When setting up an SEO campaign, keyword research and keyword choice should be at the centre of your focus. It’s the keywords that everything centres around, and the choice of what to aim at will ultimately depict the success and subsequent traffic levels of any search engine marketing. Every sector in any business will have hundreds of potential keywords and phrase variations that could be chosen, all with varying levels of search traffic and competition. Therefore, the biggest decision to make is whether to aim for high traffic with high competition or go for less competitive phrases and sacrifice potential traffic volumes.
High Traffic/High Competition
Going for keywords with high competition and high traffic levels is definitely a long term approach for any website. If the website and domain are both new, this can sometimes be unrealistic however services such as Google Adwords can be used effectively to launch into a competitive market should the budget allow this. The difficulty with highly competitive keywords is that so many website will be trying to be seen for these particular search results. Quite often, the websites at the top will have been around for a long time, and as a result will probably have very high domain authority. To get anywhere near them will take considerable effort and time. However, if you can achieve good results for competitive keywords, the results are almost certain to bring you a high amount of very good traffic. If you have a website that has been around for a number of years and already has lots of regular high quality links coming in, your chances are improved somewhat and going for high traffic keywords is definitely more of a realistic approach. This doesn’t mean the work is already done, it just means you have a better base from which to start.
Less Competitive Keywords
This option is a lot more popular, especially for brand new websites and also for SEO projects where the budget may be limited. Many websites survive quite nicely on picking up traffic from several smaller keywords where their pages have a strong chance of coming up high in the listings. The other benefit to this is that often the less competitive keywords represent a ‘niche’ and therefore the traffic that they generate can be a lot more focused and likely to convert into sales or new leads. Another very popular option within the less competitive keywords is to focus in on geographical areas. Good results using Google Maps can be relatively easy to achieve to go alongside a good result in the organic listings below. If you operate an online shop, you will probably find that you can pick up a substantial amount of traffic from people searching for specific items. For this reason it is really important that every product page is optimised towards the appropriate keyword or product title.
To summarise, it’s really important when making this decision to be realistic about the chances of success. You need to ask yourself about your budget and time and try to weigh up what’s best for your particular circumstance.
Thursday, 29 April 2010
Thursday, 8 April 2010
Using Google’s Extra Search Functions
When coming up with an SEO strategy, the biggest aim of all is to appear at the top of the organic listings for the keywords you have chosen. However, depending on competition this can take a long time to achieve and sometimes you just may never reach the top. However, there is plenty of traffic you can pick up from smaller searches, and also by using Google’s other functions. This article gives you a few tips on how you can use Google’s other features to increase your traffic and also increase your visibility on the search engines.
Maps
Google maps is an excellent source of traffic, particularly business that rely on local trade such as restaurants and tradesmen. Most people will have noticed that when you do a local search on Google, the maps often appear and the top with a handful of businesses listed next to them. These listing carry a lot of weight with potential customers, and having your website listed next to the map is a great source of extra traffic. Depending on the search term, this can be relatively easy to achieve and often websites will appear here long before they appear in the actual listings themselves, thus giving a great opportunity to pick up some local business.
Images
Google’s image feature works roughly in the same way as the natural listings. When someone searches for a term, for example ‘puppies’, Google will find as many images of puppies as possible and display them on the image page of the results. To view these results, simply click on the ‘image’ tab once you have entered a keyword. The benefit here is that when someone clicks on your image in the results, they are sent to where the image is hosted on your website. There are many theories as to how you can optimise your images to appear high in the listings, but the first step is to make sure you efficiently tag and name is each image using appropriate keywords.
Products
Google products is a must use opportunity for anyone selling anything on the internet. A small selection of products will appear in the natural listings, however you can see the full extent of the service by clicking on the ‘shopping’ tab at the top. As with the image functions, if someone clicks on your product, they will be sent to your website to continue shopping (exactly what you want as an online store, an SEO dream!!). Online merchants can submit products to the service for free, and although this can take quite a bit of effort if you have lots of products, the results are well worth the time given. To stand a good chance of being seen, products must be tagged and described accurately.
Videos
As with the features discussed above, Google will show a selection of relevant videos in the search results, and then more under the ‘videos’ tab. As a website owner, this is where deciding to host your video on your website (not just YouTube) will pay dividends. When a search engine user clicks on a video result, they are taken to the hosting site. If the video has been posted on YouTube, it is likely that they will be taken there, instead of being directed to your website. This can be a tough choice to make as it is likely that your video will get many more views if posted on YouTube. For this reason, the purpose of each video must be carefully considered in order to get the results you require.
Maps
Google maps is an excellent source of traffic, particularly business that rely on local trade such as restaurants and tradesmen. Most people will have noticed that when you do a local search on Google, the maps often appear and the top with a handful of businesses listed next to them. These listing carry a lot of weight with potential customers, and having your website listed next to the map is a great source of extra traffic. Depending on the search term, this can be relatively easy to achieve and often websites will appear here long before they appear in the actual listings themselves, thus giving a great opportunity to pick up some local business.
Images
Google’s image feature works roughly in the same way as the natural listings. When someone searches for a term, for example ‘puppies’, Google will find as many images of puppies as possible and display them on the image page of the results. To view these results, simply click on the ‘image’ tab once you have entered a keyword. The benefit here is that when someone clicks on your image in the results, they are sent to where the image is hosted on your website. There are many theories as to how you can optimise your images to appear high in the listings, but the first step is to make sure you efficiently tag and name is each image using appropriate keywords.
Products
Google products is a must use opportunity for anyone selling anything on the internet. A small selection of products will appear in the natural listings, however you can see the full extent of the service by clicking on the ‘shopping’ tab at the top. As with the image functions, if someone clicks on your product, they will be sent to your website to continue shopping (exactly what you want as an online store, an SEO dream!!). Online merchants can submit products to the service for free, and although this can take quite a bit of effort if you have lots of products, the results are well worth the time given. To stand a good chance of being seen, products must be tagged and described accurately.
Videos
As with the features discussed above, Google will show a selection of relevant videos in the search results, and then more under the ‘videos’ tab. As a website owner, this is where deciding to host your video on your website (not just YouTube) will pay dividends. When a search engine user clicks on a video result, they are taken to the hosting site. If the video has been posted on YouTube, it is likely that they will be taken there, instead of being directed to your website. This can be a tough choice to make as it is likely that your video will get many more views if posted on YouTube. For this reason, the purpose of each video must be carefully considered in order to get the results you require.
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