CONTRIBUTED BY:
GUEST WRITER
Entrepreneur,
Author, and CEO of Limitless Publishing
The web runs on keywords and, yet, most website owners don't
know the first thing about how powerful keyword research can be or how to
integrate it into their websites.
A keyword or keyword phrase is a word or series of words that a
user enters into a search engine. Keyword research refers to the process of
choosing a few of the infinite number of possible keyword phrases to use in
search engine optimization efforts for your website.
For example, if you're planning a family trip to Disney World
and want to find the weather forecast, you might search for the phrase:
"average Orlando weather in June." Google takes
this text and compares it against the billions of web pages in its index, using
its complex algorithms to determine which sites represent the best matches.
Here's a look at what you need to know about keyword research
for your site, why you should care and how to get
started:
What makes a good keyword?
Getting a high rank in search engine results pages is important, but it's the specific keywords you're ranked for that can determine how successful your website will be.
Getting a high rank in search engine results pages is important, but it's the specific keywords you're ranked for that can determine how successful your website will be.
To understand the difference, compare a site that's ranked for
"make money online" to one that gets a high ranking for "online
tutorials on underwater basket weaving." Because more people are searching
for the first phrase, a search engine ranking for that term can generate
significantly more traffic and hopefully enable the site to make more money.
Two important concepts help us determine which keywords to
target: search volume and competition. Volume refers to the number of people
who enter your chosen keywords into the search engines. Greater search volume
is usually better, enabling your site to draw more natural traffic.
But search volume should be tempered by a careful analysis of
the competitiveness of the keyword phrase. In the example above, the keyword
"make money online" receives significantly more volume, but it will
be much more difficult to get your site bumped into the top 10 search results
for that phrase than for "online tutorials on underwater basket weaving."
Related: How Backlinks Can Boost Traffic to Your Website
Related: How Backlinks Can Boost Traffic to Your Website
How do I conduct keyword research?
The first step involves researching potential keyword phrases to target. There are plenty of tools that provide this data, but one of the easiest to use is Google's free Adwords Keyword Research Tool.
The first step involves researching potential keyword phrases to target. There are plenty of tools that provide this data, but one of the easiest to use is Google's free Adwords Keyword Research Tool.
You can enter phrases related to your website or just your site
address, and the program will generate a list of keywords to consider. The tool
also will provide data on how many global and local searches occur for a
particular word or phrase each month, as well as Google's estimate of the
difficulty of getting ranked for the keyword.
Unfortunately, there are no "search volume versus
competitiveness" rules to follow when choosing keywords to target from
this list. But keep in mind that while the competitive keywords will require
more time and effort to build a high ranking, they can pay off in increased
search traffic to your site.
As you research keywords and integrate them into your site, you
should start to see a pattern in terms of the ideal mix of search volume and
competitiveness. Much will depend on how big an investment you're willing to
make in search engine optimization.
Related: How Using Microdata Can Improve Your Website SEO
Related: How Using Microdata Can Improve Your Website SEO
How do I integrate keyword research into my website?
Once you've identified a few potential keyword targets, start integrating them into your site. To increase your chances of getting ranked for your chosen terms, you'll want to follow standard search engine optimization practices, including any of the following:
Once you've identified a few potential keyword targets, start integrating them into your site. To increase your chances of getting ranked for your chosen terms, you'll want to follow standard search engine optimization practices, including any of the following:
·
Create pages on your site featuring helpful content based on
your target keywords.
·
Incorporate your target keywords into your page's HTML in
various places, including your site's title, heading and meta description tags.
·
Build backlinks pointing at your site using your target keyword
as anchor text. The anchor text of a link refers to the part that remains
visible and underlined on the referring page. For example, the link keyword phrase would
appear like this: keyword phrase. This lets the search
engines know that this phrase is relevant to your site.
It will take some effort to target particular keywords but, over
time, your research should yield significant improvement in search traffic volume.
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