SEO Marketing

Why is keyword research important?
Keywords are the way people find items they are searching for on the internet. What ever you are looking for online, keywords are the way you'll find it. With this in mind, it is highly important for websites to select keywords that encompass the products, services, and information they offer. Without the right keywords, even a well-designed website with good content can fail because search engines rely on keywords along with other off page factors such as incoming links to “rank” sites in the SERP results. In order to optimize your site for a search engine, it is extremely important to do some comprehensive keyword research.

So, where do you start?
Well, a good place to start your keyword research is by simply brainstorming to narrow your keywords down to fifteen or twenty, one to three word phrases that you believe people might use when searching for your website. Then you can take those phrases and use one of the many online keyword tools to find out how many people are searching for those terms, related terms you might want to consider, and similar useful tools. “Facts are sacred in website optimization as they provide the exact data of what people are actually searching for, thus saving you from starting on a wild goose chase.” Keyword online tools are also helpful for expanding your inspiration and finding keywords that apply to your site that you might not have thought of. Identifying your target audience and forming your keywords around the way that audience searches is crucial to reaching consumers that are interested in your product or services. Once you have performed the appropriate research, changing or tweaking your keywords in your website content can make the difference between having tons of traffic to your website each day and maintaining a ghost town website, so remember keyword research is a vital tool for search engine optimization and marketing your website effectively.

If your website is one of the unlucky many websites that are placed in Google’s probationary “Sandbox”, don’t despair. While you can’t control what limits Google places on your site or for how long, there are techniques you can apply that will not only help you be released from the Sandbox, but will make your website stronger in the long run.

First of all, do not attempt to get out of the Sandbox by resorting to spammy "tools” or unethical tricks. This is a good way to get yourself banned permanently from Google since the whole point of the Sandbox is to filter out spammers and con artists. Links are the lifeblood of search engine rankings, so obtaining quality, dependable sources such as “.edu, .gov, and .mil” domains is not only important for proving you are credible to Google and getting released from the Sandbox, but also for the general health and ranking of your site. Building quality links is a slow process, but it will strengthen your website as a whole. Don’t be tempted to purchase links from link brokers, as buying a bunch of links in a small period of time is one of the characteristics that will get you sent to the Sandbox in the first place.

Relevant, useful, accurate content is one of the main things Google’s robots are looking for when they crawl your site. Adding new content, even when your site is in the Sandbox will help you get out and will help your rankings in other search engines. Generally, one of the top issues that put sites in the Sandbox is using popular or controversial keywords. Since keywords are a integral part of search engines it is very important that you use words and phrases that pertain to your site. There are often dozens of keywords you can use for any particular site and be sure to look for long tail keyphrases. If you are having trouble thinking of them, try one of the many keyword tools available online such as Googles free keyword tool to help you brainstorm.

If you own or manage a website, you already understand that optimizing the site for the search engines is an extremely important task (especially if your business relies on getting sales from the website). If you plan on optimizing your site for the search engines, you should understand that search engine optimization does not automatically mean you will get sales and conversions. What?

That is correct, the primary goal of search engine optimization is to increase your ranking in search engines. Although, it’s true that it normally will also get you more targeted traffic, you should not automatically expect a huge jump in your sales just because you began to optimize your site. In order to ensure sales conversions, you need to take many other marketing factors into consideration, such as web design, usability, landing pages, navigation and of course-- does your product offer visitors exactly what they are looking for and at a great value? The benefits of SEO are numerous, but they are longer-reaching and should be combined with proven marketing techniques in order to increase your sales. Don’t confuse search engine optimization tactics with sales tactics.

Understanding your sites statistics is another vital part of search engine optimization. For example, do you know how many people are visiting your site? What are they looking at? How long are they staying on each page? These questions will give you a good picture into what needs to be changed on your site and what is working well. If you don’t understand the analytics of your site, how will you know if the techniques or content you are posting is successful? “When things are going well, even if best practices aren't being followed, it can be wise to match up data and trends to see what's made a real difference.” Don’t neglect the statistics of your website; they can be a great resource to help you with your web marketing objectives.

While organic SEO strategies can be a great way to improve your website, don’t forget about the other media and tactics you can take advantage of. SEO isn’t a replacement for traditional marketing, social media networking, printed advertisements, etc. Remember, marketing a business website is a lot like driving a car. If you get too focused on the road in front of you, you may ignore the pedestrian stepping into the road at the corner and likely cause an accident. Likewise, if you get too focused on SEO tactics, you will miss the other strategies such as social media marketing that could really help your business. So, the moral of the story is don’t focus on SEO to the exclusion of other business tactics and SEO does not necessarily mean that you will get sales conversions without taking any other marketing tactics into account.

Yes! It may seem strange, but believe it or not search engines look at various different criteria on your site for ranking purposes and will penalize you if they decide that you are trying to trick them in any manner.

What they are looking for is any type of unnatural behavior that they will flag for “over optimization” reasons. Basically, this means that you will rank poorly for relevant key phrases in your niche. This is one of the reasons why it is so important to have your site optimized by a professional SEO company or at least someone who is very familiar with what the search engines are looking for and what the latest trends are.

Here are some tell tale signs that you may be over optimizing your website:

• Identical Page Titles and H1 headings
• Excessive internal links
• Keyword stuffing
• Excessive poorly written text below the fold (for the search engines and not the users)

If you find that your website is using any of these tactics, you should make adjustments as soon as possible to get your site back on the right path. The search engines are getting smarter everyday and the best optimization you can do has always been in regards to content. Content is still king! You should always write for the intended audience and not the search engines. Stuffing keywords is definitely old school, but I am often surprised when analyzing prospective clients sites and just surfing the Internet that this tactic is still going on and quite prevalent.

Internal linking is a great strategy and you should definitely use it as part of your on-page SEO arsenal, but be careful not to over do it as the search engines can easily spot this. Finally, please make it a point to write unique title tags and headings for each page and never create a block of optimized copy exclusively for just the search engines (below the fold of your website), which again is obviously not intended for your users and the search engines can easily detect.

Pick your favorite restaurant. Any cuisine, any location. Now search for it on Twitter. Chances are, if it is a larger company or chain, you will find it. If your search doesn’t result in an official page, send out a tweet asking if anyone else has heard of the place. “A recent study from LinkedIn and Harris Interactive showed that only 8% of advertisers and consumers think Twitter is a "very effective" promotion tool.” That is quite interesting. However, it is much easier in some respects to measure the effectiveness of a Twitter campaign than traditional forms of advertising.

For example, Taco Bell has a Twitter page. They use it to inform their customers about new coupons, contests, and interact with fans. How effective is their Twitter page? Here are some basic ways any business can track their Twitter statistics and compare them to traditional media metrics. “For raw broadcast reach, your number of Followers is the leading indicator because it quantifies your baseline Twitter audience.” Taco Bell has 16,040 followers. Not bad when you compare it to McDonalds’ 16,727 followers. Pizza Hut, which often partners with Taco Bell locations, has 26,454 followers.

Google Analytics is one of my favorite tools to use to see how much of your website’s traffic is coming from Twitter or any site for that matter. “What are they looking at? What is working? What is not?” Third party tools come in hand and are a valuable way to easily see how effective your Twitter page is. For example, check out Tweet Stats, it puts all your tweets into an easy to read graph that shows you how much you tweet and how often other reply to your tweets. “@Replies, Twitter’s public conversation feature, is the most significant engagement quantifier because your audience is responding to your message.” Taco Bell has an average reply rate of 30.37%. See how simple it is to find the effectiveness of your Twitter promotions?