Keyword Selection Strategy

Targeting the right keywords is half the work done.

How to Find the Right Keywords? The Process

If you are starting your site from scratch, selecting keywords at this stage is a time and money saver. If you are redesigning your website, this is the time to outgrow your previous mistakes.

If you are wondering what keyword has to do with website design think again. It determines whether your website architecture will have a folder or linear structure. If it is a folder structure then how many levels? Suppose you are a company selling confections. You are designing an e-commerce website. You may have two or more options for website architecture

This will give you a directory structure of

http://www.xyz.com/cakes/category/productid e,g http://www.xyz.com/cakes/wedding/12345-aabcde
http://www.xyz.com/candy/category/productid
http://www.xyz.com/chocolate/category/productid

OR You can have this

This will give you a directory structure of

http://www.xyz.com/weddings/category/productid
http://www.xyz.com/bithdays/category/productid
http://www.xyz.com/thanksgiving/category/productid

Now, Using <a href=”http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com>Wordtracker</a> to determine the search phrases customers use to find the ‘ cakes’ we find people are searching for wedding cakes, birthday cakes, diaper cakes and so on.

Naturally the second option is a better website architecture structure. It can grow both laterally and longitudinally. It’s more suitable for search patterns hence later it will be easier to optimize.

The best way to do a keyword search is to write down the phrases that describe your website’s purpose. Start with:

5 one-word phrases

10 two-word phrases

5 three-word phrases

Run them in a keyword tool. You will be amazed at the results.

Save them in a spreadsheet.

Selecting the Right Keywords

Your spreadsheet probably has a thousand keywords. It’s best to have a base keyword in mind around which your site will evolve. Keep these in mind before you start selection

• One word phrases are the hardest to rank for because they require a high number of backlinks which is difficult for a new site.
• Their conversions are also the worst because people are not searching for that product or information. They realize it as soon as they type it and see 44 million websites for ‘cakes’.
• Two phrase keywords are good to optimize for as they have more searches and hence more conversions. But they are difficult to do so especially for a new website.
• Three phrase keywords may be few but are relatively easy to optimize for. It’s best to start with three word keywords.

Select the 3 word phrases most suitable for your site.

The other factors that matter are

• The number of competing sites
• The strength of those competing sites

The problem with free tools is that they do not show the competition. For this the best way to do it is manually.

Open Google, type the phrase and see the number of websites that come up for each page. Examine the sites on the first page. They will be the sites you will be competing with. Open each site, check their page rank and the backlinks to their site.

You can download the Pagerank toolbar at

http://toolbar.google.com

To check backlinks type the following code in Google search bar substituting the site name with your website name.

link: sitename.com

Select a long string for 3 word phrases whose searches rank more than 5 per day. This is the starting list for keywords for your site. Repeat the same procedure for two word phrases.

At this stage it may be suitable for you to leave out 1 word phrases.

Integrating the Keywords in your Website Design

All efforts at selection are useless if keywords are not properly integrated in design

2 tips before starting:

Do not optimize for more than 3 keywords on one page

Preferably optimize for related keywords

Example:

Virtual Offices in Irvine Orange County (keyword)

-Virtual Offices

-Virtual Offices Irvine

-Virtual Offices Orange County

Get your website designer to use these search phrases in the page in Title tags, Keyword tags, Header tags and Alt tags. While writing the content for the page make sure you use the phrase at least twice in 350 words of content. Use synonyms of the keywords.

Wow… that’s quite a lot of work done.

Until next week,

Regards,

Sangeeta