The SEO Scout

How to Research Keywords for SEO.

I find that when I consult with clients a big part of the conversation assumes they know two really important things.

1. that they know where to go to research keywords to optimize on their site. 
2. that they know what to research

I might say something like, “Just look into that keyword and see if it gets many searches or has a lot of competition.” And then go on my merry way in the conversation.

I’m going to explain those two things today in a bit more detail.

WHERE TO RESEARCH KEYWORDS

If you do not have a Google account, go to this link to access Google’s amazing keyword research tool: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Type in the keyword or phrase that you would like to optimize. Or, for practice, type in “dog collars”. Enter the captcha code and hit “search”. Search results will appear that tell you three very important things:

1. The competition the keyword or phrase has. This shows you how many people are optimizing the word basically. The higher the competition for a keyword or phrase, the harder it’s going to be to get on the first page of Google’s search results with that phrase.
2. Global Monthly Searches: The average monthly searches over a period of 12 months for a keyword entered from anywhere in the world but on the google.co.uk website
3. Local monthly searches: The average monthly searches over a period of 12 months for a keyword entered on google.co.uk for the countries specified within the adword campaign settings

To Change the “Local” monthly search results, you can open the “Advanced Options and Filters” located just below the “Find Keywords” box. It will allow you to change the Location or languages you are researching. 

(Source: howtoresearchkeywords)

Top 3 Keyword Factors to Know When Making A Web Page

1. Keywords should be researched in Google’s keyword tool. This way you know whether or not people are searching for the keywords. Often, a keyword phrase we think would be good, is actually not. And when we look into it we see that people just aren’t searching for it like we thought. The good thing about Google’s Keyword tool is that it will recommend similar words that you can use and tell you how many searches are being done for it. Example:

I did a keyword tool search on “Screw driver kit”. It sounds like a good keyword to optimize if I sell sets of screw drivers. When researched, we see that it gets 3,600 searches a month globally.

Google Keywords recommended “screwdriver set” which gets over 33,000 searches. Not only was I using “kit” when I should have used “set”, but I was separating the word “screwdriver” into two words “screw driver”… which was hurting the results.  

Based on my findings in Google’s Keyword Tool, I will Optimize “screwdriver set”. Exactly as it appears in the results… any variations will change the keyword and therefore affect the results of my seo. So, I won’t do “sets” plural or anything like that.

2. On-page placement in the code. 

This is the web person’s job, but if you want to supervise them I’ll tell you what they should do. The keywords should go in the following places at the very least:

1. The title tags <title>Keywords here</title>
2. The Description meta tags. The keywords should be at the beginning of the description and the description should be kept to only one or two reasonably sized sentences.
3. The Keywords meta tags. Again, put the most important keywords at the beginning. Don’t try to put too many keywords in these meta tags. Keep it to under 10 keywords or keyword phrases if you can.
4. The Alt tags inside of an images code.

3. On-page placement in the content.

1. Header tags. These look like this <h1>Keywords here</h1> and are usually at the beginning of each section of the page. There are also<h2>, <h3> and so on. Don’t use the keyword phrase you are optimizing in all of them. Just one or two of the headings will do.
2. In about 2% of the content. So, for every 100 words, two should be the keyword phrase (assuming the keyword phrase consist of two words…)
3. At the footer of the page, after everything else, put the keyword on the page one last time to really drive home to the search engine that the page is really about the what the keyword is.
4. Somewhere in the content where you have worked your keyword phrase in, make it bold! Just once, and try not to make anything else bold if you can. This is super minor, but it could be the little thing that pushes you ahead of a competitor.

The SEO Scout

SEO Company

Talking to Search Engines is Like Talking To A 3 Year Old

Website SEO is like talking to a 3 year old. A Quick Analogy.

Let’s use the example of teaching a three year old NOT to touch fire. But let’s do it in terms of SEO. 

THE THREE YEAR OLD:

When you are trying to convey a lesson to a three year old you have to be very, very clear. You have got to stay on topic and remember that too many words will only befuddle and irritate them.

You start with the most important message, “Don’t Touch!!!” Then you might explain that fire is hot. Then reiterate, “don’t touch”. blah blah blah… “don’t touch”. When it’s all said and done, you close strong with… “So don’t touch!”

OK, search engines are EXACTLY THE SAME!

SEARCH ENGINES:

When you are talking to search engines, you use Keywords to get traffic. You tell the search engines what you are about with them… “Coffee shop”. You have to be very clear about what your page is about and not get distracted by talking about too many other things.

So, you take those keywords, “coffee shop”, and put them throughout your site, just like the conversation with the three year old. You open with them, as a header for a section of your content… and then you use them frequently in the content itself.

You do this so that the search engines will see the keywords and know what you’re about. Search engines are easily confused, so be clear with them! And whatever you do, finish strong! “Coffee Shop”! Put it at the end of your content and even at the very bottom of the page. 

If you have a good SEO guy, he’ll do the same thing with your code that you have done with your content!

Ciao

The SEO Scout

(Source: everdreamweb.com)

A Website Name - Domain Names Explained In Detail

A Website Name Can Make or Break Your First Year On the Internet!

In this blog, I want to clarify something that I am always writing about and it has come to my attention that I’m glossing over a very important part of it.

OK, I always tout the importance of a Domain name. I truly think it can make or break a new businesses first year on the web. And when I mention it, I always say to use keywords in the domain name that will get searched by people that you want to find you.

I re-read some of the blogs and I see that from the point of view of a beginner to the web, this is loaded with “fuzzy math”. The advice just assumes that the reader knows what I mean by “searched” and “find you” and “keywords”. So today I’ll break down the concept. Here goes:

“KEYWORDS” in your Domain Name

When you open your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome… or something like them) to view the Internet, or to “go online”, it will take you to whatever home page it takes you to. Let’s say though, that today you didn’t open the browser and go online to read whatever home page you have. Today, you are going online to find a sweater for your dog! So, at the top of the browser somewhere is a “search” box where you can type in your searches. You click on the box and type in “Dog Sweaters”. Those two words will be used by a search engine to bring you back results that will list websites that may help you in your quest for a new dog sweater. They are called keywords because they are words that are “key” in helping a business get found on the Internet when people do searches like this.

The search engine only wants to give you website links that are relevant to your search. If they do a good job, and you find what you want real fast, you will always use their search engine when you are looking for stuff. And when people use their search engine, they make money!

The search engine puts up a list of results for me. Websites that it thinks will be the best for me to visit to learn about “dog sweaters”, and today at the top of the list is petsmart.com. That’s really no surprise, because the words “dog sweaters” are all over their site in certain places and they have a lot of other dog related content on their site. Plus… their site gets a great deal of traffic, telling the search engine that other people like the site a lot and find it useful, so you might also.

OK, so here’s the lesson! Petsmart.com does NOT have the words “dog sweaters” in their domain name. Their domain name is just Petsmart.com. So why are they number one in the search results? Because they have a massive site with a great deal of content related to dogs and the sweaters they wear AND they have a lot of traffic. It would take a lot to rank higher than petsmart.com when it comes to any keywords that are pet related. But… if you look down on page one near the bottom (at least on this day) there is a domain named chillydogsweaters.com. 

That site, chillydogsweaters.com, has NO business being on page one. It’s a modest site that looks like it was made by a business owner or on a shoestring budget at best. And it has no real SEO work that I can detect at first glance, yet it is on the first page of results given to me by Google when I searched “dog sweaters”. The ONLY reason this site is on page one is because the words “dog sweaters” are in the actual domain name. Google and the other search engines give a lot of weight to that. They figure that no one is more about dog sweaters than the people who actually bought a domain name with the words in it! And they are right 99% of the time. Really, why would anyone buy a domain name with those words in them unless they had at least something to do with dog sweaters.

Because the good folks at Chillydogsweaters.com had the good sense to buy that domain name, they are on page 1 of the search results for the keyword phrase “dog sweaters”. Anytime anyone in the world searches for dog sweaters, they will see that link and might click on it. They are probably getting big numbers of visitors to their website because they are on page one of Googles search results for the keyword phrase “dog sweaters”! 

Now, you can apply this logic to literally anything. My friend is a motivational speaker and he has the words “motivational speaker” in his domain name! 

I hope this helps explain why it is so critical to think through the process of buying your domain name. If you have more questions, use the “Ask The SEO Scouts” button at the top of this page and shoot me the question. I’ll answer as best I can!

All the best,

The SEO Scout

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