It’s the Holy Grail for bloggers and webmasters: Getting ranked #1 in a Google search. When someone searches for something like ‘Home Business’, they want YOUR website to be at the top of the list because that equates to a LOT of traffic to your site. Even doing it on the first page will generate quite a bit of traffic. Generally, people don’t go further than 3 pages before reviewing your search criteria, so you can see why you’re so searched for.
So how can you improve your odds of landing that coveted first page…or even the #1 spot? By using search engine keywords. But not just any keyword… it takes a bit of research to determine the right path to follow. And that’s where this article comes in. This may be old news for some of the more experienced folks out there, but my mission is to provide valuable information to both experienced folks and those just starting out.
Let’s say you have a blog and you want to improve your chances of appearing on the first page of a certain topic. To make this more realistic, I’m going to use this article as an example so you can see what’s going on.
The first thing you’ll want to do is make sure your title contains 1-2 keywords or a key phrase. This is the first step. So how do we choose the right search engine keywords? There is a tool that you may or may not be familiar with called the Google AdWords Keyword Tool. This is a great tool to use when you are trying to figure out which search engine keywords to use.
Using it is an extremely simple process. Taking a look around the site, you’ll notice that all you need to do is enter a couple of words or phrases related to the topic you’re writing about. In this example, I’m writing about keywords…so I entered ‘keywords’ and ‘AdWords’. Then simply click the Search button and it will return several pages of related words and phrases that have recently been searched for.
That’s the first decision you have to make… what to look for. Once you have the list, the next big decision comes up: what to wear. You might think that if I’m publishing an article on keywords, that’s what I’d like to use in my title, right? Not necessarily. You should take a look at the three columns that appear for each word/phrase: Global Monthly Searches, Local Monthly Searches, and Local Search Trends. This data will point you in the right direction.
Looking at the global monthly searches column for “keywords”, I see that it has over 1.2 million searches. Wow… that sounds good. Think of all the traffic I’ll get. But here’s the problem. There may be a ton of searches performed using that word, but there may also be a ton of other, more popular websites that use that same word. And your Google ranking is going to be higher than mine. Which means I probably won’t make it on the first page.
The secret here is not to be greedy. When you’re just starting out, your site probably doesn’t get a lot of traffic. So what you’ll want to do is search for a keyword or phrase that falls somewhere in the range of 4,000-8,000 global monthly searches. But don’t stop there…you should also look at the competition meter and pick something that doesn’t have a lot of competition. Less competition + low monthly searches = better chances of appearing on the first page. Will you get millions of views? Probably not… at least not right away. But the secret is that you want to start slow. Start building a base, and if you provide good content, people will come back and pass your site on to other people interested in the same topic.
The other item you can look at is the Trends column. This tells you what trend that particular word or phrase has. Maybe it’s becoming a hot topic and starting to trend upward, but the competition is pretty low. That is the injection of money. Going back to our example, if you look at my title, you’ll notice that I opted to use the term “Keyword Selection Tool” within the title. If you do a search on that term, you’ll see that the monthly searches are almost 10,000…a little on the high side, but still acceptable. The competition is just under half and the trend, although on the lower side, is holding steady.
Once you have determined which keywords or phrases to use in your title, you will have completed the first step. But we still have not finished. You can use the same tool and technique to find other relevant words and phrases to use in the body of your post. You don’t need to spend hours and hours trying to figure out the best words to use on your body, just pick a few to focus on.
The final part of the equation is the description of your blog. If you are using WordPress, you should install All In One SEO Pack and use it to its full extent. Here, you enter the title of your post and then a description of the post. This is where you need to add some of your keywords. After the description, you can enter some specific keywords related to your post. When you publish your post, the title, description, and keywords are submitted to search engines. Likewise, if you are writing an article online, the technique is the same. But remember, DO NOT overuse keywords. It is best to limit yourself to 5 or 6 main elements to focus on. One of those keywords should always be your name. Remember, you also want to brand yourself at the same time.
So hopefully for the less experienced folks this will help clear things up a bit. And for the more experienced users, maybe they realized something they weren’t aware of.