WebWise Solutions

250 MILLION.

That is how many searches there are on Google alone in a day. Did you know that less than thirty percent of the users doing these searches go past the first page of results? Yes, really. In 2004 Google had more than 4 billion sites in its database. That is a lot of competition. With that many sites and that many users only looking at the first page of results, it can be very difficult to find ways to get your site in front of the people searching for your services. You may have the perfect page and the perfect product. If the user cannot find them, it does not matter.

What do we do?

Actually, there are lots and lots of things that we can do. We can make our pages easily searchable for the search engines. We can make them friendly and easy for our customers to use. We can even use “Tag-Optimization” techniques. However, there is one word that can sum up what we can do to make all of these work together.

Drum roll please......

Keywords.

You thought that I was going to give you some secret recipe to make your website searchable by the millions of searchers out there on the Internet didn’t you? Well, actually the right keywords in the right places is kind of like a recipe to get to the end user.

Let's say that your web page is about hockey.

What if someone was to enter intitle: hockey ice rink into the Google search engine?

Do you think that your page would come up? This search pulls up any of the pages out there that have hockey, ice or rink in its title. Go ahead, Check your page.

Point your web browser to your web page. Click on view in the toolbar. Go down and click on source. What do you see in the Title tags? Anything? This is one of those places that it is imperative to choose the correct keywords.

It is also important to add great keywords in the Keyword tags, Description tags, No frame tags, Body tags, Content and links. Let me mention one other thing before we go on to picking the best keywords. Did you know that search engines put more priority on keywords depending on how you put them into your page? For example, Google picks the words that are on the top of the page over those on the bottom. They also put weight on keywords that are in Bold, Italics, UPPERCASE, In bullets and in header tags. They also have hundreds of other criteria that they use to prioritize and pick keywords.

Now that we have covered the why and how, lets get on to the good stuff. What do we need to pick good keywords anyway?

If you answered, “Well Brett, lots of caffeine and a full supply of pizza,” I am happy to tell you that it may be easier than you think.

The first thing that you should do is take a look at your website's access log. This should tell you all of the keywords that are currently being used to access your site. If you don’t have these logs,You may have to find a program that can provide them. Write down the top 50 used keywords and phrases.

Next, grab a few of your most wildly creative colleagues and start brainstorming. Write down a list of a hundred or five hundred keywords that have anything to do with your website. Come up with as many “words” as you can think of. If your website is on hockey, ask yourselves “If I wasn’t an expert in hockey, what words would I use to find a site that has all of the hockey teams in our state? What words would we use to find out what the statistics are of the NHL hockey teams? How would I find a site for a Little League Hockey team for my kid’s? Be creative. Go crazy with your ideas.

When this list is done, go to an online synonym dictionary and see if there are any obvious words that you could use. Also look through your list to see if there are any that are used as singular or plural. Should any of the words be hyphenated? Check if any of the words should be split words like hockeypuck. It’s actually hockey puck, but some searchers may use either one, so pay attention to the way that people might use it and the way that it should be used.

What words can you add that are geography-specific? How many ways can you think of to spell your company's name? (Coca-Cola, Coke) Are there any abbreviations? Know thy enemy. What are your competitors using? What products do they have that may directly compete with you? You can even use their name as a keyword.

There are also keyword tools that you can use, that may help you find more keywords and phrases.

By now you should have a pretty healthy list of words. Lets see if we can kick some of them out. Look through your list and see if there is any that strike you as particularly non-descriptive. Next, (your are going to think I am crazy for this one) put the ones that are the most competitive in your business at the bottom of your list.. Yes, you read that right. Lets say that you have a website for Internet security. Had the words Internet and security been your top keywords, you would have drowned in the pool of competition. You can still use these words, just don’t put all of your emphasis on them only. These competitive keywords are great for pay-per-click words. It is easy to put them at the top. You just have to pay more than everyone else.

Look through the words that are left and take out the ones that are to ambiguous, broad or non-descriptive.

Now, ask yourself these questions

• What is the site's focus?
• Who is your audience?
• How many people actually search on those keywords?

I waited until now to bring these up because I want you to get creative making your list. I didn’t want you to follow any rules. Its really a very delicate balance. You are trying to pick keywords that aren’t being used by your competition while using the words that customers can find you with easily.

Now you have a pretty good idea of some really great keywords to replace or add to your current list.

You will be updating this list frequently as you think of better words and take off the words that are not being used. I would recommend looking at your website's access log monthly and make any changes needed. It may take you some time to do, but this process is critical for your websites success.

As always, please post in the forum if you have any questions.