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HOW TO SELECT THE BEST KEYWORDS FOR GOOGLE & YOUR SEO CAMPAIGNAll successful SEO strategies have the same thing in common and that is the selection of the correct keywords and phrases for the campaign and target audience. Without doubt the keyword selection process is one of the most important steps when optimising your website. Keywords can be as short as a single word or a series of words strung together. Doing your homework and being able to choose the right keywords can make all the difference between a failed or successful SEO campaign. Selecting the wrong keywords can result in minimal customer traffic through your website, whereas selecting the right keywords will see your website ranking well in major search engines like Google. WHAT ARE KEYWORDS?The term ‘keyword’ or ‘Keyword phrase’ is used to describe the combination of words entered by the user into search engines to return a list of website for a specific topic. Keywords or keywords phrases can be anything from one, two, three, four words in length or even longer. Example: ‘fax machines’, ‘fax machines Melbourne’, ‘fax machine sales Burwood’ Normally keyword phrases that contain two words return the best results. DIFFERENT TYPES OF KEYWORD PHRASESGoogle has broken down keyword phrase into three different categories, all of which are explained below. Navigational KeywordsThe first are known as ‘Navigational keywords’, which are use to locate a specific website by name. ie typing in the keyword Sony, should return a list for the Sony website. It is important to know that Navigational keywords should be used in your SEO strategy as a last resort as they will only be beneficial if the keyword entered form part of your actual domain name. ie www.sony.com Informational KeywordsThe next is referred to as ‘Information keywords’, which are used to find relevant information on a specific topic. Take the keyword earthquakes for example. This would list Wikipedia as a list of viable website options to read. Because Informational keywords revolve around much higher search volumes and not intended for people looking to buy an item, means that they are better suited to blog articles for your website. Transactional KeywordsFinally we have what is known as ‘Transactional keywords’. These refer to words used in order to complete a transaction / buy items online. For example Slot Cars should display a list of websites where you can purchase slot cars. ie ebay. The aim of Transactional keywords is to generate a high number of online sales within a short period of time and as such should be targeted towards your sales pages. SHORT OR LONG TAIL KEYWORDSKeywords can be split into two main groups, short tail keywords and long tail keywords, otherwise referred to as broad keywords and narrow keywords. In this section we will discuss the differences between both ‘Short Tail’ keywords phrases and ‘Long Tail’ Keyword phrases and which is better for your SEO campaign. Short Tail keywordsUsually Short tail keywords normally consist of one or two words and are the most basic words Web surfers use in order to generate a search query. These keywords tend to result in broad search results and are therefore the hardest to rank for as they have the highest search volume. Long Tail keywordsOn the other hand Long Tail keywords are usually longer containing three or more words and therefore have a lower search volume but a higher conversion rate. Long tail keywords are very specific to whatever you are selling and therefore are far more likely to convert to sales than general generic searches. If you aren’t ranking high for certain competitive keywords, then long tail keywords maybe very beneficial for your SEO campaign. For example if you have a website that hires Slurpee machines and you are having trouble pulling search engine traffic by using the short tail keyword phrase: Slurpee, try targeting more specific keywords such as ‘Kids Slurpee machines’. SO WHICH IS BETTER?Even today there is much debate over which is better. It depends on whether or not your campaign is targeting keywords which are too short to properly describe your products or service and as such not reaching your target audience. For example if you provide Jukebox Hire but only in Narre Warren then it’s no good simply targeting the word Jukebox because most people won’t be looking for the specific service you’re offering which is Jukebox hire Narre Warren. It also needs to be pointed out that short tail keyword tends to be much more competitive – hence harder to rank for than long tail keywords. In the end choose keywords that will return the highest conversion rate. Probably the best method to research keyword volumes is through the Google Adwords tool. Because Google is the main search engine to optimise your website for, then it only makes sense that Google Adwords is the ideal place to do your research. GOOGLE KEYWORD PHRASE SELECTION TIPS - HOW TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT KEYWORDS FOR GOOGLE SEO |
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