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Finding Keywords For Your Target Market
Part 2, Keywords. This is probably the most critical step of the whole search engine optimization process. Keywords are the search terms that individuals type into the search engine to initiate a query. Although I have listed it as step 2, you really should start here before ever building your site. Why? It's a big help if your URL contains the main keyword for your target market.
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- The target market. Who is your market? Who is the intended customer for your product or service? I'll give a few examples from MedLawPlus.com®. There are two main components to the web site: professional services RFP system and online legal forms. The RFP system is grouped by service categories: i.e., acupuncture, plastic surgery, divorce lawyers, etc. These can each serve as keywords. Within each of these service categories, there are various procedures that plastic surgeons perform such as liposuction, breast augmentation, face lift, et cetera. These can be keywords targeted for marketing as well. In coming up with a list of potential keywords, I suggest scouting web sites of your competitors and potential customers.
- How do I determine a keyword's potential? Cosmetic surgery is a subset of plastic surgery. Either would work as the service category heading within MedLawPlus.com®. This online tool will tell you which keyword generates more monthly traffic in the search engines. The tool estimates there are 253,000 monthly searches for the term "plastic surgery" versus 139,000 searches for the term cosmetic surgery. Run all your potential keywords through this tool to get an idea on the search traffic generated by each.
- Narrowing your keyword list. Conventional wisdom says no one can be all things to all people. The same is true for search engine optimization. You'll need to winnow down your target list to the most one or two promising for each distinctive product or service. Why? It's like a beam of light. The beam is brightest when focused on one point as opposed to being splintered into many separate rays. The organization of the pages will need to be focused on a discreet set of keywords. Let's carry forward with the plastic surgery example from MedLawPlus.com®. When picking between "plastic surgery" and "cosmetic surgery" as the keyword for this service category, there is one other factor to consider beyond search traffic: i.e., the presence of the competition.
- The Competition. First, if you don't already have it, instal a google toolbar for your web browser--download google toolbar. Make sure your google toolbar shows pagerank value, see picture of pagerank tool. Type your search term into google and yahoo, click on the top ranked results, and check out their strength. What's a strong page? There are a number of factors. What is the page's pagerank value? Does the search term appear in the URL? In the page title? How high up on the page does the search term first appear? How many times does the search term appear on the page? How many inbound links does this page have? Note: the google toolbar can give you this information. The question you have to ask is whether the page your are to market this keyword with has enough strength given the foregoing factors to rank in the top 10. If it is not going to rank in the top 10, you need to look for another keyword. For instance, plastic surgery is a very competitive keyword. The term "plastic surgery prices" is estimated by the online tool to have monthly search traffic of 5,572; however, the competition for this term is much less. If you can't get into the top 10 using your preferred keyword, look for modifiers and variations to target.
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Part 3: Optimize Website
Joe's Search Engine Marketing Tips Home Page
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