Search engine optimization is a big part of a successful online business’s plan to grow their business to the next level. As any good Phoenix SEO company will tell you about a successful SEO campaign, it is a marathon and it is impossible to rank over night. Depending upon the keywords that you select it can take months even years to get the rankings to where you would like them. In some instances you won’t have the budget to rank certain keywords. When hiring a Phoenix SEO company make sure that they do the proper keyword research and show you their results. Many shady SEO companies will rank their clients for non relevant keywords. In simple terms, your website will be ranked on the top page of Google but for keywords that get little to no searches in a month. What good is ranking for a keyword that will drive no traffic to your website? There is none! In part 1 I will show you some of the best practices for keyword research.
- Use a Keyword Theme – Many small online businesses that are running search engine optimization campaigns make the mistake of one being too broad and not narrowing down their keyword usually by geographic location, two select keywords that are too highly competitive which they will never rank for, three select keywords that don’t get any searches and four they only try to rank a specific keyword. Trying to rank one specific keyword at a time can be much more difficult than selecting a keyword theme and ranking keywords within that theme. This way you will be ranking for 100’s maybe even 1000’s of keywords rather than concentrating on 1 keyword at a time.
- Use Qualifiers to Make Your Keyword More Specific – Using general keywords can be a major mistake because even if you happen to rank for these keywords the traffic you will be getting could be all over the map. For example if you owned a Vitamin store and you ranked at the top of the search engines for the keyword Vitamins. The type of traffic could range from customers doing research on different types of vitamins, to people looking for certain vitamin store locations within their geographic area, they could be looking for ingredients, etc. This will lower your conversion rate because the odds are most of your visitors you will obtain from this keyword won’t be looking at purchasing vitamins from you. You can use qualifiers to reach a more targeted audience and have a much higher conversion rate.
- Be Smart When it Comes Competition – Being smart when it comes to competition is key. You don’t want to try to rank words that is being dominated by fortune 500 companies that are spending 100’s of thousands of dollars on their marketing. There is no way you will ever compete and you will be throwing money down the drain. You will end up getting frustrated and stoping your search engine optimization campaign.
The first step to a successful search engine optimization campaign is keyword research. This is a step that many online small business owners skip but by skipping this step it turns your campaign into a lottery. Did you pick the right keywords? Are your keywords able to be ranked? These are all questions you should of answered prior to beginning your search engine optimization campaign. If you would like a free SEO analysis contact our Phoenix SEO team for a free quote.