In this article, we will briefly touch on one method of finding
the best keywords to position your web-site at the top of
as many searches as possible.
The 'Master Keyword Chart' that we will create will, however,
fulfill many other functions that will make a definite impact
on the effectiveness of our web-sites.
Now we all know that attempts to 'fool' the search engines
are doomed to failure 99% of the time. The alogorithms have
already been set to scupper your efforts, or if they haven't,
they soon will be.
Nonetheless, there are many legitamate, effective ways of
optomizing your site such as;
a.. creating well researched meta-tags;
b.. the trading of relevant, quality links;
c.. posting of articles, network posts & advertisements
for inward links;
d.. referencing other websites for outbound links; and,
most importantly;
a.. filling your pages with compelling, informative content.
The one thing that ties together all these methods, and
many more, is KEYWORDS. Everything a 'spiderbot'
(a search engine's little hunter) does is guided by their
search for the best keywords that match a search-term that
a user enters everytime they perform a search.
With so many web pages (over 1 billion) competing for those
prized No.1 spots, however, it pays us to spend some considerable
time researching which keywords are worth trying to 'optomize'.
By using a very simple, free tool called the Keyword Selector
Tool from Overture, http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
, the grand-daddy of the search engines, along with the search
engine that we want to be placed highly on, we can find which
specific 'keyword terms' will bring us the highest number
of visitors, whilst offering the least amount of competition.
The result will be a 'Master Keyword Chart'.
1. Creating a 'Master Keyword Chart'.
This can be done in your choice of a database, spreadsheet
or text file. I prefer a spreadsheet, but this is a matter
of personal preference. I don't recommend using a basic text
editor (such as Notepad or Wordpad) as this will limit the
functionality available and calculating the formulas that
will be covered later, will be very time consuming. If however,
you feel more comfortable using this, you can still produce
just as good a chart.(You can download an excellent free,
open-source office suite at OpenOffice.org which comes with
both a database and a spreadsheet program).
Using the spreadsheet example, you first need to create
4 columns as illustrated below:-
KEYWORD TERM SUPPLY DEMAND USE-ABILITY
article keyword 511 25 20 marketing
keyword article 55,000 35 1571
In this example I have used the 'search phrase' or 'keyword
term' of 'keyword article' and I created it by; i) Opening
the free Overture Keyword Selector Tool and in the box provided,
entered my 'keyword term'. After a few seconds, depending
on your connection, a list of all related 'keyword terms'
that have been searched for in the course of a month (normally
2 months ago) will be shown. The numbers to the left are
the amount of times these terms were searched.
I recommend that you start with a 'keyword term' that is
relatively generic as it is often surprising to find what
people search for. You may miss a well suited phrase if you
are too specific to begin with.
ii) I have then copied each term and entered it into my
chart as shown. I have then entered the number of times each
was searched into the 'Demand' column. (In this example,
the top searched term was - 'article flighti*******al****keyword
search****test' . Now this search term was either the result
of a 'bot or someone purposely searching for the term in
order to move their own site up the listings. One of the
alogorithms the search engines use is that of how many times
a term is searched. Many times, when using the Overture Tool
used here, you will return results such as these. As in everything
else, common sense plays an important part. Do not just blindly
follow the formula or entirely hand over your own judgement
to statistics.
This search term only returned 4 phrases, which is very
low, but fortunately, useful for use in this article. Most
searches will return a much larger number. As you go down
the list, only copy those terms that you feel would have
a place in your web-page content. If for instance, you are
writing about Birmingham UK, keyword terms that contain Birmingham,
Alabama, would have no relevance. Ignore these.
iv) We now have our list of terms and the demand for their
searches. Next, we need to know how much competition exists
for each term. open your favorite search engine and enter
each search term.
N.B. When you enter the terms, be sure to enclose them in " ".
If you just enter the words as on their own, you will be
given ALL the sites containing the words, anywhere, and in
any order. to illustrate - 'keyword article' above, entered
without quotation marks, returned - 30,600,000 compared to
55,000 when using the quotations. you can be pretty sure
that all of the 55,000 were relatively well placed in the
30,600,000 since they had the actual phrase as entered. We
are targeting for the top spot, so are only interested ion
those other sites that also have the exact phrase.
v) At the top of the search engines window, you will see
something like 'Results 1 - 10 of about 55,000'. It is the
'55,000' that we now want to enter into the 'Supply' column
alongside each keyword term.
vi) Now, before we apply the simple formula, we need to
give our common-sense some more exercise. You may have some
'terms' that are showing hundreds of thousands, or even millions,
that are optomized for that term. These would be unrealistic
for many of us to try and position highly against, so can
be deleted straight away. Conversely, there may be some terms
that whilst are in very low demand - under 50, for instance.
However, these are at times the most profitable. Let me explain
with a different example;-
Entering 'tableware' into the Keyword Selector Tool, I find
that 'country moose tableware' had 44 people search for it.
Now I have no idea what 'country moose tableware' is, but
let us go with it. On a search in Google, I find that there
are only 13 sites returned for this term, and they are all
suppliers. If I can then find an affiliate and/or dropship
deal with one or two of them and I write some good copy on
'country moose tableware', what are the chances of my site
getting into the top 3 of the page. now only 44 people have
searched, but with such a specific term, the chances of these
people looking to buy are very high, resulting in excellent
conversion, which, in the end, is what we are all looking
for.
Anyhow, back on with our chart. We are almost done.
vii) Now we have eliminated all terms that have just too
much competition, made a seperate note of any especially
specific terms, and have a list of all others. We can now,
simply divide the 'supply' figures by the 'demand' figures,
entering the results in the 'use-ability' column. We then
sort the results in ascending order. (This is where a spreadsheet
is particularly useful).
The 'keyword terms' with the lowest 'use-ability' figures
are the ones we are most interested in. These are the ones
with the least competition, whilst being searched the most
often. In the 'keyword article' example above, this was self-evident.
with only 511 sites coming up for 'keyword article marketing'
and 25 people searching for it. It is going to be much easier
to achieve a good position with these keywords, and click-thru's,
than trying to compete with 55,000 others for 'keyword article'
for the sake of only 10 more searchers. However, for most
other keyword terms, your number of results, and the figures
called up, will be much more variable and complex, so it
is always worth applying the formula. Now I know which keyword
phrases I want to optomize my pages for to bring me the best
possible position in those searches that will bring me the
highest return.
I have a completely FREE course on how to gain top-placement
for any web-site available, simply find my email address
on my website and make contact.
This 250+ page course also gives access to SEARCH IT! -
containing the Overture Keyword Selector Tool, and many more
analysis tools to help your site optomization.
2006. Andrew E. Barnes.
http://www.working-together-we-win.com You
are welcome to reproduce & reprint this article provided
that the content & links remains unchanged and this resource
box is included intact.
