SEO for Dummies – Part 2
Keyword Selection
As soon as you have your goals, the next step is to choose some keywords. This is the most challenging, nuanced, complex and, for me, most exciting and fun part of the job.
Most people use the term “keyword phrase” and “keyword” interchangeably, so we will as well .
Also , I’ll use the terms “Google” and “search engine” interchangeably. As Google has so much more market share than its nearest competitor (between 63% and 71% according to recent studies), Google is the search engine on which you should be focusing. The next closest is Yahoo! with less than 15%. If you could open a restaurant for the same rent on Broadway in New York City as you could on Main Street in Havana , which would you do?
The biggest mistake people make is to be too vague . Continuing with our example, if we tried to use the keyword “ attorney ,” we will fail. There simply is too much competition for such general words. Moreover, you don’t have any desire for folks in Iowa to be contacting you (assuming you don’t do telephone counseling).
We might have a chance at some of the following keywords:
· Pittsburgh therapist
· Casino in Pittsburgh
· Pittsburgh gambling
· Pittsburgh legal help
· Etc.
Now we need to get some keyword suggestions , to build a long list. I like using the widely available Keyword Tool. Just type in a few keywords, and it generates lots of suggestions . Most of these will be worthless, but a few may be great, and/or spark other ideas for additional keywords.
Google’s Keyword Tool is designed for Paid Search Results , but it’s still helpful for Search Engine Optimization . It gives you a general idea of how many people are searching for that term. Additionally it gives you a general idea of how competitive that term is by showing how many people are bidding on that keyword.
If a keyword looks overly competitive, try a variation. You can try a plural, or even a misspelling. I often switch the w and y in “lawyer.” Guess what? Some 33,000 people search for those misspellings every month!
Once again, I hark back to Marketing Positioning and Branding . If you’ve got the wrong Marketing Positioning, or you are optimizing for keywords that don’t support your overall objective, your efforts will not produce the goals you desire.
Once you get a long list of keywords, start to narrow them down. Criteria can include relevance (of course), number of people that search for the term, and perceived competition for the term.
You might want to start with a list of 10 or so keywords.
Now that we have our keywords, let’s do some search engine optimization, Pittsburgh style!.
Stay tuned for our next article, Search Engine Optimization Part 3.
Internet marketing specialist for Pittsburgh SEO & Pittsburgh AdWords
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