Source: heartifb.com via Larry on Pinterest
The discipline of finding the right keywords for your web site is becoming more and more difficult as the major search engines tweak their algorithms to provide better results for their visitors. However, this increased learning curve is actually an advantage for hard working companies, because hard work is rewarded with better results. It is harder for a cheater to usurp your position on a major search engine once you have truly earned it.
The first step to earning a long term, reputable position within the ranks of the major search engines is to find the keywords within your niche.
To find keywords in your niche, first begin with a list of potential keywords. These are the simple terms that you might think of when you first consider the industry of your company or the name of your product or brand. Too many businesses stop at this step, however.
What search engines have done over time is devalue the importance of generic terms like the keywords on your long list. In order to have your search engine optimization strategy become effective, these keywords must be combined and synonymized in order to come up with longtail phrases and related keyword terms that will give you the edge in your niche.
Long tail keywords could be considered combinations of short keywords and phrases that would resemble something that a person would actually type into a search engine query box. For instance, if a person was looking for cat food, they would probably not simply type “cat food” into their query box.
The query would be more like “organic low calorie cat food in Charleston” because the person is probably interested in cat food that is the most effective for their cat and in their locale. The major search engines did not prioritize searches like these five years ago, but they do now. This is the trend that you have to take advantage of in order to find keywords that will work for you.
Localization and specificity are your friends now when it comes to keywords. Therefore, when you make your long list of generic keyword phrases, you should now drill down and see how you can make those keywords and key phrases more local and specific to your customers.
Perhaps you are a watch reseller. If you specialize in high quality watches, then you should try to limit your keywords and key phrases to those that are important to customers looking for high quality watches. Mid quality watch resellers should look for keywords that are important to mid quality watch customers. In this way, finding keywords in your niche involves a great deal of brand management.
There are tools online to help with this process. Google itself has a free keyword tool that should be in the playbook of every serious online business. There is also another program called Wordtracker that is highly reputable within the small business industry.
One of the best tools is called an “synonym finder” for keywords. This helps business owners and webmasters to find related keywords to flesh out the web content that should be posted on the landing page. Simply spamming any keyword or phrase over and over will actually penalize a site in the major search engines. You should have related keywords and phrases that read well to a human visitor as well.
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There is a lot of truth in your 5th paragraph. When we are searching for high quality keywords, we often jump to the simplest, most vague terms, but the people we are targeting would never type something that generic! No one googles the term “car”. We specify more than terms like that. It is possible to oversimplify your search terms. Successful SEO is about finding the right level of specificity that also encompasses terms broad enough for people to find you. Well said.
Thanks Paul & thanks for commenting
Hi Larry,
Great post.
Synonyn finder, Longtail keywords and free keyword tool are good and mostly used by the bloggers so this is very good info for bloggers and small businessman. It is very necessary and useful for bloggers specially newbies.
thanks for this awesome post and giving a hint to share this info with us.
Bhushan recently posted..ERP Software Development Companies
Hi Bhushan, your welcome
Hey!
Thanks for letting us know. I think you provide more info about another goody one.
Bhushan recently posted..ERP Software Development Companies
You’ve done a great job explaining it. It’s a little bit hard to figure out what methods work for niche marketing. It’s a very time consuming process, so the techniques you recommend helps streamline the process. Thanks!
Becca recently posted..Catering Williams Landing
Hi Becca, knowing what to write about in different niches isn’t that difficult for the person who has a passion in said niche.
Thanks for commenting
Twitter: antonrsa
Hi Larry,
Great post – especially the points on longtail keywords. If done right with a good balance of main keywords, longtail keywords can drive quite a lot of value and traffic to your site from a Search engine point of view. Especially if used with your images and link structure (amongst others) – having keywords (long and short) in the right place on your website can mean the difference between ranking well and dominating the SERP’s.
Anton Koekemoer recently posted..4 content marketing mistakes to avoid
Thanks for commenting Anton
I have never heard about “Wordtracker “, I will certainly try it in practice and will write my opinion about it
Jessica recently posted..Creating A New Website: 25 Center Layouts For Small Business
One thing that we have to remember is to Google. If we look for the keywords that people wanted to search for, what they are craving for and what they look for. So be cautious and be motivated to look for things that people want.
Mark Sanders recently posted..Global Traffic Machine Review- Jerome Chapman & Blake Barrett
Hi Mark, I think it’s safe to say if you are always writing for the reader. You will get be indexed well. When you start writing for search engines , you tend to stop making your human readers happy. At least that has been my experience.
On this blog I still strive to rank for my choice keywords, but I am also mindful of the fact that I have readers that come here and enjoy the content. Because I am always accepting guest post etc…
Thanks for commenting
Hi Larry,
We can also use Google Trends, Google Insights and Google related searches to find best long tail keywords for our website.
Aarti recently posted..HostGator Coupon Code
I like google insights, I don’t google trends that much. Only because many times what is trending I have no interest in.
I totally agree with you, that the keywords are very hard to find, cause many of them already have entered on the online business market used by main businesses, and bigger. If you are a starter, you must think very carefully, and find some particular keywords, and words associations.
I really having a hard time finding a niche for my keywords specially in health and insurance, there are a lot of competitors. Sometimes I use a tool to find , before I use Google Linkwheel but they just suddenly remove it.
I know! I liked googles linkwheel it was very useful. I feel ya there.
Yup finding the right keyword is really hard and without any tool , it is definitely not possible and thanks for mentioning few Google tools
Linda recently posted..How to find investors for crowdfunding
I usually do research keywords using Google external keyword tool and then I filter again using market samurai
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