Effective Keyword selection is essential to attracting customers and internet web traffic to the business website. Identifying a good, short term or phrase that properly describes the business, the product or the service though can be a challenging task. Keyword selection must characterize the page content though if the search engines are understand what the page is about. SEO Consultants in Denver have have developed the following guidelines to help small business and start ups select keywords that get results.
New companies and business start ups usually just guess at what would be a good set of keywords to use – or ignore the process completely. It should be understood though that these words describe for the search engines what the page is about. These descriptive terms or keywords must accurately describe not only the business, but the page content. Juggling these can be challenging as well.
But what really are ‘keywords?’ The keyword list is found in a section of the webpage that the viewer doesn’t generally see. The ‘keyword metatags’ provide words and phrases to the search engines that describe what your page is about. Readers can’t see the meta tags unless they look at the page source code.
The more important function of keywords though is that they describe the business as well as page content. Keyword phrases that appear within the page provide assurance to Google and the other search engines that the keywords accurately represent what the page is about.
Once selected, keywords and keyword phrases should be used in the page title and title tags, headlines within the page (the ‘h’ tags) and then again in the content or text within the page body. As long as the keywords can be reasonably used within the text, they should be. Page developers should be wary of overusing keywords though or otherwise engaging in ‘keyword stuffing.’ This practice is frowned upon by the search engines and causes the copy to read poorly.
There are many processes for selecting appropriate keywords. Google offers a tool that will read an already constructed page and offer ideas of what keywords might be appropriate for it. (This tool is part of the Google Adwords tool suite.) This tool is useful when one is unsure where to start in the keyword selection process. There are however, some things to avoid.
Avoid keywords that have a great deal of competition in Google Adwords. The same Adwords tool will display how much competition there is for a keyword or keyword phrase. Although not universally true, these keywords take longer to compete for and to rank well – especially for newer pages.
At the point you identify a good keyword or phrase, use it in a Google search. If major corporate websites are returned as the number one result, you may want to keep refining your keywords. Companies such as Bank of America are not going to let go of their dominant search ranking position easily. (Having said that, there are ways to compete with the big boys, so keep reading.) At the outset, one probably wants to avoid going head-to-head with major companies for broad and popular search terms.
Keyword identification is an ‘artform’ unto itself. Discovering or creating accurate and descriptive terms and phrases that many people search for, but for which not many big companies compete is a difficult chore. The Google Adwords tool is probably the best ally in this search.
It should be noted here that the traffic number provided by the Google Adwords tool is not an exact number. These should be used for comparison purposes only as they provide a comparative measure of the search activity that some terms receive.
One of the biggest allies you have in the selection process is creativity. Including things like geographic terms or city names in the keyword string help set your page apart from those of major corporations. Local customers in need of services generally include a geographic parameter within the search, such as ‘Banks in Birmingham.’ This is much more descriptive than simply searching for ‘banks.’ Big corporations generally compete very poorly on a local level for business traffic, so this could be an opportunity for a local business to elbow its way into the local market for providing goods and services.
Flexibility in working with keywords is also helpful over the long term. Some keywords may have to be abandoned if they fail to generate sales and traffic. As the study of consumer behavior is a bit of a guessing game, the web page operator may have to execute quite a few trial and error scenarios before getting one that attracts internet traffic. And for the start up or new business enterprise, searching for effective keywords may not take place quickly.
SEO Consultants in Denver brings years of experience in link building, keyword selection and website optimization to help organizations win new or start up revenue. SEO Consultants Denver quickly deliver top page search engine rankings even for new or start up pages.
