws the home page, which makes for a nice revenue increase.

The home page of a site is critical in a search engine optimization campaign. Just keep in mind it isn’t the only page that can draw free traffic and revenues to your site.

Regards,

Philipp

www.selfseo.com

De-mystifying Landing Page Optimization Posted: 31 May 2010 09:02 AM PDT When a website is finally getting respectable traffic, enjoying a decent page rank (PR), and already at the first pages of search engine results, is it time to break out the champagne in celebration? The shrewd website owner knows this is just halfway through the journey to a successful income-generating website. The end-goal is still how to turn visitors into buying customers. The bottom line is sales conversion, and this is an even harder hurdle to overcome. It all boils down to what the users do when they get into the site. Do they click on links and advertisements? Do they spend a lot of time reading or browsing products? And most importantly, do they buy? To convert audience from just-curious exploring visitors into actively purchasing ones, website owners should venture into the realms of landing page optimization. Shedding Light on Landing Page Optimization Experts rely on certain information to optimize the landing page. Some data may come from search criteria used by users to get to the site, or user demographics and buying habits. With this data the page is re-designed to appeal to users. Another way to optimize is based on the results of an experimentation, wherein users are led to several versions of the landing page to see which version is more appealing to them. The most common experimentation is through A/B split testing involving two versions of the page. Although this method is inexpensive and makes for easier analysis and decision-making, the decision maybe flawed by inadequate data that takes no account of many external elements – banner, layout, color theme, text copy, etc. — not contained in only two versions. Another landing page optimization that is more complex in execution, tools used, and statistical analysis is multi-variate LPO. Multi-variate LPO incorporates more elements that can be combined to come up with better landing page versions. When testing versions of landing pages that accounts for multiple variables instead of just two, the site gets the most accurate analysis of visitor preferences, the factors that can make them buy, and which page version is the best combination that gets the best reaction from users. Tips to Better Landing Page Optimization When website owners decide to launch their landing page optimization, they should do so with careful consideration. The undertaking involves resources and a certain degree of risk. If not done correctly, LPO can end up costing money but little results. Here are some tips to make the effort effective and easier: The look and feel of the landing page, is critical to encouraging or discouraging visitors to make a purchase in the site. This should be kept in mind as the rationale behind any LPO effort. Be careful in choosing the elements for optimization, such as layout, color theme, promotional campaigns, banners, etc. Make sure they can materialize or can be delivered when they turn out to be critical to optimization. Choose the best element mix from the many permutations, to lessen the complexity of having to test all landing page combinations. To find the optimum mix of elements from gathered data, use the most efficient tool such as Google’s Website Optimizer for analysis. Be careful in directing users to experimental landing page versions in a production website, many users tend to dislike changes and may cause them to leave. Debbie A. Everson is the CEO of SearchMar.com, experienced SEO Consultants and Search Engine Optimization Agency to over 2,000 small businesses. Read my SEO Blog for hints and tips. Follow me on Twitter @searchmar. Call 1.866.885.6263 to speak to one of our SEO Consultants and receive your free consultation. Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources De-mystifying Landing Page Optimization

Today we are going to talk about keyword research for your website. If you will target the wrong keywords with your SEO campaign you will lose the battle even before it begins. Nowadays you can not expect to rank for broad match highly competitive keywords like “web hosting” or “dating” – the sites that are on the first page of Google (and that should be your primary goal) are several years old and have tens or hundred of thousands backlinks, it is almost impossible to outrank them with a brand new website within a short period of time.

On the other side, it would be easy to rank on the first place for the phrase “cool and stupid shoe widgetization” but who will search for that ?

So our goal is to find long tail keywords that are related to your website’s theme that have many searches per month and low competition. All the SEO gurus are calling that “niche marketing”. Niche marketing is the way to go for us webmasters that don’t have 7 figure budgets and a staff of hundred people to back up our SEO campaigns.

There are unlimited amount of niches that you have never heard of. Niches like “shiny steel can openers” and “dstt cards”. “World of Warcraft mining guide” and “fish oil supplements”. Find such a niche that is not too competitive, do a proper keyword research, write content around that topic and voila – you have got a niche website that is getting easy traffic and hopefully generates some money. Not all niches are money makers though but a lot of them can make money with Adsense or affiliate products. If there is no product you can create your own ans sell it, but that is another topic.

We will stay on track with the keyword research. There are a lot of keyword tools out there that makes our life easier.

As an example, let’s assume we have a website that is selling baseball bats. Now if you thought that your goal is to rank first for “baseball bats”, good luck with that. Your goal is to rank for a lot of low competing keywords related to baseball bats.

Now let’s see what Google can tell us about baseball bats. Goto the Google’s keyword tool that will provide us with some tips:

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

Enter “baseball bats” (WITHOUT quotes) in the keyword field, enter the captha string and press “Get keyword ideas”. You will get a lot of related keywords among with number of searches per month on the Google network. Cool eh ? Now click on “Global Monthly Search Volume” to sort it by the amount of searches per month.

You see that the top searched term is baseball bat (surprise!) 450.000 searches per month is a lot of traffic if you rank first. All numers can vary depending on your location and time but this is just an example. Now let us check the competition for that term. Go to Google’s search and search for “baseball bat” (again, WITHOUT quotes). Whoa ! “Results 1 – 10 of about 16,600,000″. Ok, but actually that is not the real amount of competing sites exactly for that search term. That means 16,600,000 pages have both or only one of the words “baseball” and “bat”.

Now let’s see how many pages are containing exactly this keyword phrase “baseball bat”. Search for it WITH QUOTES this time, exactly like “baseball bat”. 3,800,000 results. Much better but still almost impossible to beat.

Let’s get back to Google’s keyword tool and see what terms people are also looking for. The more searches the better of course. Two or three word combinations that are getting a lot of searches are much easier to rank for. Hmmm, “senior baseball bats” ? Let’s check that one. It is still getting around 4,400 searches per month so if you COULD hit the #1 on Google for that, it would mean like 50 – 100 free visitors per day (it always depends on the niche, how appealing your page title is etc etc, but you got the idea).

Search for “senior baseball bats” in Google (WITH quotes). What? Only 4,710 competing pages? Cool! Now let me tell you what – with this number of competitors you can hit at least the first page of Google within two weeks.

Do a dedicated page for “Senior baseball bats”, make sure this term is once in title, once in description, once in <h1> tag on page and 2-3 times within your on page text. Don’t overdo it though and make sure the text still reads nicely. You don’t want to scary off your visitors with a bad written copy. List all your bats that are suitable for seniors on this page. Link to that page with the link text “Senior baseball bats” within your site navigation and place some links to that page from other websites with that links text (I recommend to alternate it a bit tough, like “Baseball bats for seniors”, Senior baseball bat” etc). Link building will be another topic within my email series, so stay tuned.

Ok, now rinse and repeat. Build pages around other keywords on your theme. Try to dig deeper. Enter “Senior baseball bats” into the Google’s keyword tool and see what will come up. Build pages for these keywords if they are worth it. Study your traffic stats. You have a page about senior baseball bats but a lot of people are coming to your website while searching for “Senior wooden baseball bats” because you rank on the 6th place for that term ? Build a page about senior wooden baseball bats. There is gold hidden in the traffic logs.

Some things to consider:
Ideally, you are looking for 2-4 words combinations that have more than 10,000 searches per month and less than 20,000 competing websites – usually it is fairly easy to hit the first page of Google with these. Although it is also depending on factors like your niche, how much you are making per visitor etc. Just try it out with and easy keywords and with a harder one to figure out your range.

Even if there are a few competitors, always check the sites that are on the first page. Authority sites like Wikipedia, university sites and such usually have tons of backlinks and are hard to beat

Check if there are some Google Adwords ads for your keyword – if yes, that usually means that this keyword converts. And that’s what we want, right? But don’t freak about it – keep in mind that Adword ads might be targeted only to some countries and you won’t see them depending on where you live.

Google search numbers might not be very accurate but will give you a basic idea about a popularity of a keyword. Another good keyword research tool is http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook/ – it might give you more keyword ideas.

If you are serious about keyword research, I strongly recommend the Micro Niche Finder. This will be one of the best investments you have ever made. When I have found this tool, I have cut my keyword research time by like 80%. You can find more related keywords, check competition, dig for more keywords and check more search networks with a single click.
This tool can do a lot more than just keyword research – it will help you to profit from article marketing, Yahoo Answers, Squidoo etc. Do yourself a favor and watch the free videos that are available on their website:

Micro Niche Finder

That’s it for this issue, I hope it was informative for you and will point you to the right direction to get started with the keyword research. If there is something unclear, feel free to email me back and ask. You will help me to make this guide better. Thank you for your time!

Best regards,
Philipp Kostins
www.selfseo.com

SEO Article Writing: How To Write A Keyword Rich Title Posted: 26 May 2010 09:34 AM PDT Writing a keyword rich article title is beneficial to your article, but is it possible to balance SEO article writing with writing that also appeals to human readers? Certainly! If you follow the techniques and advice in this article, you will be creating titles that make sense, grab the reader’s attention, and accurately portray what your article is about. Here’s where many people go wrong: They write their article, then they say: “Now I need to figure out a way to get my keyword phrase into my title.” Sometimes this afterthought approach works, but most of the time it doesn’t. When you create your article and title and then backtrack and try to get your keyword phrase in your headline, the result often looks unnatural and does not make sense. Here’s the trick: Do the opposite. Instead of finishing by trying to force your keywords into your already constructed article and title, use your keywords as a beginning point. Take your keyword phrase and brainstorm some natural sounding titles that incorporate that phrase. Then, write an article to satisfy the title. Let’s look at some examples of keyword rich titles (listing the keyphrase first, then the titles): § *Healthy Eating Habits* § 10 Healthy Eating Habits That Will Help You Live Longer § Healthy Eating Habits For Children § *Short Track Speed Skating* § The History of Short Track Speed Skating § Short Track Speed Skating: A Beginner’s Guide Each one of these titles makes sense, is comprehensible to a human reader, and is engaging enough to catch the attention of a reader interested in any of these topics. These titles are keyword rich, while still appealing to human readers. This is what you’re going for! Notice that each of these phrases is a long tail keyword phrase (3-5 words long). When you are doing your keyword research you will come up with a list of long tail keyphrases and a list of 2 word keyword phrases. The long tail phrases are to be used in generating article titles and topics. The shorter main phrases are to be used in your resource boxes. Does It Matter Where I Put My Keyphrase In My Title? You may notice that some of the sample titles have the targeted phrase at the beginning of the title. If you can manage it in a natural sounding way, try to include the phrase at the beginning of the title. If not, don’t worry about it. The point is not to use a strict title formula each time. Your goal is to generate quality titles that will attract readers, convey what the article is about, and also incorporate the keyphrase in a natural sounding way. If you come up with a great title that has the keyword phrase at the middle or the end of the title, then that’s fine. Focus on creating titles that are interesting and appealing to your target readers. After you have gone through your list of long tail keywords and generated a few titles for each, then pick a title and write an article for it. You see, this is the reverse of what many people do–take your key phrase, then brainstorm titles, then write an article that fulfills what the title promises. The result is a natural looking title and article. This is the type of article and title that readers, publishers, and search engines will love. For more info on how you can use article marketing to reach thousands of potential prospects for your website, go now to http://www.submityourarticle.com/report . Steve Shaw is an article marketing expert and founder of the popular article distribution service http://www.submityourarticle.com used by thousands of business owners. Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources SEO Article Writing: How To Write A Keyword Rich Title

The time has come to list the top 10 SEO mistakes committed by website owners worldwide.

If you are not too happy about your website’s rankings on the search engines, then look through this list and make sure that the website is not committing any of these mistakes.

I’ve decided to divide this article into 2 sections: on page SEO and off page SEO mistakes. As you read through this article, you will realise that the mistakes covered here are all based on my previous articles about SEO.

On Page SEO Mistakes

This section refers to SEO mistakes made on your actual website.

1. Not Targeting 1 Keyword Per Page

This is the most important facet of on page SEO yet so many people are either unaware of its importance or forget to do it. It’s heaps easier to target a single keyword per page than to target 10 keywords per page. At the very maximum, you can target 2 keywords but you should try to keep it to just one. Focusing your efforts on 1 keyword per page will get greater results quicker. I can guarantee it.

2. No Keyword In URL

The URL of each page should have the keyword you are targeting for that page. If it doesn’t, then it’s just going to be harder for you to get that page ranking for that target keyword. Fix up your URL if you have to because this is crucial to SEO success.

3. No Keyword In Title Tag

I cannot count the number of pages I’ve been webpages not have their target keyword in the title tag. Just in case you’re not aware, the title tag is what appears at the top of your browser when you’re on a webpage. This is the one mistake I see the most because it is so obvious when I visit a webpage. It’s amazing how many home pages of websites have the word “Home” in their title tags. You MUST have the target keyword in your title tag because it will make a huge difference to your SEO efforts. This is certainly one of the top 10 SEO mistakes out there today.

4. Bad Use Of Meta Description And Meta Keywords

The most common mistake regarding meta description is people not using it at all. Just in case you weren’t aware, the meta description is a short description which is used to describe your website in search engine result listings. You should use it to encourage people to visit your website when they find you on the search engines. It’s also doesn’t hurt to have your target keyword there.

Regarding meta keywords, the most common mistake people commit is putting too many keywords there. You should limit yourself to a maximum of 5 to 8 keywords because putting more will only get you punished by the search engines for keyword spamming.

5. Bad Keyword Density

Unfortunately, many people are still committing this grave SEO mistake. Some are mentioning their target keyword as much as possible on their webpage to try and get it to rank highly. It used to work in the early days on the Web when engines were not intelligent but these days it can only guarantee your websites getting punished or even banned.

On the other hand, there are also people who do not use their keyword enough on their webpages. This is equally bad because it means that the search engines have no idea as to what keyword your webpage is trying to rank highly for.

When it comes to keyword density, your goal should be 3% which is not too much and not too little for good SEO results.

Off Page SEO Mistakes

This section refers to SEO mistakes made outside your website, but which hamper your website’s ability to rank highly on the search engines.

6. Bad Keyword Research

Keyword research is the basis for SEO success. If you target keywords with a high level of competition, then your ability to rank highly and get traffic will be diminished in the short term. On the other hand, you should not simply target keywords because of low competition because there may not be enough people searching for that keyword. It’s all about finding a balance between the number of searches and the number of websites competing for that keyword. Using tools such as Google Keyword Tool can help you achieve that objective.

7. No Keyword In Anchor Text

Off page SEO is all about building backlinks aka links back to your website. Nevertheless, while doing that, most people forget to put their keywords in the anchor text of the backlink. For example, if “computer repairs” was the primary keyword of your website, then you want to be sure that computer repairs is in the anchor text, just like in the following:

“Visit the best computer repairs service in town.”

Please note that the above is just an example.

This must be one of the most simple top 10 SEO mistakes committed today.

8. No Anchor Text Variety

While it’s great to use your target keyword in the anchor text of your backlinks, you must also mix and match with other keywords. In other words, if you use the same keywords in the anchor text of 100 links, then the search engines will regard this as suspicious and will punish your website. For this reason, you should find about 5 other related keywords and use them in your anchor text too. The greater the variety, the better your SEO results will be.

9. No Link Source Variety

There are plenty of ways to get backlinks, however, one of the top 10 SEO mistakes committed by people too often is by using only a minimal amount of link sources. For example, some people simply use article marketing to get their backlinks. Others just use social media. You need to be using a large range of sources to get your backlinks. The reason why this is the case is that the more sources you utilise, the more natural the backlinks will appears to the search engines, and the higher it will rank.

10. No Natural Build Up Of Links

Building on the previous mistake, you have to make sure that the amount of backlinks your website gets takes place in a natural, human-like manner. For instance, getting 300 links in just a single week will certainly grab the attention of the search engines and as a result, they will punish your website accordingly. However, if you get 300 links over the course of a month, then that will appear to be more natural and they will more than likely than not reward you.

Fix Them And Then Avoid Them

I suggest that you go through all of your websites and see whether they are committing the SEO mistakes covered in this post. After correcting them, it’s all about avoiding these common SEO mistakes so that your website get the rankings and traffic they thoroughly deserve.

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Martin Sejas – If you are looking for an SEO consulting service based in Sydney which can guarantee results for your website, don’t forget to register for your free consultation.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is something that many webmasters are now obsessing over. Many web site owners are spending countless hours tweaking and modifying their web sites, adding keyword rich content, and spending hours obtaining back links, so that their site will rank higher in search engines. It is true that over 90% of all web surfers use search engines to visit sites on a regular basis, but should web masters and web site designers build and tweak sites for search engines, or for their visitors?

The answer to this question is that when you build a web site, you are not targeting web search engine crawlers, you are targeting people and human visitors. Hence, you should build a web site for humans, not search engines. The whole purpose to create a web site is so that you can get traffic. Without traffic, a web site is worthless. No matter how many features and how functional your site is, without traffic, your design and functionality do not matter. Although search engines can help bring in traffic, web sites that are designed for search engines, are often not designed for human visitors and all the traffic that your web site gets will be worthless. Visitors will visit and then soon leave your web site and not return again. Return visitors are critical for the success of any web site.

One good example of optimizing for search engines purely is some webmasters tend to stuff tons of keywords into the Meta-Tags; this is a very bad practice and will get the site blacklisted. Moreover, this black hat technique does not benefit the users.

Hence, when building a web site, one should build it for human visitors. If you have articles that are too keyword dense, the quality of the writing will not be as high as it should, and quite frankly, many of your visitors will be annoyed if you keep using words such as “mesothelioma” or “home insurance loan” to get your web site high in the search rankings for these terms. They will leave your web site and most likely not return. If you create a web site where content is created for people to read and is well written, chances are you will get many return visitors who like the quality of the content you provide and come back frequently to read any new content you may have added. The more people that visit and link to your web site, the more popular it well become and naturally, it will be ranked higher in search engines.

Also, rather than spending hours building links for SEO purposes, that time could be better spent on adding features to your web site which would prompt more people to return to your site and stay at your web site for a longer period of time.

In conclusion, although spending lot of time on SEO and increasing your search engine rankings in the short run, the visitors you get from your SEO efforts will not be valuable as chances are they will not visit again. If you build your web sites for people, your traffic will grow and search engine rankings will rise naturally. Hence, the best way to build a successful web site is to build for people and allow your web site to naturally move up search engine rankings.

Philipp

http://www.selfseo.com

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… there is no more important step in the SEO process than keyword research. One could make a compelling argument for link building or for architecture or for copywriting but at the end of the day – ranking highly for keywords that either don’t convert or which you close up shop waiting to rank for isn’t going to help too terribly much so in my opinion – I’d put keyword research higher in importance. In fact, when I’m building affiliate sites my first step is to look up keywords and competition levels – then I look into products and websites and this method has worked very well indeed. It insures that I choose keywords that will both convert and that I can rank for in a period of  ime and with an effort level that matches the return.

So – if you’re doing keyword research, where should you begin? Unless you’re an affiliate marketer you already have a product and since you’re the target audience of this article – I’m going to assume that’s the case. For the purpose of this article I’m going to pick a hobby of mine and also an area where I don’t have a client and imagine I’m doing keyword research for the imaginary online downhill mountain biking store, DH Mountain Bikes.

So Where To Begin …

The first thing one needs to do is try to think up all the possible phrases that might apply. I call this my seed list… it’s the list of phrases that my research starts with and is generally based on brainstorming. In this case the list would be:

• § downhill mountain bike
• § dh mountain bike
• § mountain bike

The keyword tool I generally use first is Google’s keyword suggestion tool. There are other great tools but I’ve found Google’s tool to be as accurate as any other, the price is definitely right (free), and they’re very good about providing the information required to know just how wrong the data is if you know where to look. So let’s do just that.

Before we begin you’ll need to head over to Google’s keyword tool at https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal. In the top left (for now) you’ll see a link to a beta version of the tool. Click on the link and you’ll be at the new version of the tool which will provide you easy access to much more information – as long as you know what to look for. So let’s begin with our three seed phrases.

When you see the list you’ll first have to know what the numbers are. This tool is a tool designed for AdWords and the default number is the Broad match which means it includes every phrase with the term. For example, the term “mountain bike” has a broad match total of 2,740,000 which will include “downhill mountain bike”, “mountain bike parts”, “kona mountain bike”, etc. etc.

What we want to know is how many searches are for “mountain bike”. Down the left-hand side you’ll see a set of check boxes. Deselect “Broad” and select “Exact” and you’ll get the Exact match numbers – the number of searches for the exact phrase. You’ll quickly see that 2,740,000 drop to 450,000. This is how many people searched the GOOGLE SEARCH NETWORK for “mountain bike”. Why is this in caps – because it’s so commonly
misunderstood that I definitely want your attention brought to it. This isn’t the number of searches on Google.com – it’s the number of searches on all sites whose search is powered by Google. From YouTube to Beanstalk’s blog search – it’s all in there so the data starts to get skewed from the start. Then let’s add in all the automated queries from rank-checking tools and just manual searches from you and your competitors and the data gets further skewed. This skewing will exist in all data – the thing I like about using Google is that at least we know more about what’s adjusting the data.

OK – so from there we need to organize the data into a more useful set of information. To do this one needs to understand the columns of data. The first column is the keyword, the second you’ll see is a link to the term on Google Insights. We’ll get into this later. The next is Global Monthly Searches – this is the average number of searches/mo. worldwide. This can be helpful in some industries but in ours – I’m only concerned with the US market which is where my imaginary store ships to so I’m more interested in the next column Local Monthly Searches which is the number of searches in the US (or whatever region I’ve specified when entering my keyword phrases). This is the data I’m interested in. The last column is the search trend. This is extremely important but often overlooked. It is a column that wasn’t visible by default in the old/current version.

OK – let’s organize our data by search volume. Click on the “Local Monthly Searches” and you’ll see the keywords order by descending search volume. With this data in front of me I then typically look over to the Trend data to see what I can find there. In our case we’re going to see an increase in search volume in the spring and summer. This make sense of course. Think of your industry and see if the trends reflect what makes sense.

I’m also looking for anomalies. Often I’ll see phrases that jump for a single month. One has to know that unless there was a news story or other event that would spark interest in a single term or brand – a tool or some other such incident is likely falsifying the data. You need to look at these trends and see if they make sense. If not – you need to either test the phrases with PPC or just skip over them and select different phrases. There’s little worse as an SEO than focusing energies on a phrase only to find that the search volume is not what was expected based on the estimates delivered.

So now what?

So what do you do once you’ve filtered your data down to just what you’re interested in looking into competition levels on. Well – the first thing I do is to look to the trends to see if there are any phrases that obviously need to be filtered out. In this case there really aren’t any high in the search volume column. So the only thing left is to look at the competition levels to see what makes sense. For our purposes we’ll be dividing the list and research into two categories:

Major phrases – We need to decide what the long-term goals are going to be and the targets for the main pages. These will be the totally generic phrases such as “mountain bike” and “downhill mountain bike” as well as brand or type specific phrases such as “specialized mountain bike” and “full suspension mountain bike”.

Longtail phrases – We also need to look into the types of longtail phrases we’re going to want to target. In this case I know I’ll want to target specific parts which will require new research. I will spare you the details there, but I’ll end up with specific models of components such as “hayes mx2″. You don’t need to know what that is  - you need to know the makes and models in your industry (or other longatil opportunities such as “new york hotel with jacuzzi”, etc.)

I generally would gather together a list of 15 or 20 major phrases and 50 or 60 longtail phrases and would then head into the competition analysis to determine which phrases to move forward with.

And next week I’ll have that article for you…

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Dave Davies is the CEO of Beanstalk Search Engine Optimization, Inc. (http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/) On top of providing performance-based organic SEO services, consulting, training and link building – Dave enjoys writing and blogging about SEO as well as affiliate marketing, including his upcoming site on downhill mountain bikes (http://www.dhmountainbikes.com/) and the hills they’re built for.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

The Web is full of information, articles, videos, white papers, e-books and all matter of research and information. Some of it is very, very good, and some of it is misleading and irrelevant. Somewhere in the middle, falling squarely in the category of spectacularly mediocre, is the vast majority of the rest of it.

If you’re like me, always trying to improve, learn, and grow your business, then you’ve probably been frustrated in your search for truly useful information that you can actually use to improve your marketing, branding, and sales efforts.

There seems to be a wide choice of articles dedicated to surefire courses on do-it-yourself marketing that will make you a Web-Media-Mogul overnight (usually available for a mere three payments of twenty-nine, ninety-five) and of course, there’s always lots of stuff on how you just got to get on-board with the next big social networking fad. Excuse me while I delete another email about an absolutely fabulous linking strategy I just can’t live without.

It’s all too familiar and for the most part, a waste of time. If this nonsense were really the answer to growing your business, then you’d already be rich, sitting on some Bora Bora beach sipping pina coladas, and not hunched over your computer trying to find something useful that will actually help.

In One Word Or Less

When it comes to marketing, it really doesn’t matter what venue, method, or media you employ; marketing is simply a matter of effective ‘communication,’ easy to say, not so easy to do.

Your ability to communicate is the key to marketing success, or conversely, your inability to communicate effectively is what is holding you back. So the time has come to grapple with the real problem, and that is, how do you communicate your marketing message in the most effective manner to your audience; how do you tell your brand story so people pay attention, and care.

The first thing to understand about marketing communication is that text messaging, Twitter and all other limited, one dimensional solutions, stifle the very thing that’s necessary to implement effective marketing communication: the nuance, depth of understanding, and emotional value inherent in what you offer – the very thing your audience needs to know about what you sell. The key being ‘why they need what you offer’ not ‘what.’

Communication Is A Complex Process

The second thing to understand about marketing communication is that it involves five critical elements in order to be effective: the Message, the Method, the Messenger, the Audience, and the Venue.

Ask yourself, why are you on the Web at all? If it’s because everyone else is on the Web, then you’re never going to have the marketing breakthrough you crave; but if it’s because you have something to say, a story to tell, a reason for people to say, “I need some of that!” then it’s time to get serious about developing the right message, delivered by the right messenger, sent to the right audience, and employing the Web venue’s best method of multidimensional communication – Video.

This is nothing new. Web Video is now accepted as the most effective communication tool available to Web businesses, so what is the difference between Web Videos that are an utter waste of time, and worse, counter productive, and Web Videos that turn companies into marketing phenoms?

Unlike one-dimensional forms of communication, Web Video delivers your message by accessing multiple senses using visual and auditory techniques. Just by adding a human being as presenter goes a long way to making an impact.

Because video communicates by accessing multiple senses on both a subliminal and direct level, it demands knowledge and expertise in concept creation, writing, casting, graphic and motion design, video production and editing, audio, music and sound design, as well as the ability to get it all to work together in an effective presentation delivered on time and for an affordable investment.

But all of this expertise and skill can be wasted if your video campaign lacks an identifiable emotionally relevant conceptual design. One of the hardest marketing concepts for bottom-line oriented business executives to accept is that the value of their offering is found in the emotional satisfaction their product or service provides. Telling people what a company does alone is not marketing, telling them why they need what you do is. Companies that focus on ‘the what’ turn their products and services into commodities and products that are indistinguishable from the competition, but companies that focus on the emotional value they provide, deliver the answer to the question, why people buy from one company and not from another.

Effective Marketing Communication is Concept Based

All good marketing is based on an emotionally based concept. This is especially true on the Web, where content and attention span go hand-in-hand. If your Web marketing is not interesting, informative, and entertaining, it will never be memorable; it will never have the lasting impact you need to meet your sales and marketing objectives. Effective marketing communication starts with an emotionally charged concept, one that can be spun-out into a long-term presentation strategy, a concept with legs.

Coming up with an appropriate concept that will work for your product or service takes a bit of creative thinking, but it really isn’t as hard as you think. One caveat that often escapes clients, when they come to us with their ideas is that the concept must be executable for the available budget. Anybody can come up with fantastic ideas that are impossible to implement or cost prohibitive. The trick is to develop a concept that can be implemented on time and on budget.

Executable Brand Video Campaign Concepts

One method we use to develop affordable brand video campaign concepts for clients is to combine the emotional value proposition the client offers with a recognizable presentation trope.

Tropes are metaphorical expressions, or in this case, storytelling-scenarios that audiences recognize and accept in terms of their implied expectations and implications. Used properly within the context of a Web Video presentation, tropes can simplify and shorten a complex message, and provide cover for what would otherwise be a boring, blatant sales pitch, or desperate plea for business.

Human beings are all programmed for pattern recognition, it is a basic skill needed for survival, and it’s been hardwired into our DNA. Our very survival as a species is dependent on our ability to recognize danger and opportunity. Business and marketing is no different. And that is what makes communication tropes effective. This intrinsic aspect of our nature allows professional video marketing experts to tap into the motivational triggers that govern our subliminal decision-making responses, the kind of responses that get people to buy what you sell.

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Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design and marketing firm that specializes in Web-video Marketing Campaigns and Video Websites. Visit http://www.mrpwebmedia.com/ads, http://www.136words.com, and http://www.sonicpersonality.com. Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com or telephone (905) 764-1246.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources