Search Engine Marketing Tips

Target the Right Keywords

A keyword is a word or phrase that a web surfer will use in searching for a web site. Some think that choosing the right keywords is a no brainer, but don't be fooled into this line of thinking. If you jump in, optimize your site and achieve a top ranking from the keywords you chose you may then realize that your visitor counter has not changed at all. All that hard work to optimize your site keywords and nothing to show for it.

So what happened? In this instance you failed to choose keywords that surfers were actually looking for. Therefore, try researching keywords and phrases that pertain to your web site's products, information, and/or services. Place yourself in the seat of the web surfer and avoid broad statements like "small business." You may provide a service for small businesses, but who's going to type in small business when they are looking for a networking consultant?

Research popular keywords as well as less competitive keywords for a top ranking. There is a fine line in targeting keywords that are very general or competitive versus keywords & phrases that are so specific that few people even think to search for them. Don't make the mistake of picking the wrong keywords. This is a very time consuming and very important step in page rankings. Nothing is as disappointing as spending days if not weeks optimizing your pages with targeted keywords to achieve top ranking and seeing absolutely no increase in traffic. Avoid choosing ultra broad keywords like photos or books. The most likely result of such broad keywords is unwanted traffic from visitors who may not be specifically looking for your services or products. With such general keywords, you do not know if these individuals were looking for a local library or a rare books seller.

Please see my article on Choosing The Right Keywords for more information.

Submit to the Major Directories

A significant change in search engine marketing in recent years is the rise of human reviewed directories like Yahoo, Open Directory and LookSmart. Some search engines will display the directory listings of many of many popular searches. You can recognize directories very easily since they are often called "Web Site Results" rather than "Web Page Results."

After you submit to the directories it's very difficult to correct mistakes later. Yahoo will charge as much as $300 just for the privilege of being reviewed by a human and included in their directory. I know it's easier said than done, but try to get it right the first time. Not all directories are the same so research as much as you can about submitting to that particular directory.

Dmoz or The Open Directory Project is arguably the most important directory in my opinion to get listed in. Please see my article on Why is Dmoz so Important to a Web site for more information.

Optimize Your Page Content

Each Engine ranks pages that appear on their search pages differently, so most tips will not carry across the board. But, you can create pages that emulate pages of highly ranked pages.

Research keyword frequency, weight, positioning, prominence on page, and proximity of keywords to one another. Other considerations also include: off page factors, total words on web page, and the prominence of keywords on their respective pages.

Include your keywords in your Title Tag, Heading Tag, Link Text, Meta Tags and Description Tags. Naming pages after your keyword and obtaining a domain with your keyword will often boost rankings as well.

Regional business should optimize their keyword or phrases for their area. Searching California Sony Camcorders will not result in your page being found if you're not optimizing for your local areas.

Make sure you don't spam the engines, most engines are very touchy and will either refuse to index your page or worse ban your site if they feel the need.

Increase Your Link Popularity

One of the off page factors is link popularity. It has grown to become a significant component for most search engines. Your site will need to have one or more links from other web sites for search engines to consider indexing your page(s). If you don't have high link popularity, then you'll never achieve a high ranking. Try to reciprocate those links; engines will rank your link popularity even higher if they see that your site has a greater number of incoming versus outgoing links, and is part of a community of stars rather than a black hole. See Reciprocal Link Popularity for more information. So, make link popularity a high priority in your web marketing campaign. The method will increase page rankings, and thereby online visibility and web traffic from other sites.

For the best links management software on the market, we reccomend 123Linksmanager. Even the most novice users will be astounded on how easy it is to manage your links. 123LinksManager will automatically validate current and pending link partners on a nightly basis and has statistics to track every aspect of your link partners progress or deceptions.

Keep Track of Your Progress

As you research and learn more about web marketing and optimizing your web site you'll learn that it's not an exact science. Your optimized pages will vary in ranking and may need adjustments. Keep track of site visitors with a hits counter, along with where they are coming from. Measuring site traffic progress and tweaking optimized pages as necessary will give you a much clearer idea of how to successfully improve the quality of your site for search engine optimization.

Too Much to Grasp?

If this is too large of a project for you to handle try hiring out a web promotion company to take care of your optimization. KosmosCentral.com has a team of dedicated web design specialists who will offer suggestions on your site loading times, keyword choices and link popularity and would gladly provide a quote on your marketing campaign. For more information see our contact us page.