Creating a Target Keywords List

The use of appropriate key words is one of the most important aspects of search engine optimization.  Selecting and targeting pertinent key words and phrases is crucial for building web traffic and getting the audience you want for your web pages. Like any other type of advertisement, your key words must be carefully chosen to ensure that you achieve both high page rankings and relevant traffic. Achieving high page ranks is useless if the traffic it brings you is not the right audience. For this reason, many experts believe that the target key word list used for a site can mean either success or failure for a web site or online business.

It is no longer enough to simply choose a relevant domain name for an online business or web site. Choosing the right key words for the site is now equally if not more important. The majority of people who visit a site get there by using a search engine. They will type in two or three words that describe what they’re looking for, scan the resulting list generated and pick one that seems relevant until they get the answer or product they need.  This is where target key words are utilized. Key words are what enable people to find your site; choosing the right key words for your site will ensure the right people find you.

With this in mind, identifying your target audience is the first step in creating relevant key words and phrases. Again, this is not dissimilar to targeting television advertisements.  Consider location when you are developing your target market.  For example, if you own a used car dealership in Hayward, California, any traffic you get from outside a very specific area is virtually useless to you. Similarly, if you operate an online business that does not ship outside the USA, generating traffic from other countries will not help you make sales. By adding key words that are specific to your location as well as your product, you will better hone into your target audience, improve your rankings, and achieve a better conversion rate, which will help increase your site’s page ranking, in turn.

Keyword competition should also be taken into consideration when developing a site’s key word list.  Going back to the used car dealership example, let’s say a potential customer types in the word “cars” into a search engine. They’ll never find what they need, because it’s far too general—generating around 500,000,000 different sites to choose from. Typing in “used cars” generates almost 70,000,000.  That’s still too many to deal with effectively. Using “used cars Hayward” generates almost 900,000 hits, and narrowing the focus even further by using the zip code rather than the city name reduces it to less than 25,000.

Choosing key words for your web site works the same way. If your key words are too general, your target audience will never find your site, because the search terms generate so many web sites that it is impossible to look through them all. However, if you go too far in the opposite direction and use too many key words, or key words which are too specific, you risk losing business as well. The best key word phrases are no more than three words in length.

So how do you choose the right key words? The first step is brainstorming with colleagues, friends or an SEO professional, to come up with a list of 20 or more appropriate key words.  The Google Keyword Tool is an excellent place to research key words. By entering key words into this tool it will give you an idea of the popularity of certain words and offers you alternative key words and phrases.

Once you have a good list of terms, you may want to refine it to call out the strongest terms that have the best potential for sales or traffic conversion. There are several good online research tools available, which can help you decide which words will be most effective for you. Some good examples are WordTracker and Keyword Discovery.  These sites may charge a fee for using their database.  After reviewing the terms, eliminate the key words that rank poorly or are very unpopular, then prioritize the remaining terms according to search popularity. These terms will become the keywords you will want to focus your initial SEO campaign on.

Always remember that when it comes to key words, you are focusing on optimizing your traffic rather than maximizing it.  Setting up the right keyword list for optimization is the cornerstone to a successful web site.

~Ben Anton, 2007

Creating a Custom 404 Error Page

Every web surfer has encountered the dreaded 404 page not found error message.

The generic error page is horrible to look at and it does not encourage web visitors to explore more of your site.

Imagine being able to setup a custom error message page that looked good, told the visitor what had gone wrong and then suggested some alternative links to other locations on your site, such as the home page, sitemap or even a search page.

If the visitor wanted to, they could then visit other parts of your site.

It is very easy to setup a custom 404 error page (The 404 error is the error number returned when a page or directory is not found on your site).

The easiest way to redirect visitors that encounter a 404 is to either send them to your sites home page or to your sitemap page

We do this by placing a one line of code in your websites .htaccess file

ErrorDocument 404 /sitemap.html

This would redirect all 404 error messages to the sitemap page.

The path to the page you want to display, must already exist on your web server, otherwise the web server will tie itself up in a never ending loop.
The full path to the error page must be specified and it must be relative to the root path of that account (remember, placing a / at the front of a file name or directory specifies that it’s relative to the root directory).

To make a custom error page, simply create a page using your favorite webpage editor such as MS FrontPage or DreamWeaver. The page can contain anything you wish, such as images, links etc. Save the file as something easy to remember (such as 404errors.html)

I would then suggest you make a directory directly off your /public_html/ folder and call it “error” and place your error files in here.

This would now mean that your .htaccess command line would now look like:
ErrorDocument 404 /error/404errors.html

Now whenever a 404 error was generated on your site, your custom error page will be displayed, and keep your web visitors happy.

In the upcoming article, I will expand on this idea, and show you how to you can receive an email notification that a 404 error has occurred on your site. It will tell you what caused the error, and the offending page. Allowing you to try and fix all broken links leading to your site.

Create a Buzz in the Internet through Search Engine Marketing!

Search engine marketing simply means promoting a site online. In this internet age there are numerous online sites for various products and services. Simply having an online site will trim down your site just to me a mere presence in the World Wide Web.  Websites must have appropriate publicity to make new sales and profit through these sales. There are a number of successful search engine marketing strategies that can help your business grow by leaps and bounds.

There are many advantages of using search engine marketing for your online site. Search engine marketing strategy is cheap compared to any other forms of marketing strategy. You have the option of spending less and earning more through this type of marketing. Another major benefit of this marketing strategy is that the advertisement for your site will be running for 24/7 throughout a week, month or year. Search engine marketing is very essential as search engines decide on the public pattern of online shopping.

A recent study undertaken by a leading research agency shows that 90% people make use of search engine to find information for products online. Major search engines like Google give page ranks to sites to measure their importance for online users. Different elements of designing and other things are taken to consider in determining the relevancy of a website. These findings have made search engine marketing all the more important for a website.  

Search engines make use of spider programs to search a website. Spider program is used to gather all sorts of information about a site. Some of the information gathered by the spider includes instances of the site being uploaded, presence of links and the type of links, age of the site and such other things. Google gives page ranks to sites on a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the highest ranking for a site.

Pay per click is another tool used for search engine marketing. In pay per click, you can put up your site for advertising in a search engine or search engines can put up some ads in your site for generating traffic. This is a good way for making your site visible online and also earning revenue through pay per click. If a site advertises directly on a search engine, it can be awarded higher search engine rankings. 

One more strategy of search engine marketing is to create a buzz about your site in the internet. This can be done by making your site visible everywhere in the World Wide Web. For this the link to your site can be put on discussion forums and articles written for promoting your website. This is one way of bringing traffic to your website.

The content of your website is another factor which helps search engines in determining the relevance of your site in the internet. The content of your site must be updated regularly with all the relevant information. Remember there are different types of visitors to a website. Content must cater to the needs of one who is looking out for brief information and also to the one looking for in depth details about a product and service.

Search engine marketing is a difficult task. It is best to get professional service to market your site to search engines. There are many Search Engine Optimization companies that are capable of undertaking search engine marketing in a professional way. Adopting the proper search engine marketing strategy will surely spell profit for your online business site.

Craft Your Site More Appropriate

In SEO Delhi Company the e-fuzion offers different SEO services. This searching process only counts the contents in on writing. In the searching process it works in only on the content which is more natural and more authentic. Many web servicing companies think that graphics, flash, rich and designs and animation which grab the attention of search engines. But the reality is search engine can’t read the flash. They only count on content. If the content is nice and it is according to your business practice, your site is definitely place high in search engine rankings. Now even many companies are offering SEO services and in which India is one of them. And in India SEO Delhi company e-fuzion is the most technological based company which provides get change in the field of web site. With the steady rise SEO Delhi company e-fuzion provide the basic needs for web site and makes the site more energetic and reliable. The company SEO Delhi has in its credit the completion of several successful projects relating to SEO. If optimizer will not run after myths and it applies the basic understanding, the country is expecting to set new standards in SEO Delhi company e-fuzion in the coming years. In SEO Delhi company e-fuzion is the only selected organization which provides basic and most interesting rich ness among other organization. To get better result search engine optimization process makes the sites more interesting and dynamic. It is more difficult that if a web site take wrong key words. So it is better to click with Wright key words an make the site more interesting one. SEO Delhi company e-fuzion just varnishes all your headache techniques which create difficulty. In SEO Delhi company e-fuzion a customer can get all the details about search engine optimization.

For start with search engine optimization process, SEO Delhi company e-fuzion take a group of key words and different key phases and it includes them to write articles. The article should be original and should not be copied from any web site. It should not too long. SEO Delhi company e-fuzion makes the web sites life more interesting and gigantic and by which it makes the online marketing and business more eye-catching. SEO always remember the key word which should come in between the If you add key phrases along with key words , that will make the key words more relevant.

Could Time Warner be using Black Hat SEO to Help Search Rankings? - Rewritten

This is an exclusive story, researched and written by Eric Van Buskirk

Is it possible that MarkMonitor, Inc, who call themselves “a global leader in the fast-growing market for online corporate identity” has been secretly hiding links on behalf of TimeWarner? Is this being done on subdomains of timeinc.net in order to rank high in the search engines? You decide. MarkMonitor owns the domain name timeinc.net, a site with a homepage which re-directs to the main Time.com site. So it would seem they are running this site on behalf of TimeWarner. 

If you go to the timeinc site and view some of the source code of the pages, you will find error pages that have links below an image map at the bottom of the page, links which are hidden from viewers and added to increase the search engine ranking of other Time Warner properties. This link-hiding practice is often referred to as “Black Hat” SEO. 

An image map tells the browser how to display an image. That is it’s only purpose. However, some of the pages on timeinc.net have links hidden to viewers next to the image maps. If one views the source of sub domains such as img.timeinc.net or i.timeinc.net, it is apparent there are four links to other TimeWarner properties:


<MAP NAME="brandsmap">
  <AREA SHAPE="rect" COORDS="0,0,69,27"  HREF="http://www.time.com/">
  <AREA SHAPE="rect"  COORDS="71,0,141,27" HREF="http://www.money.com/">
  <AREA SHAPE="rect"  COORDS="144,0,213,27" HREF="http://people.aol.com/">
  <AREA SHAPE="rect"  COORDS="215,0,287,27" HREF="http://www.fortune.com/">
  <AREA SHAPE="rect"  COORDS="288,0,357,27" HREF="http://www.ew.com/">
  <AREA SHAPE="rect"  COORDS="360,0,429,27" HREF="http://www.parenting.com/">
  <AREA SHAPE="rect"  COORDS="432,0,501,27" HREF="http://www.instyle.com/">
  <AREA SHAPE="rect"  COORDS="504,0,573,27" HREF="http://www.onmagazine.com/">
  </MAP>
  </BODY>
  </HTML>


Did MarkMonitor,inc, a huge company and a true leader in “defending brand names” online buy this domain, redirect the traffic to Time.com and find places to hide links to other Time websites out of pure altruism? It’s possible, but hard to believe. It should be noted that there are very important subscription pages on other sub domains of timeinc. This is not a domain that was cast away and has no value for linking.

If MarkMonitor purposefully hid links as it would seem, altruism towards Time seems an unlikely motive.

There is an increasingly fine line with what is acceptable and what is not for search engine optimization. At ClickStream, we believe the last group that needs to employ sneaky techniques to rank high are fortune 500 companies. In essence, these companies are the ones that have whole “rings” of websites. Yet, search engines will ban individuals that create multiple sites for the purpose of linking to each other and creating a link circle. 

Time should be able to link in a circle with its various media companies. That may seem an unfair advantage, but they are separate entities that have the same parent company. What certainly seems unfair is for them to take further advantage of the circular linking by hiding links that only the search engines can see.

The recent storm has just passed over the BMW being removed from the Google search engine pages. BMW’s German site was found using “doorway pages” to build traffic and rank for their site. Google was able to document that BMW's German website used the search results to get a top ranking if people searched for "used car.” Searching for BMW Germany will bring no results. BMW.ge was well ranked but it dropped completely out of the Google index in a matter of 2 days.

Could Time Warner be using Black Hat SEO to Help Search Rankings?

This is an exclusive story.

Is it possible that MarkMonitor, Inc., who call themselves “a global leader in the fast-growing market for online corporate identity” has been secretly hiding links on behalf of TimeWarner? Is this being done on subdomains of timeinc.net in order to rank high in the search engines? You decide. MarkMonitor owns the domain name timeinc.net, a site with a homepage which re-directs to the main Time.com site. So it would seem they are running this site on behalf of TimeWarner.

If you go to the timeinc site and view some of the source code of the pages, you will find error pages that have links below an image map at the bottom of the page, links which are hidden from viewers and added to increase the search engine ranking of other Time Warner properties. This link-hiding practice is often referred to as “Black Hat” SEO.

An image map tells the browser how to display an image. That is it’s only purpose. However, some of the pages on timeinc.net have links hidden to viewers next to the image maps. If one views the source of sub domains such as img.timeinc.net or i.timeinc.net, it is apparent there are four links to other TimeWarner properties.

Did MarkMonitor, Inc., a huge company and a true leader in “defending brand names” online buy this domain, redirect the traffic to Time.com and find places to hide links to other Time websites out of pure altruism? It’s possible, but hard to believe. It should be noted that there are very important subscription pages on other sub domains of timeinc. This is not a domain that was cast away and has no value for linking.

If MarkMonitor purposefully hid links as it would seem, altruism towards Time seems an unlikely motive.

There is an increasingly fine line with what is acceptable and what is not for search engine optimization. At ClickStream, we believe the last group that needs to employ sneaky techniques to rank high are fortune 500 companies. In essence, these companies are the ones that have whole “rings” of websites. Yet, search engines will ban individuals that create multiple sites for the purpose of linking to each other and creating a link circle.

Time should be able to link in a circle with its various media companies. That may seem an unfair advantage, but they are separate entities that have the same parent company. What certainly seems unfair is for them to take further advantage of the circular linking by hiding links that only the search engines can see.

The recent storm has just passed over the BMW being removed from the Google search engine pages. BMW’s German site was found using “doorway pages” to build traffic and rank for their site. Google was able to document that BMW’s German website used the search results to get a top ranking if people searched for “used car.” Searching for BMW Germany will bring no results. BMW.ge was well ranked but it dropped completely out of the Google index in a matter of 2 days.

Correct Keywords Placement Is Easier To Attain Than You Think

Know what words your customers will use when searching.
You might know what your customers search for. If not, find out. Is it a description of  "pants" or "jeans?" One may be searched more often than the other, but why not target  both? How about "executive gifts?" Maybe "desk accessories" will broaden your web site  marketing strategy.

Ask all kinds of people. Get advice from people in all walks of life including management,  employees, customers, vendors, friends and family on how they would search for effective  search engine positioning keywords. Ask them how they would search for different products  and services. It's really not about what you think they would search for, its about what they  think. Believe me, they can many times be two totally different things.

Once you have successfully harvested a meaningful keyword list, remove any keywords that  are too targeted or not to specific. Also remember that keyword placement is important.  Try to put as many keywords as possible in the beginning paragraphs, and of course the  title line.

The higher the value of the keyword the more competition you will have. Every SEO utilizes  tools similar to the Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool and also know the value of a  keyword. The lower the value of the keyword the less competition we will have.

We don't want to aim to low but we also don't want to aim to high. We need to find a middle  ground. For you that may be a keyword with a value of no less than 1000 and no more than  10,000. It will be up to you to determine what you deem reasonable.

Also, the keywords should appear regularly throughout the opening Web page. It is  especially important that they appear frequently in the opening paragraphs.
However, resist the temptation to overuse keywords. The search engines can spot it and will  reduce your page rankings. Tools are available to help with optimal keyword density.  However, avoid software that writes the site's pages. Search engines can sniff these out, too.

A good rule of thumb is: Never sacrifice quality of content for keyword placement. This will  affect your page ranking. Most importantly, your site won't appeal to visitors. For a FREE  EBOOK detailing the fastest way to the top of the search engine, visit:
http://www.ride-to-the-top.com   and
http://www.1stepsystem-premier.com

Copywriting For Search Engines & Directories

To get optimal listings in search engine and directory queries, keywords and key concepts must be placed strategically throughout your web pages. To summaries, you need these words and phrases in:

1. Title tags

2. Meta-tags (keywords and descriptions)

3. Headings (if used)

4. Body text, and

Alt-attribute in the image source tags
When online marketing professionals optimize a web site for search engine and directory queries, they should not spend most of their time redesigning the layout (in HTML) or submitting the site to the search engines. Most of their time should be spent on researching, writing good copy that will index well in search engines, and writing thorough, accurate descriptions for directory submissions. Good web copy must contain well-researched and varied keywords and key concepts based on a web page's topic; accurately reflect the web pages' content; and be strategically placed throughout a web page as mentioned above.

Most sales and advertising "fluff" should be eliminated.

Here's an example (and one of our pet peeves). How many of you have seen this scam, "Put your printed brochure on the web!" Print advertising copy contains a lot of "fluff" phrases such as "service that is second to none." Search engine analysis? "Service" is a stop word in some search engines and will be ignored in a search query. "Second to none?" How many people do you know really search using that phrase? When we are looking for something on the web, we are going to type in exactly the type of product or service we are looking for, not sales and advertising "fluff."

Web copywriting should contain keywords and key concepts without all the "fluff." Web copy has to flow and be strategically placed to get your web pages ranked well in search engine and directory queries. Your potential customers will also appreciate being able to find what they are looking for as quickly and easily as possible. That's just good customer service.

The one time that web copywriting is extremely important is your site submission to Yahoo. Although Yahoo reserves the right to change or modify the site description you send them, if you can submit a well-written description containing your most important keywords and key concepts without word stacking, Yahoo will likely keep most of your description intact.

Good copywriting is a necessary element of both online and offline marketing. If you do not have experience in writing good copy for the web, we recommend that you hire an online marketing consultant to initially write the copy for you. Then you can learn from the copy you paid for. The more practice you get at web copywriting, the better you will get at it.

Confused About Google's Index, Link Dampening, & No. of Links?

I recently received another 'please help' email from a gentleman named Ian who runs an adventure company in Tanzania (http://www.betheladventure.co.uk ). Ian was concerned about the effect of a variety of issues including indexing and link dampening, and was desperate for help. Unfortunately, he had read some fairly misleading articles in the past, so he had a somewhat mixed up understanding of the factors at play. Because I suspect he's not alone in his concern and confusion, I decided to publish the details of our discussion.

Ian's email consisted of several questions. I've listed each separately below, followed by my response.

Q: When I search for the number of backlinks to my site using "link:www.betheladventure.co.uk", I see only 23 results. It appears that only 23 of our backlinks have survived Google's dampening link filter. Is there a time delay before they are credited to a site? "

A: Firstly, I think you may have the dampening link filter a little confused. According to the dampening link filter theory, your links are found and recognized by Google, you just don't get the full benefit from them until a given period of time has elapsed. The dampening link filter (if it exists) doesn't stop links from appearing in Google's results when you search for them. (The only reason your backlinks might not appear in a Google search is if Google hasn't yet indexed the pages containing the links.) Also, don't worry too much about things like the dampening link filter. For a start, it's far from established / accepted fact. Many well regarded SEO experts don't believe in it at all. Furthermore, even if it does exist, it only affects those businesses with the budget to generate the huge numbers (hundreds or thousands probably) of links reputedly required to trigger it. If your number of backlinks suddenly increases by 20, that's no problem.

And secondly, don't believe everything Google tells you. By searching for "link:www.betheladventure.co.uk", you generally only see a small percentage of actual links to your site. The best way to search for links is to search for just the URL "www.bethaladventure.co.uk" , then on the page that displays next, select "Find web pages that contain the term "www.bethaladventure.co.uk" ". When you do it this way, you'll see all the pages that contain your URL. In most cases, the URL will be an active link (or at least it should be, and you should ask them to make it so). When you do this search, you'll see that your site has about 169 links, not 23.

Q: Another question is about indexed pages (using site:www.betheladventure.co.uk). I understand this is a record of pages that have been changed. I had 32, it went down to 28 and now this morning it is down to 26. Do they only keep the pages for a month or is there more to the indexed pages than I realized?

A: The number of indexed pages is simply the number of pages on your website that Google 'knows about'. Theoretically, the only time the age of a page comes into play is when the page is too young*, i.e. Google spiders haven't visited it yet, or Google hasn't updated its index. As to why the reported number of indexed pages is reducing, I suspect it's just a temporary shift. The number of results in Google's searches varies pretty much constantly.

*Actually, technically speaking, it has been suggested that Google is not capable of indexing all 11.5 billion pages currently believed to be online (and the 10 million more that are added every day), and that as it indexes new pages, old pages are pushed out of the index. (This is a very rough description of the theory - if it's happening at all, it's likely to be far more complicated than this.) If this is happening, it may explain why the reported number of indexed pages is reducing. Although I think it's a long shot, a good way to deal with it is to maintain high quality content, to keep increasing it, to keep generating backlinks, and to generate a Google sitemap. To find out more about sitemaps, go to http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login . To download a free - and very useful - tool for generating a sitemap, go to http://johannesmueller.com/gs/ .


I know there's a lot of confusion surrounding these issues, so I hope you've found this exchange helpful.

Happy indexing!

Compose Your Site as a Peak Ranker

SEO Delhi Company e-Fuzion creates the better linking program of the web site which takes greater response from the users. Hence in order to have a focused SEO services response it is important to indulge in effective link building techniques. Among all this, one should not forget or sub due the importance of keeping a watchful eye on the whole campaign. This is the only method through which you can learn whether your website marketing is really focused or not. The search engines will be able to result your pages only if they are optimized and submitted in the web site, so first sure that your website is properly optimized for the required keywords. Before submitted it, it will entered in the search directories. For a web site to rank high, SEO Delhi Company e-Fuzion creates a solid rank popularity apart from the on page optimization. This link popularity refers to the number and quality of in-bound links that point to your web site. But as said, link popularity can either make or break a web site. But as said, link popularity can either make or break a web site. Hence one gas to be very careful while building link attractiveness for one’s web site. One of the oldest methods in off-page optimization is link exchange are as follows. In SEO Delhi Company e-Fuzion you find different tasks such as link exchange acts which are defined under search engine marketing with which you can exchange your link and with the link of a counter web site. And it is profitable for both parties. It is very important to know that link building can either make or break your web site within the search engines. In SEO Delhi company e-fuzion the search engine has very careful with your link building campaigns.

SEO Delhi company e-fuzion with its leading team provides different solutions for web site. For all of them search engine process is the important one. It provides top ranking towards the web site as comparing with other web sites.

Choosing An SEO Consultant

While the most important thing in creating a webpage is the designer a consultant knowledgeable in SEO is even more important if you want to have it show up well in search engine rankings. An SEO consultant can mean the difference between a cool page that nobody sees and a cool page that everyone not only visits but talk about.

A good SEO consultant will not only know the tricks of the trade but also how to use them best. An SEO consultant is as much an artist as the web designer. Whereas the web designer knows all of the tricks of the trade in creating a masterpiece of the internet the SEO consultant is the promoter that makes sure people travel to see it.

When choosing an SEO consultant make sure to find one that is willing to not only work with your website designer, or you if you are doing your own website, but also understands your needs. Am SEO consultant is not there to diminish your website or interfere with its look. They are there to be sure that it is designed from the ground up to utilize as efficiently as possible all of their SEO tricks. An SEO consultant will blend their techniques invisibly with your website. In fact that is how they have to work. The best SEO consultant will not even leave a visible footprint. They must be like the wind. A divine wind to protect your website and breathe inspiration into it.

The most important factor is to make sure that your SEO consultant can work together with your website designer as to not impede their efforts. Do what you did when you chose your web designer. Tell the SEO consultant what you need. Give them a time frame on when you need their services to work. Let them know what your future goals are and find out what they can do for you.

Do-It-Yourself

Ranking high in Google’s search results can have a phenomenal impact on the success of your business.
You can either engage the expertise of a Search Engine Optimisation company, or if you have the time, there are some changes you can make to your website yourself.


Step 1: Keyword Research
What keywords do you think your customers would type in to search for your products or services? A keyword can be one word (e.g. “optimisation”), but multiple keywords or keyword phrases are usually preferred, because they are more specific and more likely to be what your customers are looking for (eg. “ Search Engine Optimisation Australia”).


Write down as many as you can think of. Brainstorm with your team. Think of alternative words. Consider geographical phrases if they are important to your customer (e.g. “house cleaning Hornsby”). Also, get some ideas from your competitors’ websites. Try to make a list of 20-30 keyword phrases.


Choose the two keyword phrases you think would be searched for the most. But also remember, the more competition there is for a keyword, the harder it is to achieve top rankings.  If you want to rank high in Google for the keyword “insurance”, you have a very long journey ahead. So try your best to select two keyword phrases that are the most relevant to you business but that are not vague nor competitive. It’s a good idea to have 2 or 3 words in each phrase (e.g. “wedding catering services”)


Once you’ve selected your two best keyword phrases the next step shows you how to make some improvements to your home page.


Step 2: Web Copy
Web copy refers to all the words or text on your website. Because content is king in the world of search engines, your keyword phrases need to be placed strategically on your webpage to convince Google that your content is highly relevant to those keywords.  The more prominent they are, the better. (Keep in mind that as important as search engines are, customers come first, so make sure your copy also reads well.)
   

Here’s how you can increase each keyword’s prominence:

•    Place your keywords in headings, preferably at the beginning of the heading;

•    Include keywords towards the top of the page;

•    Bold or italicise keywords where appropriate;

•    Instead of having a link to another page that says "Click here to read more ", reword it to include your keywords, e.g. "Read more about our seo copywriting Services".


An important tip is to also include these keywords in your HTML “title tag”. Use your content management system to make these changes yourself, or perhaps ask your web developer to do it if you’re unsure how.


Once you have fine-tuned your home page, consider adding new content, such as detailed descriptions of what you offer, FAQs and informative articles about your products and services. (If you don’t want to write these yourself, they can be located for free on the internet - do a search for “articles directory”).


It’s also good to bear in mind that search engines can only read text, not pictures. Often web developers embed words in images to look better for website visitors or use Flash for animation, but this is a major impediment to search engines.


Step 3: Linking
Each link from another website to your website (not from your website) is considered by search engines as a vote of popularity for your business and will improve your rankings.


But it is the quality, not quantity, of the links that is crucial. The other websites should be relevant to your industry, and preferably highly regarded themselves. Ten quality links count far more than 500 links from arbitrary websites. In the same way your personal business network can have a significant impact on the success of your business, so too the online network you build on the internet.


Brainstorm all the relevant websites that could link to you, such as non-competing companies, and industry bodies and organisations. Write a friendly email to each describing the benefit their visitors would get in knowing about your business, and request them to create a link to your website. Most people will not respond first time round, so a follow-up phone call is usually required.


How do I monitor my results?
Monitor your rankings in Google over the next few months by typing your chosen keywords into the search box, and recording your ranking. Also look at your hosting reports to understand what search terms your visitors are using to find your website.


The above process can be also be repeated for each page of your website. Remember to keep updating your content, and continually increase the number of links to your website.


As you see your rankings climb you should see a corresponding increase in web traffic and a substantial increase in sales enquiries. Be sure to record the source of your customer enquiries, so you can measure the success of your marketing efforts.


Remember, if you measure it, you can improve it.