For effective Search Engine Marketing SEM and SEO, proper selection and use of Keywords / Keyphrases are critical to attract the most internet visitors possible, and to ultimately yield the most money from a web site. For both amateur or professional Website developers, it is important to understand that Search Engines like Google still place a significant weighting on keywords. Proper Keyword selection and use can play a pivotal role in the ultimate success of an internet business.
3 Important factors of correct SEO keyword selection are;
Popularity: How often someone is searching for a your chosen keyphrase term?
Assessing the popularity of a particular search term is relatively easy with the use of the Free Overture Tool, which will give an approximation of the number of times people search for a given search term.
Relevance: Do the keywords chosen fit the theme of your site and respective pages?
Determining relevance is common sense. Evaluate your existing or planned content and ensure your chosen keyword terms exist or can be inserted into the existing content.
Competition: How difficult will it be to get top rankings for your search term?
Determining both the level of competition and likelihood of achieving top search engine rankings for a chosen term is considerably more complex.
Overestimating the ability of a website to get top ranking for the most popular keyphrases is one of the most common mistakes made in novice SEO attempts. Simply choosing keyphrases that are the most popular will most often result in failure if the competition for those phrases is too severe. Trying to compete for extremely popular keywords with a brand new web site can be a pointless endeavour.
Unless you plan on hiring a professional SEO Consultant, it is unwise to try to optimize for the most popular terms found through Overture. Yet, without a first page ranking in Google, it is unlikely that your site can attract many visitors. Furthermore, specialized SEO software, tools and experience are usually required to accurately access your web sites ability to compete for popular keyphrases. However, a quick estimation can be done by comparing your current Google Page Rank ( PR ) with the existing competitors Page Rank.
Page Rank is a measurement from 0 to 10 that the Google assigns to websites to determine their current importance and it is primarily based on the amount of Quality Inbound Links to a web site (quality inbound link checker).
As a general rule it is best to pick keyphrases where the lowest Page Rank of the top ten search engine results is equal to or less than your own page rank. If you have a brand new website, your page rank will start at 0. For new or un-optimized web sites with low page ranks, it may be difficult to pick keywords that fit this criteria. In this case, it is best to pick key phrase / search terms where the lowest of the top ten competitors has a page rank no greater than two higher than your own. You can utilize this free Google Page Rank Tool to help you compare your page rank with your potential competitors.
Realistic Keyword / Keyphrase targets are a critical part of search engine marketing and getting the first page search engine results required to generate any significant traffic. This is just the first in a series of Search Engine Marketing Articles that provide SEO Training and SEO Tips on the selection of, and proper use of Keywords, as well as the other integral processes required to improve search engine rankings.
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