Ten Steps To A Well Optimized Website - Step 1: Keyword Selection



This is part one of ten in this search engine positioning series.

In part one we will outline how to choose the keyword phrases most

likely to produce a high ROI for your search engine positioning

efforts. Over this ten part series we will go through ten essential

elements and steps to optimizing a site. Some steps take a few hours,

some may take months depending on the competition, but in the end

and if done correctly you will have a well optimized site that will

place well and hold it's positioning.

Of course all website's fluctuate up and down however well optimized

sites will spend more time on the upper end of the rankings than

poorly optimized or spammy sites which may see high rankings but

which will lose those rankings over time.

The Ten Steps We Will Go

Through Are:

1. Keyword Selection

2. Content

3. Site Structure

4. Optimization

5. Internal Linking

6. Human Testing

7. Submissions

8. Link Building

9. Monitoring

10. The Extras

Step One - Keyword Selection

Arguably, keyword selection is the single most important stage

in the entire optimization process. If you do not choose the correct

keyword phrases you will not maximize your ROI on this campaign.

I mention ROI and use it as a reminder that keyword selection is

not necessarily about looking for the most searched phrases. A profitable

optimization is one which produces the greatest return on investment

for the time and money that are available to put towards it.

Bigger Is Not Always Better

If you are a web designer in Seattle who has just started your own

business, you could make "web design" the targeted keyword

phrase for your site as it certainly has the highest number of searches

with 707,962 in September 2004 according to the "Overture Search

Term Suggestion Tool". If you have thousands of dollars and

many months to dedicated just to attaining

those rankings it could be done however, would that be the best

use of your time? Alternatively you could target "seattle web

site design" with 5,070 searches in September. A Google link

check shows the number of links for the top three competitors for

the Seattle search had 132, 21, and 47 respectively whereas for

"web design" the top three had 18,700, 5,420, and 1,310

incoming links each.

With a good site you would get more work than you could handle

with 5,070 searches on Overture alone if you were ranking well on

the major search engines. This would clearly provide the highest

return on investment for the small business owner who most certainly

does not have the time and money available to target "web design"

and who wouldn't have the manpower to take advantage of the rankings

even if they were attained.

This is an extreme example however it clearly illustrates that

sometimes the phrase with the highest number of searches is not

necessarily the best target for your business.

Phrases That Sell

Another consideration you will want to make when choosing your keyword

phrases is whether or not they are "buy phrases". Phrases

with a high number of searches that are not "buy phrases"

will tend to bring a lot of traffic, however the conversion ratio

will be far lower. Should you choose to target "buy phrases"

you may not get the same number of visitors however your ratio of

visitors to sales will be much higher.

In this example let's assume you are the marketing director for

a well-known accounting company. There will be many choices you

can make for your targeted keyword phrase. The top searched phrases

in September 2004 that were accounting-related are:

* "accounting" with 156,095 searches

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* "accounting software" with 54,621 searches

* "accounting job" with 32,015 searches

* "accounting services" with 19,260 searches

* "accounting firm" with 13,089 searches

Many might go with their gut instinct and attempt to target "accounting".

The problem with this phrase (other than the competition for it)

is that the people doing that search are not necessarily even looking

for an accounting firm. They may be accounting students, small business

owners not interested in hiring an accountant but just looking for

tax information, etc. "Accounting software" and "accounting

job" are irrelevant, which leaves us with "accounting

services" and "accounting firm" as the two main options.

From this point an evaluation of competition should be performed

and the pros and cons of making each the primary target should be

weighed based on the amount of work it will take to attain the phrase

vs. how many searches there are for that phrase.

Often promotions that target

multiple "buy phrases" will

end up far more successful that those targeting phrases based solely

on the number of searches due to the increased conversions and generally

decreased competition.

Tools To Use

Armed now with knowledge on how to recognize and choose between

different phrases there remains only one question, how do you know

which phrases are even searched? Fortunately there are a couple

great resources out there to help you find out how many searches

are performed for specific phrases. They Are:

The

Overture Search Term Suggestion Tool

A decent tool for researching keyword phrases. It indicates which

phrases had the highest numbers of searches on Overture during

the previous month. The biggest weakness it has, as far as applying

it to the natural search engines, is that Overture counts singular

and plural as the same and also corrects misspelling so the totals

are all lumped together in this tool whereas on the natural engines

they are considered differently.

WordTracker

WordTracker is very similar to Overture's Search Term Suggestion

Tool except that this tool differentiates between plural and singular

searches, does not correct spelling (i.e. it gives the number

of searches for misspellings rather than correcting them and giving

a total for correct and misspelled words) and gives the results

in predicted numbers of searches over all the engines per day

rather than just one engine over a month.

They have a great free trial that doesn't give you as many results

but which can be very useful.

When using these tools I recommend beginning with the Overture

Search term Suggestion Tool and once you've narrowed down your choices,

switch to WordTracker to insure that you're getting the right information

in regards to tense (singular vs. plural) and also that the numbers

match. Sometimes you will find that the numbers are completely different

from each tool. In this event you will have to use your best judgment.

Don't forget to check misspellings when using WordTracker!

Tips & Tricks

There are no real "tricks" to uncovering the keywords

you should target however there are a few tips. A few pointers that

will help you maximize your keyword selection:

* Think like a layman. Just because you know

your industry terms doesn't mean that everyone does. Don't just

think of the words you use to describe your products/services,

think of the words you would use if you knew nothing about it

other than the fact that you needed it. You may want to recruit

a friend and have them run some searches for you.

* Think like an expert. On the other side of

the coin, there may be phrases used specifically in your industry

that people "in the know" would use to search for your

products and/or services. Be sure to look into these phrases.

You just may find some hidden gems that no one else has thought

to target.

* Don't target too many phrases. Some SEOs and

webmasters target dozens and sometimes even hundreds of phrases.

The end result, they often miss the ones they most wanted to attain.

Keeping yourself and your keyword list focused will keep your

site focused. If your site is focused you'll rank higher for the

phrases that will produce the highest return on investment.

Testing

Test your phrases. If there is any debate about whether a search

phrase is worth targeting it's often a good idea to test the conversions

through pay-per-click engines. Set up an account with a PPC engine

and bid on the phrases that you would like to target.

You have to remember that the PPC engines do not provide for the

same amount of traffic as the natural engines. Test the initial

phrases, test alternative phrases, and see which produce the best

results. Something else to keep in mind is that PPC are not natural

engines. If your ROI is not as high on more costly phrases that

doesn't mean they won't produce the higher return on the natural

engines where a top ranking does not cost money per click.

In the end you will have confirmed a solid list of keyword phrases

and if the PPC campaign is providing a good return on investment

you might as well keep it running and enjoy the "bonus"

traffic that it provides.

If you've picked some pointers about Australian web design that you can put into action, then by all means, do so. You won't really be able to gain any benefits from your new knowledge if you don't use it.

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