The Keyword Game: Basic SEO Tips
July 18, 2009
I recently attended another webinar, this one through PRWeb entitled “How to Use Your News to Bring Customers Straight to Your Door.” As you know, SEO is the name of the game in establishing a strong online presence – whether you’re selling running shoes or life coaching services.
Janet Driscoll Miller is President and CEO of Search Mojo, and a bonafide guru when it comes to all things related to search engine optimization. The foundation of any SEO program, she says, is keywords. Making sure you find the best keywords for your business is the easiest way to optimize your website or press release so that your name comes up first in Google or Yahoo! searches, driving traffic to your site.
Keywords need to be:
Researched: Google has a free tool here: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal. This tool allows you to look up keywords to see how often they are searched for on Google. Just for giggles, let’s say you have an online store that specializes in key duplication. Your website may be optimized for “key duplication,” but the Google tool says that “key copy” is a much more popular search. A smart businessman would change his optimization to “key copy” immediately – and then sit back and watch traffic to his site spike. When you use the tool, try a couple of different keyword combinations to find the most popular.
Targeted: You don’t want to have a keyword that’s too broad or generic like “purses.” You’ll likely find that the competition is too stiff when your keyword is overreaching. Make sure you target the keyword to your specific product or service – something more like “eco-friendly purses.”
Dense: Optimum keyword density is anywhere between 2% and 4% per page on your site. You don’t want to overrun your site with keywords, because it makes your content unreadable – and hurts your search engine ranking.
Open-minded. Ok, little joke. Your keywords don’t have to be open-minded, but you should be. The best keyword for your business might not be what you have branded on your website – for instance, your business may sell “preowned vehicles,” but the fact of the matter is “used car” is a more popular search. You may have to bite the bullet and optimize for a keyword that you don’t have branded on your website – but it’s going to work.
In addition, there are many professional search engine optimization services that can help optimize your website or press releases.
These are just a few tips to get you started on SEO for your website and press releases. Have any questions – feel free to ask!