Successful Keyword Optimization
June 7th, 2007 by Mike Read more about SEO, Traffic TacticsOptimization of Keywords for Free Traffic
When it comes to keyword optimization there are a number of opportunities out there especially in niche areas. We’ll show you how to optimize for keywords successfully.
The Scenario
Do you find yourself in this position?
Antonia owns a site selling specific niche products - novelty lighting and lava lamps. She’s just started her own blog where she reviews such products. The idea is to establish her reputation and her brand as the premier expert in the field of home lighting.
BUT . . . her posts and articles aren’t appearing anywhere on Google? SEO is turning out to be a harder path than she imagined. Sounds familiar?
If so, you’re probably falling down when it comes to Search Engine Optimization and Keyword Marketing. Here’s how to succeed. We regularly get as much as 50% of our posts on the front page of Google for the keywords we pick. This is how we do it . . .
Keyword Optimization - The Strategy
Optimization of Blogposts to Pick off Keywords
When you learn how to optimize your blog posts for SEO you can start to see lots of free traffic flooding to your blog every single day. We use blogs to draw traffic for almost all our sites. Why? Well, blogs allow you to get good positions in natural search - this means you’re not blowing money on Pay Per Clicks ads. If you’re planning on a building a sustainable long-term Internet business, having a good ranking on Google is vital.
Once again it’s a very easy tactic to pursue.
Here’s how:
How can Antonia Implement this strategy of Keyword Optimization?
3 EASY STEPS
Antonia deals in novelty lighting and lava lamps. Obviously this would be excellent content for Antonia to blog about and link back to his ecommerce site.
1) Identify Keywords
Here’s the beauty of Wordtracker for Keyword Optimization:
Wordtracker enables you to find out how many times people search for a specific keyword a day on search engines. It then gives a complete list of all the variations on the keyword you’ve entered and how many times they have been searched for. Check out below.
I searched for “lava lamps” , as this is a top seller for Antonia, to find that . . .
TOP 3 KEYWORD VARIATIONS
1. Lava Lamps - searched for 650 times a day
2. Lava Lamps Wholesale - searched for 47 times a day
3. Retro Lava Lamps - searched for 24 times a day
This means that optimized articles on these topics would be ideal content for Antonia to blog about . . . BUT before she does this:
2) Are the keywords conquerable? In other words, how competitive are the keywords?
Let’s test this out with the most appropriate and 3rd most popular keyword variation searched for “retro lava lamps”. We type it into Google search and then analyze the results:
Antonia would open up the top ten results and take note of two things . . .
- Google Page Rank (PR)
- How much the keyword is optimized for
And she’d be very pleased at the findings for page 1 of Google:
Not a single page has a PR of above 4
3 pages have a PR of 0
Position 3 Has a PR of 1 and isn’t even optimized
Only 1 page out of the 10 is optimized for ‘retro lava lamp’
So what does this mean?
The keyword “retro lava lamps” is definitely conquerable - the next step is to write the heavily optimized keyword article.
3) Writing a blog post for Keyword Optimization
Here’s how to write a post optimized for the keyword “retro lava lamps”. Here’s the ’secret sauce’ we used to get 10 out of 10 blogposts on the first page of Google.
- Retro Lava Lamps in title
- Retro Lava Lamps in meta description (will increase clicks from Google)
- Retro Lava Lamps in H1 and H2
- Retro Lava Lamps in H3-H6 (but not all H1-H6)
- Retro Lava Lamps in first and last paragraph
- Optimized URL including Retro Lava Lamps
- HIGH QUALITY CONTENT! (Forget this at your peril!)
Does Keyword Optimization Work?
YES! Here’s the 10 out of 10 posts we got onto the first page of Google. It works for us and it can work for you.
Definitive Guide to Google Adwords
Best Free Keyword Research Tool
How to Market and Promote Your Website
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The Definitive Guide to Google AdWords
Liked this post? Get more information on the wonders of successful keyword optimization by reading about Optimized Keyword Marketing.
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About the Author
Prior to MindValley Media, Mike was the Head of New Ventures Strategy at eBay where he conceived of the strategies that led to the investment in Craigslist, the launch of Kijiji.com and the acquisition of Skype.
Mike has an MBA from Stanford and previously worked for the Boston Consulting Group. He is also a certified Google AdWords Professional.
Check out other posts by Mike
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Vishen Lakhiani
[...] Antonia deals in novelty lighting and lava lamps. Obviously this would be excellent content for Antonia to blog about and link back to his ecommerce site. [ Continue reading at MindValleyLabs ] [...]
When I was new to blogging, SEO was one of the early topics that intrigued me. It had a technical ring to it that was at once intimidating and esoteric to a non-techie like me. I thought that if I could not crack the SEO nut, I would not go far in blogging. So I downloaded a free version of an SEO software package (made free because there was a newer, more advanced version which could be had for a price) that allowed me to analyze many things about other blogs/websites as well as my own. Truth to tell I tried it out a couple of times then gave up the whole exercise. You know why? Because if continued my dependence on that system, all I would do is spend precious time on analysis and leave no more time for actual blogging. So I shelved it away and just blogged with passion from my heart. I simply poured out what I wanted to communicate through my blog, of course, mindful of the basic SEO theories that you pointed out. I’ve been happy so far with search results. From this experience, I could probably share with others that the worst trap that a blogger who is concerned with search results could fall into is analysis-paralysis.
that’s a good point Sarzi, In fact the engines these days are just to good, and do know if someone is trying to ‘game’ them.. Best to stick with real content..
[...] Personally, I’d recommend wordtracker, it’s such an effective tool for optimizing webpages. See how easy it is to use and you can practise successful search marketing and optimization. Read this post on wordtracker and successful search marketing and optimization. Powered by BlinkList [...]
PR is less relevant today when discussing conquerable terms in google.
You will also need to see the age of the page you’re competing with