The keywords that you choose to promote your website with, will determine the success of your marketing strategy. It is very important to use proven guidelines when you decide on the best keywords to use for your website. Let us first have a look at why keywords are so important.
Keywords are important because:
- If you target the wrong keywords, you will waste a lot of time and money.
- People use keywords in their search queries when looking for information.
- The majority of Internet users scan information and only take a closer look when they see the keywords that they are interested in.
- Web surfers use general keywords for browsing and to find information, more specific keywords for comparing products or services and very specific keywords to find the best offer in order to make a purchase.
- People will click on advertisements that contain keywords that they are interested in.
- Keywords provide potential customers with an idea of what you are selling.
- Internet users search for information using general terms and not industry related terminology.
- Not all keywords generate high search volumes.
- The more specific your keywords are, the higher your success ratio will be (you will receive more targeted traffic).
It should be clear from the points mentioned above that the keywords that you decide on will have a major impact on your sales and website traffic. Let us have a look at some keyword guidelines.
Guidelines to follow:
- Conduct proper keyword research by making use of trusted software to find keyword suggestions for your website (Google Keyword Tool).
- Determine the number of average monthly searches and level of competition for each keyword.
- Decide on the keywords that you want to target and rank them according to importance (number of searches, level of competition).
- Make use of multiple word keywords that can accurately describe your website.
- Your keywords should be used throughout the content of your web page.
- Use your main keywords in the page title, domain name, meta tags, headings and internal links of each page.
- Place your target keywords in the anchor text of the links to your site that you build from other websites.
- Use your keywords in the articles and blog posts that you write.
- Keywords should be used in any advertisement for your website (classifieds or paid advertising).
- Monitor the performance of your chosen keywords on the search result pages.
- Use Google Analytics to monitor the number of visitors to your website, the source and the keywords that they use.
- Change your keywords if they are not effective.
Effective keyword search optimization is the foundation of any successful website. If Internet users can find you through the keywords that you have decided on, and if these keywords are specific enough to generate targeted traffic, you will be successful.
Heinrich Muller is the owner of The Link Building Guy and he writes articles about SEO, link building, keyword optimization and social media developments. Feel free to visit his website The Link Building Guy for more information, services and articles. You can also visit his twitter newspaper H.E.Muller Daily.
Nice read, I just pasesd this onto a friend who was doing some research on that. And he actually bought me lunch because I found it for him smile Thus let me rephrase that: Thank you for lunch! “Too much sanity may be madness. And maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be” by Miguel de Cervantes.