Blog Optimization expert Terry Wells of Developer Shed realizes that the right choice of keywords and keyphrases are some of the initial steps that businesses need to take in order to have a good shot at being ranked high in search results for the services they offer. This is true for blogs (whose authoring tools offer you the chance to enter keywords) as weell as Web site copy (where these words can be relevantly entered in as text.

“For instance, if I wanted to learn how to juggle, I might go to Google or Yahoo! and type in the phrase ‘juggling lessons’ along with my geographical location to find out where I could take a class,” Wells writes. “The tricky part of that answer, as you might have guessed, is that you need to use the right keywords. Choosing the wrong keywords for your website’s search engine optimization will guarantee that nobody ever sees your website. After all, when was the last time you went through all six million or so results that turn up in Google for a general word like ‘juggling’ “?

Wells then outlines the four steps involved in wise keyword and keyphrase selection:

• Collecting initial keyword ideas. This is also known as brainstorming. Come up with plenty of ideas; ask other people for ideas, too, including your customers. In this article, I’ll discuss some do’s and don’ts so you can target your ideas a little, and maybe even come up with a few you wouldn’t have thought of originally.
• Checking keyword research tools. There are online tools that offer information about the number of times users perform searches for specific words. This is very important, because it will help you not at all to optimize for a keyword the search engines never see. Two of the best-known keyword research tools are Wordtracker and Overture.
• Selecting keywords. This is the point where you put the information from your research together and decide which keywords are going to deliver the best performance for you. Note that I said “performance;” the best keywords might not be the ones that will deliver the most traffic.
• Analytics. After you’ve chosen your keywords and optimized your site, you need to perform measurements to see whether it’s delivering the amount of traffic and conversions you expected. You can use this information to make adjustments and refine your keyword strategy.

Next Tuesday, I will present some specific examples of relevant keywords and keyphrases, as well as a selection or two in those areas that could, frankly, stand some improvement.

(Terri Wels, via Developer Chat)

Tags: authoring_tools, Google, keyword_research_tools, search_engine_optimization, target, web_site_copy

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 26th, 2007 at 8:38 am and is filed under Blog Optimization. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.