So, you're ready to implement an search engine optimization (SEO) strategy for your business? In order to increase your chances of ranking high organically,there are several steps that must be done before implementation. Here are some tips on how to get started on the right track:
DO YOUR KEYWORD RESEARCH
The number of keywords needed for an organic SEO project depends on the business and what words would provide the site with acceptable and properly targeted traffic. These keywords should be a short list of what your website is trying to promote and other words related to your industry. This will provide the jump start you need to choose the right keywords for the site's organic search engine optimization campaign. Once youhave the list, you'll want to read through the site to see how it has used the keywords that you have chosen and to gather ideas for additional keywords. The keywords chosen may be broad terms which may or may not work for your particular site. The words that you need to look for are specialized words or phrases that will enable the site to have top SEO ranking and will deliver qualified traffic. It is also smart to gather keywords is to see what words are being used by competitors. This is as easy as entering one of yourkeywords into the search box of the search engine of your choice to determine the sites with the top search engine placement for this word. You are aiming for keywords that are frequently used by your target audience, but do not have many competing pages, this way you will have a better conversion rate. Your best competitors are going to be the first five results to show up when you search. Additionally you can viewthe source code of your competitor's page and check to see if they have Meta Keywords tag. To locate this tag simply right click on their page and click view source and locate the keywords in the code. The code will look like . The keywords will be located within the 'content' of this tagand add relevant terms to your list of words or phrases. Repeat this procedure with all the keywords from your initial list. Doing this SEO research allows you to decide whether these words or phrases are targeted to your website's products or services and what value they hold.
Once you have accumulated enough words and phrases, you will need to find out themonthly activity or popularity of each potential keyword. There are several tools out there to help with this and most are free. We like Wordtracker, Keyword Discovery and the Google Adwords Keyword Tool for this task. Though each tool works a little differently, each one produces a list ofrelevant keywords based on a single keyword phrase that you provide. To use these tools, type inthe keyword that you want to research and the tools will display other relevant keywords. Adding more potential keywords means that you may want to repeat theprocess of typing these words into the search engine and reviewing the siteswith top search engine ranking; you could find even more keywords and you willverify their relevancy.
FINALIZE YOUR LIST
After you have generateda large enough list of possible keywords, you'll need to decide which wordstarget the website's subject the closest. Comb through your list and remove any keywords or phrases that are not relevant to your brand or do not fit your overall brand strategy. Try to be personal when you're finalizing your list. You want visitors to your site but if they aren't looking for what you offer, their visit is pointless. Add these keywords into the code of your site or if you're using Hotcakes, add them in the page settings on the admin side.
Choosing the right keywords and implementing them into your site is only half thefight to gain rankings. But once you implement your keywords, you willstart noticing an improvement in ranking, although you probably willnot be on the first page yet. The next steps are competitor analysis, building back links and setting up proper metainfo. We will cover these important steps in a future blog post.