Picking Keywords to Optimize For
Many SEO firms will proudly display search times that they are number one for, and more often than not these terms are so random and obscure that nobody even bothers to search for them. Does that represent a talented and fine display of SEO prowess? No, it shows that they probably got randomly ranked for some even more random keywords.
When you are looking for keywords to optimize for you need to find and pick the ones that actually get searches. The easiest way to tell this is through some very helpful tools:
- http://www.pixelfast.com/overture - see the number of searches done in a typical month for keywords that you input. This really helps give you an idea of potential traffic.
- http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools - a variety of useful tools to help you determine search volume, keywords, related keywords, etc.
If your website is about cats, it’s unlikely that you’ll attain top-5 rankings for the term “cats” without a lot of money spent and time invested. However, you may be able to attain good rankings for related terms that still receive traffic, such as “how to feed cats” or “how to wash cats”. Being top-5 for a few good keywords will net you plenty of free natural traffic, and it will be much easier top optimize for those keywords than it would be to try and get rankings for “cats”.
Remember that your focus should be on your return on investment (ROI) and your ability to generate traffic with specific keywords. If a keyword receives 1,000 searches a month, being number one in the search engines will gain you 80% of that traffic.
So, to conclude, base your keywords on a few choice tidbits:
- Search volume
- Relevancy
- How targeted they are
- Traffic
Duplicate Content and You: Three Ways to Avoid Getting Penalized
You may have come across an article or a few paragraphs on content that you think would really suit your website. It’s important that you remember not to copy and paste the text exactly as it appears, as besides breaking copyright laws it also won’t serve much benefit to you. The search engines, or at least Google specifically, penalize websites that have been flagged for having duplicate content. This means that your rankings may actually suffer after you add more content (if that content is duplicated).
That doesn’t mean that you can’t draw on others for inspiration, however, and this is when the skill of rewriting becomes absolutely invaluable. When you find content that you want to use, rewrite it so that it meets the following requirements:
- It has been reworded and rephrased - This is important for the search engines as they link sentences, keywords, and phrases together. Changing the order of things causes the search engines to change how they view the content, hence preventing any penalty for duplicate content.
For example:
The Coca-Cola can has once again changed its appearance, dropping the arguably more attractive modern design for a simpler, more traditional one. Though brand purists may applaud Coke’s decision to revert back, many see it as a blast from the past and don’t appreciate the novelty.Rewritten, it could be:
Fans of the classic Coca-Cola brand rejoice: Coke has answered your prayers and has redesigned the Coca-Cola can (and bottles) to resemble labels from years past. Gone is the recent busyness and complexity of the label, and instead we are given a return of a much simpler, somewhat understated design.
- It is not stolen or simply cut and pasted together - Search engines will see right through this, as the keywords and phrases will match with other websites. If the other website had it online before you did, you lose. Make sure that you take the time to actually rewrite it to avoid any issues.
- Modify the length - If the article that you are rewriting is 400 words, make sure that yours is 500 words. This, combined with changing the phrases around and modifying the keywords, is very effective at ensuring that it is not flagged for duplicate content.
Keyword Density: How Much Is Too Much?
If you were to go back in time about 15 years you would notice that the online world was very different:
- Affiliate programs were just starting to appear.
- Search engines operated differently.
- Most people had no idea how to make a website.
- The internet was just a multi-million dollar economy (compared to the trillions of dollars that it is worth now).
Honestly, if you knew even a wee bit about SEO you could completely dominate the “old internet” because there was no SEO. Your website rankings depended on your meta tags, keywords, and keyword density. Hence, the thousands of websites that had paragraphs upon paragraphs of keywords at the bottom in small, hardly legible text.
Alas, those were the good old days. Today, SEO is a fine art that only a few people really appreciate. One important element of that art (or should I say, the most important element) is your content. I will beat to death the importance of qualified content because content is king (and always will be). Quality content will always trump any SEO trick in the book.
One thing that is still important is a relatively high keyword density. Maintaining a 2%-6% keyword density seems to be ideal at targeting specific keywords. In fact, next week I’m going to do a SEO challenge where I’m going to try to SEO for a relatively benign keyword only with content- no links, no redirects, no tricks. Just straight up content. Check back next Thursday for the article itself.
If you have a keyword density that is too high (10% or more) it is likely that your website is going to be penalized by Google (and the other top-tier search engines) for keyword stuffing. This effectively kills your ranks, as Google will label your website and flag it for lower quality than it “should be”, with the obvious negative impact on your rankings.
So, remember folks: don’t keyword stuff. Maintain a 2%-6% keyword density.
Search Engine Optimization: Relevant Backlinks
It’s not secret that a big part of your SEO strategy should be backlink focused. Generating hundreds (if not thousands) of relevant, targeted backlinks will do wonders for your sites search engine rankings. The concept of SEO is one that has mystified countless webmasters- how to gain good search engine rankings, develop traffic, and then monetize that traffic is the riddle in its entirety, isn’t it?
Of course, certain offline elements can help bring traffic to your website. Telling your friends and family about your new website may bring 5 or 10 unique hits a day for a little while, but that traffic source is limited and not very effective. The traffic that you’re looking for is the millions of people surfing the internet worldwide. SEO is not a horned monster that must be tamed, but rather a delicate operation and integration of essential elements that come together to form the final outcome.
Backlinks are good from an SEO point of view for a variety of reasons:
- Drive traffic to your site - Backlinks may drive additional traffic to your website through the actual links themselves. This is an added bonus, as the links are more for SEO purposes than for traffic generation, but who’s going to complain?
- Gain you a position on prominent websites - Having an industry important backlink from a website that is well respected in your niche is gold. That’s like having GM mention your car dealership as the place to buy a car from- instant credibility.
- Gains you credibility with the top-tier search engines - Google, Yahoo, and MSN all give targeted backlinks credibility and weight when they are determining how to rank your website. The anchor text of that link (what the user reads the link as) is arguably the most important element of your SEO strategy for a particular keyword.
The core of your SEO strategy should focus on developing targeted backlinks from related websites to your niche. If your website is about cars you’ll want to generate as many backlinks as possible for domains that are related to cars. Having thousands of incoming links from websites about Halloween or music isn’t targeted at all, and the top-tier search engines many penalize your website for “link spamming”.
So, while it is important for you to generate targeted and category relevant backlinks, you should only do so on websites and through networks that are related in the eyes of the search enginess