Posts Tagged ‘keyword’
Why Effective SEO Is Important For Effective Internet Marketing
Search engine optimization (SEO) should be considered as a critical element of any Internet marketing strategy. This is important because there is so much which can be gained from SEO in terms of Internet marketing and advertising. Failure to optimize your website for search engines can result in a considerable loss in terms of free advertising and traffic which is essentially gained from ranking well with search engines. This article will provide insight into what SEO is and will explain why Internet marketing requires at least some degree of SEO.
SEO optimization is a strategy in which a website is designed to obtain favorable search engine rankings from popular search engines. This may be achieved in a variety of different ways and optimal SEO strategies combine a variety of different strategies to complete one well orchestrated SEO campaign. There are several elements to consider when attempting to optimize your website for search engines. This may include keyword density, prominence, META tags, titles and inbound links. Keyword density is one of the most common SEO strategies and essentially involves using relevant keywords often in the content of a website to demonstrate the relevance of these keywords to the website. This is important because search engines are likely to reward websites with optimal keyword densities with favorable search engine rankings in an effort to provide Internet users with the most relevant websites for particular search terms.
The prominence of keywords should also be considered. This includes how close the keywords are placed to the beginning of the website. The common mistake with this strategy is to believe the first opportunity to incorporate keywords is in the first line of visible text on the webpage. This is not true because search engines crawl the code of a website as opposed to the visible content on the website. This means there are multiple opportunities to incorporate relevant keywords long before the actual visible content on the website. This might include the code for the title as well as the META tags. Business owners who realize the potential for incorporating keyword into the code gain an advantage over competitors who only incorporate keywords into the content on their website.
Another area of concern which is very important for those who are interested in SEO is inbound links. Inbound links are essentially links which reside on other websites and direct traffic to your website. These links are considered important because many search engines place a value on inbound links because they are essentially an example of one website recommending another website. However, when obtaining inbound links it is important to do so from other websites which rank well with search engines because many search engines consider the rank of the original website when determining the value of the inbound link.
Now that we have briefly explained some of the main concept of SEO, we will illustrate why it is important to optimize your website in the first place. SEO is so important because most Internet users highly value the results of search engines and are likely to only visit to ranking websites when they search for a particular keyword. Internet users trust search engines to serve the most relevant content first and are therefore not likely to visit websites which do not fall on the first or second page of search results. This means websites which rank well essentially are receiving a great deal of free advertising from search engines that place their website in a key position. Website owners who do not invest time into optimizing their websites miss out on a great deal of potential web traffic.
Three Free Websites that all Internet Marketers Should Use
I can’t stress strongly enough how important it is for an Internet Marketer to know what marketing keywords they should use for their products, and how much their competition is willing to pay for those same keywords. This may seem like a complicated process, but it really isn’t. In this article we’ll discuss three free websites that all internet Marketers can use to find this information.
Let’s first talk about keywords… When I say ‘keywords’, I’m referring to marketing keywords. These are the words that your potential customers would use to describe your product. These are the same words that somebody would type in an online search engine to find your products.
If you have a business website and you don’t know which marketing keywords your website is geared to, then you’re website is certainly at a huge disadvantage. Why? Because you will be losing business. And you can bet that your main competition WILL know their marketing keywords, and they WILL be strategically using these keywords in their website and advertisements.
You see, when search engine spiders crawl your website, they’re looking for text in your website that can be indexed and used to describe the content of your website. If your website doesn’t contain the proper keywords that people use to find your product, then your website will likely not show up in their searches. So your website really needs to be optimized with the relevant marketing keywords that the majority of people are using to search for your product.
Another example where it is vital to know your marketing keywords is when using Pay-Per Click (PPC) advertising. Pay-Per Click advertising is typically done through search engines where you pay each time someone clicks on your advertisement (link). Your advertisement will appear after a user goes to the search engine and runs a keyword search (which is just a regular search). The search engine looks at their submitted keyword(s) and then cross references those with the keywords associated with the PPC advertisements. If they match, the PPC ads are then returned with the users search results… Go ahead and go to Google and run a search. The ads you see on the right-hand side of the screen are the PPC ads.
(Note: The order in which the PPC ads are returned are dependant on a few factors: the price you’re willing to pay for each click, the search engine used, the ad Click-Through Rate (CTR), etc.)
Let’s now go through a quick and free process for finding good keywords for your website.
1) Go to the Google AdWords Keyword Tool (https:adwords.google.com/select/main?cmd=KeywordSandbox)
Enter some key words into the textbox that you think people would use to conduct a search for your product. When you’re done, click the submit button. You will then be shown specific and similar keywords. Write down the ones that you think would apply to your product.
2) Go to the Overture Keyword Selector Tool (inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/)
Enter each keyword that you have written down from step 1, then click the right-arrow button. This will allow you to see which keywords are the most popular in Overture. Note: the most popular keywords aren’t always the most appropriate. For example, if your website sells guides on how to rebuild a 57 Chevy, then you will probably want to specifically target ’57 Chevy’ keywords, instead of the less specific ‘Chevy’ keyword. Why? Because you want to get your ad/website in front of the people that are most likely to buy your product.
The above 2 websites should give you a great keyword list that you can now use to optimize your website. But if you want to advertise using PPC, you really need to know what your competition is paying for your keywords. This is an easy task as well.
3) Go to the Overture Bid Tool (uv.bidtool.overture.com/d/search/tools/bidtool/)
Enter your keywords into the textbox, and then click the search button. This will return the Overture bids for that keyword. The highest bids likely get the highest placements &ndash meaning the ads are closer to the top position on the first page of the user’s search results. The goal is to get as high as your budget will allow to the top position to ensure maximum exposure of your ad.
There you have it… three great websites that can help your Internet marketing campaigns &ndash and best of all, they are all free to use!
Sincerely,
Michael Ellis
Search Engines and the Small Business Website
If you’re doing any type of business on the internet than search engines like Google and Yahoo! could play a large role in the success or failure of your business. Even though most internet user have experience using search engines, many don’t know how the engines work.
For website owners it is important to understand how, at least at a high level, search engines work so they can take advantage of the website traffic that only search engines can deliver.
Search Engines are special sites on the Web that are designed to help people find information stored on other sites. There are differences in the ways various Search Engines work, but they all perform three basic tasks:
- They search the Internet or select pieces of the Internet based on important words,
- They keep an index of the words they find, and where they find them, and
- They allow users to look for words or combinations of words found in that index.
Early Search Engines held an index of a few hundred thousand pages and documents, and received maybe one or two thousand inquiries each day. Today, a top Search Engine will index hundreds of millions of pages, and respond to tens of millions of queries per day.
Before a Search Engine can tell you where a file or document is, it must be found. To find information on the hundreds of millions of Web pages that exist, a Search Engine employs special software robots, called spiders, to build lists of the words found on Web sites.
When a spider is building its lists, the process is called web crawling.
In order to build and maintain a useful list of words, a Search Engine’s spiders have to look at a lot of pages. How does any spider start its travels over the Web? The usual starting points are lists of heavily used servers and very popular pages. The spider will begin with a popular site, indexing the words on its pages and following every link found within the site. In this way, the spidering system quickly begins to travel, spreading out across the most widely used portions of the Web.
To increase the likelyhood that the spiders find your website make sure you are listed on high ranked websites like Merchant Circle. You can create a free business page and blog that will not only increase your chances of being found but also be another place for potential visitors to find about about your website.
Once the spiders have completed the task of finding information on Web pages, the Search Engine must store the information in a way that makes it useful. There are two key components involved in making the gathered data accessible to users:
- The information stored with the data, and
- The method by which the information is indexed.
In the simplest case, a Search Engine could just store the word and the URL where it was found. In reality, this would make for an engine of limited use, since there would be no way of telling whether the word was used in an important or a trivial way on the page, whether the word was used once or many times or whether the page contained links to other pages containing the word. In other words, there would be no way of building the ranking list that tries to present the most useful pages at the top of the list of search results.
To make for more useful results, most Search Engines store more than just the word and URL. A Search Engine might store the number of times that the word appears on a page. The engine might assign a weight to each entry, with increasing values assigned to words as they appear near the top of the document, in sub-headings, in links, in the META tags or in the title of the page. Each commercial Search Engine has a different formula for assigning weight to the words in its index. This is one of the reasons that a search for the same word on different Search Engines will produce different lists, with the pages presented in different orders.
You can get a customized Page Critic Analysis Report from Webs 4 Small Business that tells you how YOUR webpages should be set up to make sure give the search engines what they are looking for when they review your page.
An index has a single purpose: it allows information to be found as quickly as possible. There are quite a few ways for an index to be built, but one of the most effective ways is to build a hash table. In hashing, a formula is applied to attach a numerical value to each word.
The formula is designed to evenly distribute the entries across a predetermined number of divisions. This numerical distribution is different from the distribution of words across the alphabet, and that is the key to a hash table’s effectiveness.
When a person requests a search on a keyword or phrase, the Search Engine software searches the index for relevant information. The software then provides a report back to the searcher with the most relevant web pages listed first.
Not sure what keywords you should use? Picking the right, or wrong ones, can make or break your chances at online success. Consider getting a customized Key Word Report from Webs 4 Small Business that tells you which keywords you should and should not consider for your site. These keywords are specific to YOUR website not a generic list of keywords.
So, why are search engines important to business website owners? Simple. You need traffic and Search Engines have lots of it. And, their purpose is to drive traffic to sites that they think match their visitors’ needs.
The way to get a portion of that traffic, is to optimize your website (you’ve likely heard of Search Engine Optimzaiton or SEO). That way when a someone searches for a keyword that is relevant to your website, the search engines includes a link to your website in the search results. That puts traffic and potential visitors just a click away from you website.
Keyword Tracking
Keyword tracking allows a site owner to know what keyword searches are resulting in sales. Search term information can be logged into a database and presented to web site owners in a meaningful format. This data can be used to see which keywords are producing the most sales per search and to determine where to focus web marketing.
What Search Engine or Web Site
Knowing what search engine a sale has originated from allows site owners and marketers to know where their efforts are paying off the most. Good tracking and analysis software will also show what web site referred visitors. Knowing what sites are sending the most visitors allows site owners to give special attention to ensuring this traffic continues and increases. Knowing what referrers are generating the most sales further allows a site owner to hone his or her marketing efforts toward site referrals that result in the most sales.
What Keyword Was Searched For
Knowing what keyword searches are resulting in sales on a site allows the owner to focus more on those words. Perhaps you are marketing your site for two main keywords, “air hook widgets” and “air hooks.” Using keyword tracking that traces keywords down to the sale ensures that you will know if searches for “air hook widgets” convert into sales more often than visits resulting from searches for “air hooks.”
Sales Conversion Ratio of Keywords and Return on Investment
Tracking keyword searches through to sales allows site owners to determine the return on investment. If a web master spends $100.00 on the pay-per-click keyword “air hook widgets” and sells $1000 worth of product, his or her return on investment is likely very good. If the same web site owner spends $100.00 on the keyword “air hooks” and sells $200 worth of product, it is likely that the return on investment was not as great. Of course, if the markup or profit on one product is greater than on another, this must be taken into account.
Cost of Keyword
If a web marketer is using pay-per-click engines, knowing exactly what has been spent on a keyword, and what the return was, allows money to be put where it will do the most. Keyword searches, unlike many advertising mediums, are targeted by the viewer. For this reason, in addition to the accurate return on investment feedback, keyword marketing can be very worth the cost.
Added Benefit of Branding
Marketing your site by keyword in pay-per-click engines means that you will only be charged if a person clicks through your ad to your site. Pay-per-click ads and organic search listings have the often overlooked added value of showing the ad or listing many times over in addition to the clicks the ad or listing receives. Only a small percentage of people are likely to click on a keyword ad or search result listing, yet your ad or listing will be visible time and time again to people searching for terms you have bid on or marketed, increasing your site branding. Nonetheless, care should be taken to generate a compelling key word ad or page description, since in most cases you will want to receive as many clicks as possible.
Conclusion
In conclusion, if you are spending money on search engine marketing, it is often well worth the effort to track your keywords through to sales. Without tracking your keywords, you will not know where your efforts are paying off. By tracking your keywords, you are able to put your efforts where they are paying off the most.
Keyword Perspective – Avoid This Mistake At All Cost
In this article, we are going to discuss a major problems involving keyword selection for existing businesses. It is a simple mistake, but one most people do not think about.
Keyword Perspective &ndash Avoid This Mistake At All Cost
The two prime Internet marketing platforms are pay-per-click advertising and search engine optimization. The issue we are going to discuss today applies equally to either of these platforms as well as any other internet advertising you undertake.
The biggest mistake most businesses make with marketing is keyword perspective. Keyword perspective refers to the point of view one has when developing keywords for any type of Internet marketing. There are primarily two perspectives, but each only works with one audience. If you get them crossed up, you are in for a nightmare.
The industry perspective is usually the area where I see the biggest problems. Industry perspective refers to using industry terminology to develop keywords instead of using terms your prospects actually use. For example, a mortgage professional might view HELOC [home equity line of credit] as a keyword. Most prospects, however, are not going to search for this acronym. Instead, they will search for home equity line of credit or simply line of credit. When you are marketing to the general public, do not use industry terms. Instead, use the terms your prospects apply to your services or products.
The opposite of the industry perspective is found in the business-to- business field. If you are providing services or products to businesses, than you may very well want to use industry terms! If you sell medical equipment to hospitals, your prospects are going to be both sophisticated and using technical terms in their searches. They will search for medial collateral ligament isolation braces instead of knee brace. In the business-to-business scenario, use of laymen’s terms for keywords my kill your marketing plan before it gets off the ground.
Whatever your business, picking keywords is all about knowing your audience. Focus on terms your prospects actually use and you will have a good starting point for your marketing plan.
Get Targeted Website Traffic With Keyword Rich Niche Articles
Content is still the King of the Internet. Most people go online looking for information about their favorite topics, or about whatever is on their mind at the moment. Frequent Internet users seem to have an insatiable appetite for information on various fields.
So, if you want to drive targeted traffic and pre-qualified potential buyers to your website, you really must publish useable information online in the form of quick-to-read but interesting keyword rich articles.
Here are four reasons why you must do that.
Reason #1 – Get Premium Exposure for Your Website
It’s much easier to achieve high search engine ranking for article pages than for your homepage or salespages. Search engines are crazy for fresh content on practically every topic under the sun.
So, write your articles surrounding less competitive keywords (research those at Nichebot.com) or edit those keywords into already existing articles of your own. You will have a much better chance of getting your article indexed by major search engines.
Just be sure to place a link to your main website in the article by-line or resource box.
Reason #2 – Get Automatic Back Links from Authority Sites
Each time your article and site link are republished online, it provides a back link to your website. Back links are regarded by search engines as a sort of recommendation for your website. If your site has a number of quality back links, it can quickly improve the search engine ranking.
Submit your articles to online article directories. In most cases it’s free. Many directory sites are regarded by major search engines as authority sites, and are spidered frequently for new content. This means the website link you include in your article will also be indexed from the site where it is found.
Offer your articles for reprint as well. When other website owners republish them on their own sites, it will develop even more back links for your website.
Reason #3 – Improve Your Conversion Rate
By conversion rate, we mean the percentage of website visitors that convert to paying customers and sales.
You can boost your credibility and convert more website visitors into a paying customers by providing them with interesting and informative topic articles, and then introducing them to related products you have for sale.
On the other hand, simply displaying products on your website, with no related information or content, will likely result in a low conversion rate. It’s important that you use articles to first prove your credibility and your knowledge in your field.
Reason #4 – Your Cost is Practically Zero
All you need is your thoughts and your computer. If you can write a letter to a friend that explains the details of some topic, then you can write topical articles to publish on your own site and submit to other sites.
However, if you don’t like to write, or simply believe that you can’t, you can still have original keyword rich articles written for you.
An original 400 word niche article on a topic of your choice might cost you $5 to $7 at JustArticles.com – but the potential value is enormous in terms of bringing targeted visitors and buyers to your website.