Judging by the number of websites on the web today, it
is becoming harder and harder to find key words for optimization that your
competitors are not already using. But finding keywords that your competitors
are missing might be easier than imagined. Here we shall have a look at both
conventional and unconventional means to overcome the competition in search engine rankings by showing you some effective but often overlooked ways of beating the competition at the SEO race.
Viewing your competitor's Source code
This is one of the easiest and most effective ways of learning more
about your competition and their SEO strategy. It gives you the
opportunity to have a look at some of their keywords, and better
still you can get to see what keyword phrases they target in the
search engines.
Though not as important as they were in the earlier
phases of the internet, meta-tags still play a key role in Search Engine
Optimization techniques. Create your own keyword phrases by using a combination of some of the keywords targeted in your competitors' meta tags. Go through the source code and pay particular attention to headings and titles. The higher up they are in the source code, the easier it will be for search engines to find them and this gives you an edge about where and how to place your keywords on your own page.
Place yourself in the Search Engine User's Mindset
Knowing your customers can eliminate a lot of wasted time and
effort. If you know the people that you are targeting, you can then
be able to customize your efforts to suit them. Think of the terms
that you would search for if you were looking for your own site.
It is also good to let someone else compile a list of words that
they would use to search for your site, two minds are better than
one. Search words that may not be obvious to you may be common with
a particular group within your targeted clientele.
Make sure you focus on the real content on the site,
keep the topics in mind when looking for competitive keyword phrases. Even
within your targeted group, there are bound to be a few other groups within it.
For example, if your site sells second hand blue jeans, there may be people who will look for Edwin's blue jeans while others may type in Levi's blue jeans.
Knowing these minor details about your customers can improve your site traffic
dramatically.
Keyword tools
Before settling down to the terms that you are going to
use for your site optimization, run them through any keyword suggestion tool to
see their popularity and any variations that you may have overlooked. Here I
would recommend the Overture suggestion tool, it is both free and reliable and
thus a perfect fit for an entrepreneur. Use it to edit the list of words and
phrases that you prepared for optimization.
Multiple words and phrases
Single words are unlikely to bring you any qualified
visitors. If you have a site selling homemade butter cookies, having cookies as
one of the keywords might generate a million leads but chances are that very few of them are potential customers for your product. Half of them might be computer nerds searching for information about cookies and sessions for all you know. You would be much better off having "Homemade Irish Cookies" or any other descriptive term that will drive specific and qualified customers ready to purchase your product.
Keyword variations
As I mentioned in the previous section, optimum results are more
likely to be obtained using multiple words than singular words.
Adding on to this, it is important that you create as many
variations as possible for the selected keywords so that you expand
the scope of your reach. For example if you are promoting a site
selling second hand magazines, you can have not only 'second-hand'
but similar words such as 'Used magazines', and 'Last Year's
editions' and so on that will effectively reach a more far reaching
market for you
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