Keywords, keywords, keywords and what I've learned
I go over the following checklist summary before and when I write. What have you learned about keywords?
1. Before I do any keyword research, I'd like to know what people are looking for (problems, needs and desires) and WHY. This information will give me ideas on which keywords to look up later. I use eHow, Yahoo Answers and Google Instant in that order.
2. If your website is new, it is better to obtain keywords with low search volume that you can get ranked with than to not get ranked at all with high search volumes. So I would search for keywords with as low competition (QSR) as possible. Kyle says less than 300. I choose less than 200 and less than 100 would even be better.
3. Once you get ranked for a number of low search volume keywords, you will likely get ranked for keywords with higher search volume and QSR. That's because your whole website is ranking.
4. I would choose long tailed or multiple word keyword phrase over a single one-word keyword like "blender". That is because long tailed keyword phrases reflect customers towards the last stage in the purchasing cycle.
5. I would also choose multiple word keywords because there are many other keywords inside it. For example the keyword phrase, "How to make a fruit smoothie" has "make a fruit smoothie", "a fruit smoothie" and "fruit smoothie".
6. I choose keyword phrases that make sense grammatically as when I am speaking. So I cross out "How make fruit smoothie", because it doesn't make sense grammatically, even if it may have low QSR.
7. The keyword should be in your catchy headline title of your webpage, preferably in your meta description tag, in the first paragraph, and no more than two other places spaced out towards the end of your content. If you have a photo or video, your keyword phrase should be in the title as well.
8. I would not worry about point number 6. until I have finished writing the entire article making sure that rich informative content is king.
What can you add to this checklist?
Recent Comments
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Nice checklist. Forums are also a great place for step 1.
I'd also add that when a site is new, it's ok to make the "money page" a high volume page, and you'll slowly creep up the rankings as you link to it from more of your long tail pages, and as your site grows in general.
Wow...I never saw the high volume page in this way before. This is a new concept to me, and come to think of it, it does make PERFECT sense.
Thanks for the mentioning the forums also. I forgot about this one.
I really appreciate your feedback.
on-page SEO is more important than a lot of other metrics now, so linking to your best pages from other pages is golden.
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Great post Lemm. You are on the right track to being a coach and mentor
Hey...Rolland....nice to hear from you. Well....I think I have a LONG way to go before I become a coach or mentor. Thanks for the complement.