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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 rati 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 Website"
series we will be covering content. This will cover everything from
the optimization of existing content to the creation of new content
for your website.

About the Author

Dave Davies is the owner of Beanstalk Search Engine Positioning. He has been optimizing and ranking websites for over three years and has a solid history of success. Dave is available to answer any questions that you may have about your website and how to get it into the top positions on the major search engines.

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