Issue #008- Hiring an SEO, Keyword Research Basics

Free SEO Seminars

Want to learn more about search engine optimization and webstats analysis? The Karcher Group is offering all-day free web marketing seminars. Novice or expert, everyone should leave with some fresh, new ideas.

By Scottie Claiborne © 2004

Many website owners put the cart before the horse- anxious for search engine traffic and rankings, the first thing they do once their site is complete is buy a "submit to 1,000 search engines for $29" service. Unfortunately, what they receive is a tenfold increase in e-mail spam but no increase in search engine traffic.

Do-it-yourself SEO is a great way to go- if you've got the time to put in, anyone can effectively optimize a website. However, it makes sense to hire a professional when your time is better spent doing what you do best; running your business.

Where to start? Selecting an internet marketer can be a daunting task. There are a wide range of fee levels as well as different attitudes, strategies and experience levels.

A few pros and cons can help you in your search:

Con: Submit your site to 25,000 Engines

Any service that claims to submit your site to more than 4 or 5 engines is not submitting to search engines at all. Most likely, they are submitting to free-for-all pages or they are spamming directories. Currently, the only engines with significant traffic are Google and Yahoo and to a small extent Teoma (Ask Jeeves). You don't have to submit to any of these engines- they will find your site by crawling links to your site.

Pro: Directory Submission Service

There are professionals who will prepare and submit your listing request to the major directories as well as industry-specific portals. This is a valuable service-- a well-written description as well as a carefully chosen directory category can improve your chances of getting listed quickly and accurately.

Directory listings are valuable links that add to your link popularity and can send traffic in their own right. Many directories are still free but several have paid options that can speed your review. Directories such as Yahoo and Business.com are paid listings only. Directory submission specialists can let you know what options and fees are available.

Con: We Won't Change a Thing on Your Site

Companies that do their optimization "off-site" by building a mini-network of sites or pages on their own site that point to yours aren't really optimizing your site. They may send you traffic, but when you stop paying, the traffic goes away. You can do that yourself with PPC listings!

Other companies create software-generated "doorway" pages or "information" pages - these pages are often created with nonsense words sprinkled with keyword phrases and meant to appeal to the search engine algorithms. The key is that they are only for search engine spiders to see; not humans. They may work for a short while (if at all.) The problem is that these pages have no links pointing to them and aren't very important in the eyes of the search engines, therefore they are not very effective.

The most dangerous companies will tell you that you won't "see" any of their changes- they add hidden links, hidden text, and other tricky techniques designed to fool search engine spiders. Some create different pages that are shown to spiders than to people- this is referred to as cloaking. These techniques can and will eventually get your site penalized or banned.

Pro: We Can Optimize Your Site

A professional SEO is likely to work with you on keyword research, change your tags, your copy, possibly your links and other code on the page. They will optimize the page- making it friendly to users and search engines while making it relevant to the terms you have agreed upon.

They may recommend you remove splash pages, frames, flash navigation, javascript links, or other things that interfere with the user experience and hinder search engine spiders. While there are workarounds and techniques that can help with situations like these, they are not the optimal solution. Even if you choose to leave search-unfriendly elements on your page, your SEO should point them out to you and advise you of the best option.

Con: We Guarantee #1 Listings in the Editorial Results

No one can guarantee you a #1 listing in the search engines' algorithmically determined results for a specific term. The engines do not have special agreements with anyone that allows them to choose where your site will appear!

Read the fine print- often the guaranteed terms are "guinea pig" terms- words no one is searching or optimizing for that even a guinea pig could get you #1 rankings for! Remember that a guarantee doesn't mean they have to achieve the results- simply that they'll give you your money back if they don't.

Other companies guarantee rankings on PPC terms. That's easy enough, you just have to have a big enough wallet to be #1.

Pro: We Guarantee Improved Results

A good search engine marketing firm should be able to guarantee that they will improve the performance of your site in the search engines- you shouldn't be worse off than when they started. Really good companies should be able to improve your conversions, not just your traffic and rankings. Isn't that the ultimate goal?

Don't be surprised if, after a search engine marketer works on your site, your traffic figures decrease. Don't worry- traffic doesn't pay your bills; in fact it actually costs you bandwidth. The quality of the traffic you continue to receive should be improved- more sales or conversions in relation to the number of visitors.

The ideal situtation is achieved when you narrow your search visitors to people who are interested in your site and they are easily able to find the information they want. This is more likely to occur when you stop focusing on unqualified but high traffic keyword phrases and start focusing on terms that really relate to your site.

Go with Your Instincts

Don't let a search marketer change your pages for the worse- slapping keywords on the page here and there may improve your rankings but decrease sales. Optimization techniques should complement and improve your site and good SEO copywriting will improve the focus of the page without losing the marketing edge.

You should feel confident that the search marketing professional you hire knows what they are doing and is willing to explain what they will do to your site and why. There really aren't any "secrets" in search marketing anymore- you can spend a few hours reading at any of the major search engine forums to find out how things work. If a marketer isn't willing to tell you what they plan to do to your site to drive more traffic, you may have a mess to clean up later.

Ask for examples of the marketer's other work; it's the best way to see what they do and how. Don't just look at the ranking reports, take a look at the page and make sure it reads well and isn't using sneaky tactics. Above all, pick someone you trust!

Scottie Claiborne is the owner of Right Click Web Consulting and the facilitator of the Successful Sites Newsletter. She is a speaker at the Search Engine Strategies conferences and the High Rankings Seminars as well as the administrator of the High Rankings Forum.

Writing for the Search Engines

When you're writing copy for your website, you need to know where to place those pesky keywords so that they don't interrupt the flow of your writing. Get Jill Whalen's Nitty-gritty of Writing for the Search Engines report.

By Myla Kay Marks, SEO Research Labs © 2004

Choosing keywords or keyword phrases can be extremely confusing to site owners. There are some very simple ways to get started on keyword research for your website. It's not a complicated process, if you have the right start.

If you don't have the right keywords/phrases optimized on your website, you won't get the targeted traffic that you need. Targeted traffic is visitors who stay on your site and read your information, buy your product or service, subscribe to your newsletter, request more info, or otherwise take action.

Some of the most common mistakes you can make in your keyword selections are choosing keyword phrases that are too competitive, too broad, or too unique.

Too Competitive

An example of a too competitive keyword is "Microsoft". That keyword currently returns 105,000,000 websites on Google. It's doubtful that people searching for the single word "Microsoft" are looking for your product, even if you do sell something made by or relative to Microsoft. The likelihood of reaching the first page of search results is slim to none.

Too Broad

An extremely broad keyword phrase would be "computer parts", which returns 2,910,000 on Google. Again, people searching for computer parts are not likely to find what they want in that search, and will most likely refine their search with more specifics and try again.

Overly Unique

An overly unique phrase, "I want good keywords", returns zero websites, no matching documents, nothing.

There are some simple methods for finding keywords that are relevant to your website and that will bring in the targeted traffic that you require to run a successful online business. Let's get down to the nuts and bolts.

Keyword Research Tactics

First you need to sit down alone or with your colleagues and have a brainstorming session. You don't need a computer for this. Have a thesaurus handy and of course, a pen and paper.

Start by addressing the actual product or products you sell. How narrow/broad is the focus of your site? You'll need to address that fact before you start picking keywords. If you only sell a very specific kind of computer peripheral you don't want to go with "computer parts."

If you sell "outdoor clothing", that might seem at first as if it's a great keyword phrase but "outdoor clothing" has a return of 2,070,000 on Google. If you decide to target "outdoor clothing", understand that you could spend a lot of time and money gaining top rankings, only to find that you aren't getting very many customers because the term is too vague.

For best results, be specific about what your online business sells. Exactly what kind of clothing is it?

Do you have name brands, or does your company handmake the clothing? Is it specifically for fishermen, bicyclists, or some other sport? Does your online business provide more than just outdoor clothing? Do you provide any other kind of hunting or outdoor information on your website?

Now get out the trusty thesaurus for a little deeper dive:

"Clothing" (noun); Definition: attire
Synonyms: accouterment, apparel, array, caparison, civvies, clothes, costume, covering, drag, drapery, dress, duds, ensemble, equipment, feathers, finery, frippery, frock, full feather, garb, garments, gear, get-up, glad rags, habiliment, habit, hand-me-downs, livery, mufti, outfit, overclothes, panoply, rags, raiment, regalia, rigging, sack, sportswear, tailleur, tatters, things, threads, tog, toggery, tout ensemble, trappings, trousseau, underclothes, vestment, vesture, vines, wardrobe, wear

Okay now, that's a lot! Obviously there are some words in there that you are not going to use. Let's see, "outdoor raiment"… I don't think so. But there are a lot of words in there that you can use.

Another way that you can get ideas for keywords (and content) is to visit online forums that discuss your product or service and see how people are talk about your industry. By following the strings of conversation you will get a good idea of the wording and terminology that people use

By searching through online directories like DMOZ.org and Yahoo.com, you will come up with additional ideas for keywords. More importantly, you will identify many of your major online competitors, if you haven't already.

Visit your competitors' sites and see how they present the same products and services. Read their content and see what keywords they are utilizing in order to get traffic.

Remember that we're after targeted traffic though, and don't repeat the mistakes your competition is making. Your competitor's website may be targeting the wrong keyword phrases, so don't just blindly copy their keyword meta tags as a guide.

The product of all this effort will be an extensive "seed list" of excellent, relevant keywords. Further research using tools like (http://www.wordtracker.com) Wordtracker will help you discover which of your keywords are the most popular with searchers, but even without other tools, you are now well on your way to a great keyword strategy.

If you want to take it a step further, a great way to test those words for conversion potential is to set up a Google AdWords account and run a few limited campaigns to see which terms get the most activity.

Good keyword research can be a time-consuming process, but the rewards that you reap will be more targeted traffic, better sales, and better search engine positioning.

Myla Kay Marks is the lead keyword consultant for SEO Research Labs, a provider of low-cost keyword research services for website owners, site designers, and search engine marketing consultants. For more information, visit SEO Research Labs

Wrap Up

I would have had this edition done earlier, but was distracted by some funky dancing animals and then got way too involved with making my own rock band; thanks to my other late night working buddies Matt Bailey and Debra Mastaler O'Neill who can always be counted on to provide a welcome distraction when I ought to be working!

I find working at home makes it hard sometimes to know when to quit. I had a great working lunch with Karon Thackston this week; I say a working lunch because I always end up bouncing ideas off her. (It doesn't hurt her... much)

I almost cancelled on Karon because things were crazy around the old home office and I always feel like I don't have enough time to get everything done. But, as always, I came back from lunch with Karon rejuventated and motivated to get more done. It's good to take a break every now and then!

If you've got a local buddy you haven't seen lately, call 'em up and make a date for lunch! You may be surprised how it can refocus you.

That's it for this edition- have a good one! -Scottie

Have a Specific Question About Today's Articles?