How professional Internet marketers research keywords for their Website.

Lets face it.  Attracting customers and making money is why we have websites.  A lot of my clients have no idea how to select keywords or do any sort of research to optimize their site. I normally include this keyword research method when someone buys a website from me.  I am going to walk you through it for free.  It is incredibly easy and can help you attract customers to your site by optimizing for keywords you can actually rank for on the first page of Google.

The first thing you need to do is sit down and decide who your ideal client or customer is.  Then follow that up with how they are most likely to find your product or service on Google.  What are they actually going to type in?

If you are a mechanic, is your potential client going to search for "need a new input shaft seal" or are they going to look for "Denver transmission shops?"  It is most likely the second.  I cannot sit here and predict all of the most likely search terms.  What I can say that you want to be vaguely specific.  If you are in Denver then you should try to shoot for Denver keywords.  If you are in L.A. then maybe narrow your search terms to more specific geographic search terms.  Something like "West Hollywood Restaurants" would be fine.

When looking at keywords you have to use your best judgment.  You also need to realize that you will not be able to rank for all of the good keywords.  Start with one keyword and concentrate on that one.  Then build on that.

Some things to consider including in your keywords:

1. Geographic Location - West Hollywood Restaurants, Denver Transmission Shops
2. Specific Industry - Photography Supplies, Painting Supplies
3. Specific Products - Dyson Vacuum Dealer or Cement Bird Bath

Once you have brainstormed some keywords let Google do some work for you.  Go to the Google Keyword tool which is located at: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

1. Type your first keyword into the box titled "Word or phrase"
2. Type in the Captcha code
3. Click search

 - a list of 50 keywords will be displayed.  They will be sorted by relevancy.

4. Look through the list and find other related keywords or phrases that have relatively high "Local Monthly Searches"

For Example the Keyword Denver transmission shop has 140 local monthly searches.  Meanwhile "Denver Transmission Repair" has 720 local monthly searches.  At first glance the keyword "Denver Transmission Repair" would get more traffic.

The secnd part of this equation is to check out the competition for each.  If the competition for the keywords on Google is relatively the same you want to target the more searched term.  However, if the competition is low then the term with 140 searches may be extremely easy to rank for then you may want to start on the first page.

5. For the keywords you like click on the keyword in the keyword tool results.  This will open up a Google search for that term.  

For example "Denver Transmission Repair" has 243,000 results and 740 monthly searches.  "Denver Transmission Shop" has 1,150,000 results and only 140 local monthly searches.  Where is your time and effort best spent?  Obviously in this example the answer is on the higher local monthly search which also happens to have the lowest competition.  This will vary for nearly every business.

6.  Use search engine optimization techniques, article marketing and link building strategies to boost your ranking  for that keyword.  This is how Internet marketers research their keywords.

If you want to rank for a keyword or for keywords but don't have the time or inclination to do it, you can sign up for our monthly Search Engine Marketing program.  For a monthly subscription we will target a set of relevant keywords and use a proprietary link building strategy to increase your ranking on Google for those keywords.  Just click here to sign up.

Starting at just $199!

photo credit: Igor

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) maximizes your web sites' exposure to Google, Bing and Yahoo and hopefully to your potential customers. 

One of the things that many people don't realize is that what is said off your site is more important than what is said on your site.

That's right.  When people go to your site what are they looking for.  I'll tell you what they're looking for when they come across this site; Palm Springs or Palm Desert web design.  Nobody comes looking specifically for URL idiots.  And nobody comes looking for Joe Blow Real Estate agent.  They want condos in Miami or some other useful keyword.  Those keywords are how you need to optimize your site.

Do a simple keyword search using the Google keyword tool.  Try and figure out a few terms that your potential clients might punch into Google to find your type of product or service.  Start off with one good keyword.  Something that has plenty of searches each month.  Add that word in several spots on your web site.  Then find a few article directories that you can write for.  Add those keywords with links back to your site in them.  Those keywords pointing back to your site, over time, will bump you up in the search engines.  There are a few nifty ways to do this and two very successful internet marketers have published posts about this here:

Pat Flynn - THE Backlinking Strategy That Works

Joseph Archibald - 40 Day Challenge

Pat actually recommended Joseph Archibald's post and then he followed it himself and gave you his take on things.  Do yourself a favor and read both of these posts.  If you aren't up to the challenge but would like to see the results shoot me an email and we at URLidiots.com can do it for you.

Nobody cares about your web site.

I am constantly dealing with clients and their requests to do everything on their site.  They want a forum and a guest book and a photo gallery and on and on and on.  They want a virtual Disneyland, with a ton of features and pages for people to interact, play and have a good time.

What most people don’t realize is that nobody cares about your web site.  They are there for one reason — Information.

If you are a web designer they want to know prices and see an example of your work.  That’s it (I know, I'm saying this in an article I wrote).

If you are a restaurant they want to look at your menu.  That’s it.

If you are a car dealer they want to check out prices and inventory.  That’s it.

As much as you may want people to come and “hang out” on your web site, that is not what it is about.  People want information that pertains to them.  Nobody gives a shit about why they should visit your website or all the cool things they can do once they get there.  They came there for very selfish reasons.  What can you do to help them?

Offer your clients and visitors value.  Quit beating your chest about how great you and your site is  and provide information and service to your visitors.  Business is a byproduct of value on the internet.

If you provide value in your content (valuable information) the traffic will come.  That traffic will eventually do business with you and hand you their money.  Until then you are shooting yourself in the foot by trying to create a virtual Disneyland out of your website.  Nobody cares.

Hey Everybody,

This is one of the best marketers on the planet speaking at TED in 2003.  Every word of this should be listened to by anybody who owns a business and uses their web site for marketing.  Be remarkable.

Remarkably,

Josh

There are many advantages to using a content management system.  Before we get into those though , let me explain exactly what a content management system is.

A content management system (CMS) is a script that operates much like a software program.  This script displays your web site to visitors.  It also allows the site owner or web developer to change, add or delete pages on the website without having to put hours of design work in through a control panel.  This saves everybody time and money.

The two CMS’s that we at URL idiots use are Joomla! And WordPress.  This website, urlidiots.com, is using Joomla! as we speak. WordPress is a CMS that is geared towards blogging, however it is almost as versatile as Joomla! is.   

5 years ago when I first began doing websites it was a pretty tedious process to update a website.  If you wanted the colors or graphics changed on a site it would be necessary to change each individual page which resulted in a ton of billable hours.  Then along came something called CSS or cascading style sheets.  This stored all the information regarding what the site would look like in a central location.  By changing these central files you could change the look of the entire web site all at once.

Joomla! and WordPress both use CSS and therefore are able to be changed to look different very easily.  However there are a few things that can now be done through control panel accessible from anywhere on the internet.

Design changes can be done to the entire site at once:

Both Joomla! and WordPress use templates to shape and control how they look.  These templates are interchangeable between sites and if you choose to update a template the site content does not change.  This makes for a very simple updating process.

Site owner can do minor changes without having to pay the web design team:

When you login to the control panel, with some easy navigation and a few clicks you can add, edit or delete pages on your own.  You do not need to have a designer do everything for you if you don’t want to.  If you can use Microsoft Word then you can edit the content of pages on your site

Search Engine Friendly:

There are controls and add-ons for Joomla! and WordPress that allow search engines to more easily rank your pages.  There are several elements, not all of them obvious, to being ranked higher on the search engines.  These CMS’s help you optimize your site so that you can rank higher in the search engines.  After all, if nobody ever sees your website there is no point in having one.

Increased functionality through extensions and add-ons:

There are literally thousands of additional extensions or add-ons that allow you to drastically expand the capabilities of your website without having to pay programmers to custom design a site for you.  The most common extensions we use on our sites are for ecommerce.    Ecommerce allows you to sell products or services on your web site.  There are too many other options to list.  If there is something specific that you need your website to do but don’t know how to go about getting it done email us or give us a call at 760-278-1875 or josh(at)urlidiots.com  Thanks.

Remember, if you like this post please book mark it through one of the many buttons you see on this page.  Thank you so much.

I have just recently redesigned the site and am trying to make the site as user friendly as possible.  I will post periodically here to give you insight, teach techniques and give advice on how to improve your web site's performance.  If there is anything I can do to help you please do not hesitate to ask.

Thanks,

Josh