SEO Services Homepage - Basics : Website Structure - Page Content - SERPs and the competition - Stats and Analysis - Search Engine Submission - Back Link Strategy - Webmaster Guidelines - Glossary
Traffic is the lifeblood of any commercial site and if even some of that traffic is to come from the various search engines the website creator needs to be able to identify the best sources, for the highest relevant volume and good conversions and target those searches in a realistic, ethical and sustainable manner.
Identifying Popular Keywords and Keyphrases to target within your sector ...
A lot of hard work is too frequently wasted if it is targeting a search string that noone ever types in. Much flannel is written about how wonderful this or that SEO outfit is in getting clients to #1 for keyphrases that have very little serious competition because nobody is looking for information that obscure or specific. Consequently a webmaster needs to know exactly what the public is looking for in relation to their market and target that traffic accordingly. Thankfully there are a number of easily accessed tools, many offered by the search engines themselves, that can help the webmaster find those frequently searched for terms. The most commonly consulted is probably Overture's Keyword Selector tool. Although this is actually intended to help Yahoo! search marketers identify phrases to bid upon and the volume of monthly searches that are performed at Yahoo! it is just as useful for the individual engaging in SEO. Returned results contain not only the volume of queries for the particular keyword or keyphrase but the relevant data for other keyphrases containing the original specified keyword or phrase in descending order of frequency. A quick check in October 2007 was showing search volumes from January 2007 so it is not always useful for identifying topics of the moment, those hot search terms that may come and fade rapidly, but for general themes and related ideas it is a great starting point. In January 2007 there were 710559 searches for MP3, 617796 for MP3 players, 147272 for Free MP3, 137076 for Free MP3 downloads and 7910 for Legal MP3 download amongst others. If you were creating a site about the MP3 format it would be prudent, therefore, to include specific pages optimised for some of the most popular generic phrases that are being searched for, a page about the MP3 player hardware available, ones about the nature and legality of free and paid download sites etc etc. You should remember to target and optimise pages for only those phrases including generic terms and not ones using trademarks or copyright work, as doing this could well cause you legal issues regarding trademark and copyright infringement. More about making sense of the inventory results
Reading the SERPs and identifying the competition...
Once you have identified a good number of the most popular searches related to the topic of your site the next job is to identify the competition, their strengths and shortcomings. In October 2007 there were 818 million results returned by Google.co.uk for MP3, 104 million for MP3 players whilst 'only' just over 16 million for Legal MP3 download, each with a different site sitting in the #1 position. The job of the webmaster engaged in SEO is to ascertain how those top spots have been achieved, and where openings and opportunities may lie for the site that they are working on.
Analysing the tactics and quality of the competition...
Check the PR of the competitor's site or specific page, analyse the backlinks to the site - how many, where they come from and how they have been achieved, and examine the destination page in question - what content does it contain, what is included in the head tags and how is it linked to from other sections of the site.
There will frequently be a number of sites that will rocket into the topspots for given searches, occupy them for a while and then fade away. In most instances this will be due to the use of black-hat tactics that are unsustainable methods for long term success and their disappearance will be due to the search engines penalising them for employing dubious methods and trying to bait them. 'Black hat SEO' is an easy way to get a site banned completely by any of the search engines. Whilst this may not matter to the person creating a hundred each week, each intended only as a 'smash and grab' on the SERPs' top spots, it would be a terminal disaster for your single flagship site that you are investing thousands of hours into. If a site comes from nowhere into the results pages for your target sector, do not be too eager to replicate the tactics. Check first and avoid anything that may do more harm than good in the long term. You should check the Webmaster Guidelines and Best Practice page for further details of tactics to avoid.
Niche phrases and making inroads into a saturated market...
As can be seen in the MP3 examples above, the competition may be in the hundreds of millions of results and it is fallacy to think that you can perform a coup and grab those top spots in a short period of time, whilst only utilising ethical and sustainable methods. This, however, is not to suggest the use of underhand tactics or to run the risk of being banned by the engines; instead it means that you must identify some of the more niche or longtail searches related to your overall target search. In the MP3 example being used here, even those lesser search volumes are still significant although the competition may be a little more realistic - MP3 accessory with 4416 searches returns 2,840,000 results and Download Indie MP3 with 4523 searches returns 2,650,000 results. Although the number of searches is merely a fraction of those for MP3, the volume is still significant and with a lower level of competition for the first SERP places, it may be possible to gain a few quality placements. These longer tail searches can then be built upon over time to try and achieve improved results for your main MP3 keyword.
SEOServices.org.uk - Search Engine Optimisation Services - Page created October 2007 - Updated ?