Most webmasters go totally "gaga" for top 10 rankings
in Google. And for good reason, Google is the most
dominant search engine on the net and will deliver
the largest amount of traffic.
Even those webmasters who are fortunate enough
to get No. 1 rankings for their keywords in all the
three major search engines will tell you Google is
the one that will deliver the majority of their
traffic. Hands down.
More importantly, those same webmasters will also
inform you, getting top 10 rankings in Google often
means your site will prove profitable. Mainly because
obtaining targeted traffic is usually your first
obstacle in creating a viable online business. In
other words, if you get top ten listings in Google
for good searchable keywords, it is almost impossible
not to earn money.
How To Proceed?
First, you must know the rudimentary basics of how
keywords work. Keywords and keyword phrases are the
exact words someone types into a search engine to find
what they're looking for online. If you have a site on
"dog training" then your goal is to get a top 10 ranking
for the keywords "dog training".
Now if no one searches for "dog training" it would be a
useless keyword, you would get no traffic no matter how
perfectly your site is optimized for that keyword.
How Do You Know If A Keyword Is Good?
To find out, you have to do some keyword research on
your particular keywords. Many professional online
marketers use keyword research software like Brad
Callen's Keyword Elite. However, you can also use
the keyword suggestion tools supplied by Google
Adwords or Overture. Try here:
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/
Now if you check "dog training", you will find it
receives around 4,469 searches each day. That's
a lot of traffic but you must realize that it may be
too good, or rather too competitive for your purposes,
especially if have a new site.
Biggest Mistake When Choosing Keywords
The most common mistake most novice webmasters
make is targeting keywords which are too competitive.
You simply will not be able to compete or place
for extremely competitive keywords. Well established
sites and businesses with very deep pockets have
the resources to completely dominate those keywords.
While it is not entirely futile nor a waste of time
to concentrate your efforts on highly competitive
keywords, you will have better success if you target
low to medium competitive keywords such as "dog
obedience training" with 285 searches per day.
Long Tail Keyword Marketing
Besides online marketers have discovered that longer
keyword phrases are usually the most lucrative. These
phrases deliver traffic which is better targeted and
more likely to convert into a sale. "Dog hunting
training" which gets around 100 searches a day will
be more targeted than the general term "dog training"
and if you have a site devoted to training hunting
dogs then this keyword phrase may convert better for
you.
Always keep this "Long Tail" keyword strategy in the
back of your mind as you implement the following steps
to achieve your own Top 10 Rankings in Google.
1. Make A Master Keyword List
Your first step is to make a master list of the keywords
you wish to target. Obviously these should be closely
related to the theme of your site. As you can see from
the example above, it is best to choose low to medium
competitive keywords. Check the keyword competition
by seeing how many sites are listed in Google for that
keyword. Webmasters also check the Google PageRank
of the sites that hold the top 10 positions. If all those
sites are PR6 and above it may be hard to get ranked
high for your keywords.
2. Use Related Keywords
Once you have your master list of keywords, find long
tail related keywords to target. Again, check out the
competition and daily searches made for each chosen
keyword.
3. Use Quality Content For Your Keywords
Creating quality content should always be your main
goal. Write for actual visitors who will see and read
your content. First and foremost you must have good
useful content that your visitors will use themselves
and recommend to their friends or colleagues. Tie this
quality content in with your chosen keywords. Use one
keyword phrase per page.
4. Keyword In Domain Name, Title and URLs
Having your keyword in your domain name will score big
points from search engines. Plus, each page of content
should contain your keywords in the title & meta tags
for that page. Most experts also suggest you have your
keyword in the URL and use hyphens to separate your
keywords. Although the author has gotten good results
by using an underscore and htm in URLs.
Example: www.yoursite.com/your_keyword.htm
5. Do On Page Optimization
Keyword ratio is a much discussed topic by SEO experts
and many suggest you should have your keyword in the H1
or headline title of your page. Sprinkle your keyword
and variations of it throughout your page. Don't over
do it but make sure the robot/spiders will clearly discover
what your page is about. Many webmasters make sure
they include their main keyword in the first and
last 25 words on their pages.
6. Use Traffic Modules
One technique that works extremely well in Google is
clustering a closely related topic or subject into a
distinct separate section on your site. For example,
if you have a marketing site, you could create a whole
section on article marketing where you would have 50
to 100 keyworded pages all relating to your subject.
Writing articles, formatting articles, submitting
articles, article software... place a keyword linked
menu on each page to connect all your pages together.
Keep in mind, your main objective is to supply quality
information to your visitors. One reason Google may
favor this type of structure is because they want
quality content returned in their SERPs.
7. Do Article Marketing
Article marketing is writing short informative articles
on keyword topics related to your sites. You then submit
these helpful keyworded articles to ezine directories
on the web, when your articles are picked up by related
sites you receive quality One-Way links. The higher the
quality of your article, the more links you will receive.
Another ranking tactic to use, if you're just starting
out your site will probably have a low PR rank and you
will find it hard to rank for even modest keywords.
That's why it's useful to take advantage of the higher
PageRank of the major ezine directories. Your keyworded
articles on these high PR sites will get picked up by
Google and displayed in the top 10 rankings. Now the
displayed URL will be the article directory site but
the links in the resource box will be pointing back to
your site. Over time this article marketing technique
will raise your own site's rankings for those keywords.
Simple but effective.
8. Anchor Text And One Way Links
Off page optimization is important in obtaining high
rankings in Google. Getting quality One-Way links is
very important. Anchor Text simply refers to "the
underlined clicked on words" in your links. Most
webmasters include their keywords in their anchor
text as this tells the search engines exactly what
the links are about.
9. Tags, Blogging And Web 2.0
Take advantage of Web 2.0 by using blogs, RSS feeds
and the social bookmarking sites like Reddit and Digg.
Try AddThis.com for a simple social bookmarking system.
At the very least your site should have a blog and RSS
feed attached to it as this is an effective way of
boosting your keyword rankings.
Tags have become very important for getting higher
rankings. Keep in mind, in free blogging software
such as WordPress, categories will automatically be
seen as tags. Blogger, which is owned by Google, now
has a form where you put your keywords (tags) for each
post you make.
10. PPC vs Organic Search
Of course, one of the fastest ways to get your links
displayed on Google is to pay for them by using Google
Adwords. Your ad and links will sit side by side with
the organic link results. In Pay Per Click advertising
you bid or pay so much per click for your keywords and
you only pay when someone clicks your links. But smart
marketers also know since you're getting millions of
impressions advertising your products, acquiring name
recognition and branding through PPC advertising can be
a major side-benefit.
However, most webmasters would say that organic links
(SERPS) will return better traffic than paid links or
advertising. In most cases, this may be true because
Google's organic rankings are becoming more respected
and more trusted by users. They simply carry more weight
with surfers.
This makes it even more beneficial to obtain top 10
rankings for your keywords in Google. Depending on the
competitiveness of your chosen keywords reaching the
first page listing or even the favored number one spot
is well within any webmaster's reach. Just go for it.
The rewards are well worth your efforts.
in Google. And for good reason, Google is the most
dominant search engine on the net and will deliver
the largest amount of traffic.
Even those webmasters who are fortunate enough
to get No. 1 rankings for their keywords in all the
three major search engines will tell you Google is
the one that will deliver the majority of their
traffic. Hands down.
More importantly, those same webmasters will also
inform you, getting top 10 rankings in Google often
means your site will prove profitable. Mainly because
obtaining targeted traffic is usually your first
obstacle in creating a viable online business. In
other words, if you get top ten listings in Google
for good searchable keywords, it is almost impossible
not to earn money.
How To Proceed?
First, you must know the rudimentary basics of how
keywords work. Keywords and keyword phrases are the
exact words someone types into a search engine to find
what they're looking for online. If you have a site on
"dog training" then your goal is to get a top 10 ranking
for the keywords "dog training".
Now if no one searches for "dog training" it would be a
useless keyword, you would get no traffic no matter how
perfectly your site is optimized for that keyword.
How Do You Know If A Keyword Is Good?
To find out, you have to do some keyword research on
your particular keywords. Many professional online
marketers use keyword research software like Brad
Callen's Keyword Elite. However, you can also use
the keyword suggestion tools supplied by Google
Adwords or Overture. Try here:
http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/
Now if you check "dog training", you will find it
receives around 4,469 searches each day. That's
a lot of traffic but you must realize that it may be
too good, or rather too competitive for your purposes,
especially if have a new site.
Biggest Mistake When Choosing Keywords
The most common mistake most novice webmasters
make is targeting keywords which are too competitive.
You simply will not be able to compete or place
for extremely competitive keywords. Well established
sites and businesses with very deep pockets have
the resources to completely dominate those keywords.
While it is not entirely futile nor a waste of time
to concentrate your efforts on highly competitive
keywords, you will have better success if you target
low to medium competitive keywords such as "dog
obedience training" with 285 searches per day.
Long Tail Keyword Marketing
Besides online marketers have discovered that longer
keyword phrases are usually the most lucrative. These
phrases deliver traffic which is better targeted and
more likely to convert into a sale. "Dog hunting
training" which gets around 100 searches a day will
be more targeted than the general term "dog training"
and if you have a site devoted to training hunting
dogs then this keyword phrase may convert better for
you.
Always keep this "Long Tail" keyword strategy in the
back of your mind as you implement the following steps
to achieve your own Top 10 Rankings in Google.
1. Make A Master Keyword List
Your first step is to make a master list of the keywords
you wish to target. Obviously these should be closely
related to the theme of your site. As you can see from
the example above, it is best to choose low to medium
competitive keywords. Check the keyword competition
by seeing how many sites are listed in Google for that
keyword. Webmasters also check the Google PageRank
of the sites that hold the top 10 positions. If all those
sites are PR6 and above it may be hard to get ranked
high for your keywords.
2. Use Related Keywords
Once you have your master list of keywords, find long
tail related keywords to target. Again, check out the
competition and daily searches made for each chosen
keyword.
3. Use Quality Content For Your Keywords
Creating quality content should always be your main
goal. Write for actual visitors who will see and read
your content. First and foremost you must have good
useful content that your visitors will use themselves
and recommend to their friends or colleagues. Tie this
quality content in with your chosen keywords. Use one
keyword phrase per page.
4. Keyword In Domain Name, Title and URLs
Having your keyword in your domain name will score big
points from search engines. Plus, each page of content
should contain your keywords in the title & meta tags
for that page. Most experts also suggest you have your
keyword in the URL and use hyphens to separate your
keywords. Although the author has gotten good results
by using an underscore and htm in URLs.
Example: www.yoursite.com/your_keyword.htm
5. Do On Page Optimization
Keyword ratio is a much discussed topic by SEO experts
and many suggest you should have your keyword in the H1
or headline title of your page. Sprinkle your keyword
and variations of it throughout your page. Don't over
do it but make sure the robot/spiders will clearly discover
what your page is about. Many webmasters make sure
they include their main keyword in the first and
last 25 words on their pages.
6. Use Traffic Modules
One technique that works extremely well in Google is
clustering a closely related topic or subject into a
distinct separate section on your site. For example,
if you have a marketing site, you could create a whole
section on article marketing where you would have 50
to 100 keyworded pages all relating to your subject.
Writing articles, formatting articles, submitting
articles, article software... place a keyword linked
menu on each page to connect all your pages together.
Keep in mind, your main objective is to supply quality
information to your visitors. One reason Google may
favor this type of structure is because they want
quality content returned in their SERPs.
7. Do Article Marketing
Article marketing is writing short informative articles
on keyword topics related to your sites. You then submit
these helpful keyworded articles to ezine directories
on the web, when your articles are picked up by related
sites you receive quality One-Way links. The higher the
quality of your article, the more links you will receive.
Another ranking tactic to use, if you're just starting
out your site will probably have a low PR rank and you
will find it hard to rank for even modest keywords.
That's why it's useful to take advantage of the higher
PageRank of the major ezine directories. Your keyworded
articles on these high PR sites will get picked up by
Google and displayed in the top 10 rankings. Now the
displayed URL will be the article directory site but
the links in the resource box will be pointing back to
your site. Over time this article marketing technique
will raise your own site's rankings for those keywords.
Simple but effective.
8. Anchor Text And One Way Links
Off page optimization is important in obtaining high
rankings in Google. Getting quality One-Way links is
very important. Anchor Text simply refers to "the
underlined clicked on words" in your links. Most
webmasters include their keywords in their anchor
text as this tells the search engines exactly what
the links are about.
9. Tags, Blogging And Web 2.0
Take advantage of Web 2.0 by using blogs, RSS feeds
and the social bookmarking sites like Reddit and Digg.
Try AddThis.com for a simple social bookmarking system.
At the very least your site should have a blog and RSS
feed attached to it as this is an effective way of
boosting your keyword rankings.
Tags have become very important for getting higher
rankings. Keep in mind, in free blogging software
such as WordPress, categories will automatically be
seen as tags. Blogger, which is owned by Google, now
has a form where you put your keywords (tags) for each
post you make.
10. PPC vs Organic Search
Of course, one of the fastest ways to get your links
displayed on Google is to pay for them by using Google
Adwords. Your ad and links will sit side by side with
the organic link results. In Pay Per Click advertising
you bid or pay so much per click for your keywords and
you only pay when someone clicks your links. But smart
marketers also know since you're getting millions of
impressions advertising your products, acquiring name
recognition and branding through PPC advertising can be
a major side-benefit.
However, most webmasters would say that organic links
(SERPS) will return better traffic than paid links or
advertising. In most cases, this may be true because
Google's organic rankings are becoming more respected
and more trusted by users. They simply carry more weight
with surfers.
This makes it even more beneficial to obtain top 10
rankings for your keywords in Google. Depending on the
competitiveness of your chosen keywords reaching the
first page listing or even the favored number one spot
is well within any webmaster's reach. Just go for it.
The rewards are well worth your efforts.
