Keyword Research And Selection

Archive for Keyword Research and Selection

Who is Clicking Where? Where You Need To Be On The Search Results Page To Get Traffic

April 3rd, 2010

There are a HUGE number of users searching for terms in Google every minute of every day. On a local, national and global scale, Google has built itself up to be number one in market share as the worldwide search leader. They get a lot of attention and of course businesses are constantly trying to get to be number one in the search results for a variety of keywords.

Let’s talk about search engine position. My first point is simple. Abandon your ego. Don’t worry about being number one for every keyword that is related to your business. It’s not a realistic expectation and you will just suffer constant disappointment. Change your focus to generating traffic. If you can carve yourself a niche online for a few important keywords, then traffic will flow in.

Focus on a Handful of Keywords

Define your niche by looking at the keywords you think are best for you. Use Google’s Keyword Tool to research the keywords you think are best. Their suggestion tool will tell you the traffic for the keywords you enter, as well as the traffic for relevant or similar keywords and keyword strings. It’s all validated and generated by real traffic and search data. You should only target keywords that are relevant to your business but that still have a medium to medium high search volume. Target the keywords and keyword strings that have about one third to half the search volume of the most popular keywords in the set. It’s your best chance to get position somewhat quickly and to generate traffic.

Shoot for Page 1 not for #1 on Page 1

In terms of the organic search results for your set of keywords, you need to get onto the first 3 pages of results if you want to see ANY traffic. Google and AOLSearch, which is driven using Google’s same search scripts, accidentally released search engine usage data to the public back in 2007. Here’s some information you might find very interesting.

The #1 position on Page 1 of Google will result in about 42% of the traffic for that keyword clicking on your website.

Spots #2 – #10 on Page 1 will result in between 27% and 3% of the search traffic clicking on your website.

Overall, spots #1 – #10 account for 97% of clicks deriving from search traffic for a keyword.

Pages 2 & 3 split up the remaining 3% of traffic for a given keyword across all 20 positions on Pages 2 & 3. If you’re past Page 3, you’re not getting any traffic at all.

You see the problem. Page 1 of Google is worth a lot in terms of traffic generation. If you’re picking medium to medium high volume keywords, however, you can still get some return off of Pages 2 & 3. 3% of 40,000 traffic per month is still a fair amount of targeted traffic that may be ready to buy your products.

Moving off the first (Search Engine Results Page) SERP the rate of decline in clickthrough picks up considerably. The clickthrough rate for listings with #11 rank dropped to 0.66%. That’s an almost 80% decline in clickthroughs from the #10 SERP position and shows that being on the first SERP page results in far greater SE traffic than lower listings.

Use Interim Strategies

There are other ways to get short term results and high search placement within Google. You could try Google Adwords and buy sponsored positions in the right column and beige box above the organic results. Every click is going to cost you money, so you’ll need to make sure the pages you are routing to are engaging and generate some return on investment. In the long term, your cheapest and most effective source of traffic will come from building a good organic Google position.

Categories Search Engine Optimization
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SEO Exposed Part 2: Develop a Focused SEO Strategy Complements of Your Competition

by Andrea Kropp

January 28th, 2010

During Part 1 of this series, I explained how you could spy on your competitors’ websites using free tools like Alexa online. Now I’m going to show you exactly how to develop a focused Search Engine Optimization strategy for yourself that will have you starting to catch up to those you envy in no time.

If you followed my instructions in Part 1 carefully, you’ll now have a comparison chart showing your website versus others in terms traffic rank, the sites linking in, the keywords that drive traffic to your competition, and their position versus your current position in Google.

Take the keywords driving traffic to your competition and plug them into a tool like the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. It’s readily available online and will give you the EXACT average Monthly Search Volume for each keyword online. Store that data in your spreadsheet for reference later. Also, use the Keyword Tool’s synonym and relevant keywords suggestion feature to find the search volumes for other keywords that Google ties to your set. Highlight the ones that match exactly with what you’re offering online.

This overall set of your competitors’ keywords and the keywords you liked from the Google Adwords Tool gives you a basis now to select the keywords YOU will target. Only take the keywords that have medium to medium high search volume when compared to the top producing keywords on that list. They’re going to be easier to take position on. To under the interplay between search volume and search results placement read How to Get 1000 Visitors.

Now go and look carefully at the Sites Linking In data for websites on your list with the highest traffic ranking. Pick the top one and go visit all the links from their data. Mark which ones are free link resources or directories and start seeing if there are ways to get your own website linked. Try to get linked from as many of the same websites as your top competitor. The ranking and ratings they receive from inbound links from these other websites can be yours as well. HERE’S AN IMPORTANT TIP. For the websites that allow you to provide the link and anchor text as part of the link submission process, you must use the keywords you are targeting in the link! This tells Google something very important: your website is a destination and resource for information pertaining to that keyword.

Now go into your own website and revise your text content. Get those same keywords to appear about 10 – 15 times per page within the writing. Make sure you use them semantically and grammatically correct.

This is all a good start in getting your website to be in the same competitive space. In my next article in this series, I’ll tell you exactly how Google looks at other elements of your website’s content and how you can best optimize it to make Google’s work easier.

Categories Search Engine Optimization
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SEO Exposed Part 1: Spy On Your Competition Using These Free Techniques

by Andrea Kropp

January 27th, 2010

Does this describe you? You’re working hard. Having moderate success and generating some income from your home based network marketing business. You’re starting to see some results in terms of lead generation and growing your team. You’re frustrated because you know others are doing better than you

You’ve been watching your Google natural search position constantly and doing link exchanges, updating content, submitting articles for back links, blogging and a whole suite of other monthly activities that you were told were necessary. You weren’t misinformed, but you’re constantly worried that you’re targeting wrong or missing something.

The real beauty of the Internet as a forum to connect buyers with sellers is that you can see exactly what your competitors are doing at any given time. The competition that is more successful than you typically is going to be listed ahead of you for various keywords. This is a simple, rough indicator of who is getting more website traffic than you.

You don’t need to use guesswork when studying your competition, however. There are several ways online you can investigate what others are doing. Set aside a little bit of time on an ongoing basis to do some real, competitive analysis. Here’s some things you should consider doing. They don’t take long and utilize some of the same approaches you’d see if you paid thousands of dollars out to a strategic advertising and consulting agency.

Categories Search Engine Optimization
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