Keyword Strategy For Beginners: Understanding Keyword Competition Levels

How Search Engine Ranking Competition Affects Visitor Traffic

Just the other day I received an email from someone complimenting one of my websites and saying that she was adding a link to it on her site. She also shared how she wanted to make money from her site, but was struggling to understand how in the heck to “get found” online in order to get lots of visitor traffic.

I clicked over to check it out and oh dear … it was pretty much what I expected to see.  Sadly, though I saw a website that was built around excellent efforts and perhaps a pretty good niche, I saw blunder after blunder in every aspect one could imagine IF INDEED one wishes to not only appear in the search engine results which brings the visitors, but more importantly wishes to make some serious money from that site.

So … why are some people smiling about their search engine rankings and the levels of traffic they receive, and others are bemoaning about trying to figure out how to get traffic? My best assumption is easy to make.  If anyone is wondering how to “get visitors”, then right there I know that the individual is unaware of even the most basic of SEO and keyword strategy fundamentals.

I’ve got lots of great posts about keyword research and such in the Keyword category, so please check it out and read the posts to educate yourself.  But today I want to touch upon a very important aspect that needs to be considered when doing your keyword research.

Keyword Strategy – Research the Competitiveness Level

Let’s define what competitiveness of a keyword phrase is.  It means how many other websites on the internet are using that exact keyword phrase – such as “vegetarian recipes” – that you want to target in the content of your web page.

There  are a number of ways to perform keyword phrase research, and this post isn’t attempting to tackle all of them, rather I want to easily show one way that beginners can use to help figure out what keywords they should target.

Remember now, I said this is but one of many ways to help determine keyword strategy. But it can give good insight to those of you starting out.

As a very general rule, when you type your search term into Google a page of results will be returned.  You will see this (click image for full size):

**Note the areas I’ve circled at the top of this image.  You see the SERP (search engine result pages) result for the keyword phrase.

On the following chart, let’s look at some numbers:

• If there are less than 100,000 SERPs returned for a keyword phrase that phrase can be considered low competition.
• If you find between 100,000 and 1,000,000 SERPs for a keyword phrase, that phrase is considered a medium level of competition.
• If you see SERPs over 1 million … I’d recommend you not try to go after that keyword phrase until you’ve got a good sized site that utilizes lots of medium to low competition phrases.

SERPs In Google	Competition Level
< 100,000	Low
100,000 – 1,000,000	Medium
1,000,000 >	High

 

However, if you’re entering into a highly competitive niche – such as “computer equipment”, a keyword phrase with 50,000 results can most likely be considered highly competitive. Much does hinge upon the niche and the other websites attention to SEO and other factors.

It is necessary to formulate keyword strategy on a site-by-site, niche-by-niche basis. Everyone wants their website to achieve top rankings for targeted traffic. One must come up with a well researched and thought-out list of keywords to target, whether you’re a beginner or expert. In the case of most online marketers who are just starting out, keyword strategy means they should start building content around slightly less competitive phrases, and then work their way up to including web page content on higher competition phrases.

Good traffic boils down to proper keyword research coupled with effective keyword strategy coupled with great content.

How Many Keywords Make An Effective Query?

Let’s Learn About Short-Tail and Long-Tail Search String Queries

The following question always arises when new online marketing website owners are learning to implement keyword strategy, “How many keywords are best (or allowed, or OK to use, etc.) for my keyword phrases?” Two, three … five, six? Well, the fact of the matter is, nothing about keyword phrase length is set in cement!

Two and Three Word Queries are Used Most Often by Searchers

What is “set in cement” is the need to know what keywords and keyword phrases your customer base would most likely be typing into (or querying) the search engines. That’s what matters! So, first you’ve got to compile a keyword list or have one researched for you by a knowledgeable SEO consultant, such as the thorough one I offer: Keyword Research Report.

Keyword phrases that your customers are using to find you can be rather eye-opening when you start looking at the statistical information offered by your web host’s web tracker or hit-counter service. If you don’t have a means to see exactly what keyword phrases your website’s visitors are using to arrive at your website, then I highly suggest you go to StatCounter.com and take advantage of their free service.

I recommend StatCounter to many of my small business clients. They find it is pretty easy to understand and is invaluable in not only helping them to do a better job at targeting the right keywords for use in their content, but also to learn where their visitors are originating from and how many visitors are landing on their site.  StatCounter does provide good statistical information.

An Interesting Break-Down of Short and Long-Tail Keyword Use

According to data collected in January 2007 from users of European Web analytics provider OneStat, most people use 2- or 3-word queries in search engines. The RankStat research was based on a sample of 2 million visitors, made up of 20,000 visitors in 100 countries each day. Here’s what they discovered:

1. Two-word phrases — 28.38 percent
2. Three-word phrases — 27.15 percent
3. Four-word phrases — 16.42 percent
4. One-word phrase — 13.48 percent
5. Five-word phrases — 8.03 percent
6. Six-word phrases — 3.67 percent
7. Seven-word phrases — 1.63 percent
8. Eight-word phrases — 0.73 percent
9. Nine-word phrases — 0.34 percent
10. Ten-word phrases — 0.16 percent

I find these statistics on keyword phrase length interesting. And yes, depending upon what statistical company is reporting the findings, there will be slight differences in the percentages.  But even now, in 2009, these numbers are not too different as provided in reports from various statistical companies that come into my inbox.

What these stats tell us is that searchers are learning to use multi-word combinations to help zero in on what they are searching for. They’re learning that the more precise they are in providing search terms, the greater the chance they’ll get to the information they are searching for faster. This also means the information will more than likely be exactly what they want.

Long-tail keyword phrases are normally quite easily incorporated into our Title tag, Description meta tag and web page content. The better we are at narrowing our keyword terms for each page of content, the greater chance we have to not only rank higher in the search engines, but to also attract targeted traffic to our website.

Targeted Keyword Phrases = A Greater Chance for Targeted Website Traffic

Just in case you are not sure what all this means, I’ll use this example. Based on the above statistics, we’d see keywords being used such as:

1. Two-word phrase — cake recipes
2. Three-word phrase — chocolate cake recipe
3. Four-word phrase — chocolate bundt cake recipe
4. One-word phrase — recipes
5. Five-word phrase — easy chocolate bundt cake recipe

I am sure this example shows how much sense the 2 or more word phrases make to your search engine optimization efforts. The more specific you are in each page of information you create, the better off you will be in all marketing and SEO respects.

For more information on researching and utilizing keywords, refer to this very informative FREE 75-page case study: Keyword Research Guide from WordTracker.

Are You Targeting The Wrong Keywords?

Boost Website Traffic with Targeted Keyword Optimization

Does your internet marketing website rank highly for keywords that almost no one searches for? It’s great to have top-ten keyword rankings, but if these phrases aren’t bringing a good stream of quality traffic to your website, then it’s obvious a “keyword overhaul” is in order.

Ethical SEO Techniques to Revamp Your Website Without Starting from Scratch

You say, “but I did research the keywords and the phrases I’m using throughout my website ARE the ones that proved to be most relevant to my website’s theme!” Yet, your visitor traffic is very poor. What can you to do in this case? You don’t want to rewrite your entire site’s copy. Take heart, there is a way to work through this not-so-uncommon situation.

Here’s a real example: I was hired to optimize a commercial website that had hundreds and hundreds of web pages of quality content, was receiving a few thousand visitors a day by virtue of other non-internet marketing methods, yet was severely lagging in qualified organic search engine visitor traffic.

Interestingly, the owner had tried to SEO the website himself, which I have no problem with. However, his lack of understanding of true search engine optimization techniques misled him to believe that merely “targeting” phrases pertaining to his marketing niche would do the trick. He thought that of course people would be typing those keywords into the search engines and voila, they’d find his website. Sorry, but no. And the lack of traffic via the various search engines bore this out to be true.

So, back to his big concern which was “Why am I NOT receiving a higher volume of visitor traffic to my (content rich) website?” Here is what I did as his SEO consultant and what you can do for your own site(s), too.

Researching the Keywords that People are REALLY Searching For

My first course of action was to turn to the keyword analysis tool Wordtracker to see if people were using the keywords my client had targeted. The news was, they weren’t! However, through research using this great tool, I did uncover many phrases that people WERE searching for that certainly pertained to his marketing niche and could easily be utilized using a few simple SEO techniques. I was able to uncover many good, high volume keyword phrases that could easily be implemented into his content, Title and Description and Keyword Meta tags. Yes, in many instances, there was a little tweaking necessary to many pages of content, but mind you, this was the most cost effective way to revamp his website. He had great content already, it just didn’t necessarily contain the proper targeted keywords.

In his situation, he had completely ignored the Title tag and Description meta tag. So, because these two tags are a major factor in helping to achieve high search engine rankings, I wrote compelling Titles and Descriptions using the newly researched keywords. I also gave him directions on how his editorial staff should tweak the content so that the new keywords would be sprinkled effectively throughout the copy.

After this “quick fix” was done (honestly, it took me a total of two months to compose and then optimize all his Title and Description meta tags because he had hundreds of web pages), we started to actually see search engine rankings for these newly targeted keywords. Yes, these rankings were rather low, but this is exactly how almost all SEO keyword campaigns begin. At this writing, the website is still coming up in the SERPs and guess what? A number of the keywords have already made it to top-ten rankings.

What Can You Learn from My Client’s Website Experience?

I attribute my SEO success with this small business website to the fact that I really dug into researching the keywords and the very necessary optimization of the Title and Description tags. The success also had (and still has) to do with the website owner’s willingness to be flexible.

He understood something would have to be changed to make the turn-around he was looking for. He accepted that much of his site’s content would have to be altered in accordance with the keyword phrases that people were REALLY searching for. He was willing to spend a little money, that being my services, to implement these changes.

The Bottom Line For Your Website …

If poor visitor traffic is plaguing your website, possibly the scenario I’ve just shared with you might be all that you need to do, too. Research keyword phrases and find out what people are really typing into the search engines. Make sure your content and all tags properly utilize these newly discovered keywords.

I do hope this information can help YOU improve your website traffic.

If you would like to have me perform Keyword Research for you, please Contact Me and I’ll be happy to discuss how we can work together to improve your website’s traffic.

What’s A Keyword? A Keyword Phrase?

What are Keywords and Keyword Phrases?
How are They Utilized Effectively for High Search Engine Rankings?

For many professionals who are embarking upon the experience of building their internet marketing website, understanding keyword usage can be puzzling. There are also many of you who already have your websites up and running, however never understood the need for applying SEO techniques. This search engine optimization article will attempt to enlighten you on keywords and what they’re all about.

Let’s discuss the basics – the concept of how keywords come into play when writing your website’s content pages and how to utilize keywords effectively for both SEO purposes and for your all important website visitors.

What’s a Keyword? That’s a Great Question!

Because search engine optimization terminology throws many people new to e-commerce for a loop, let’s clear up the confusion. There are two ways of looking at keywords and both of them are correct. The first is from the Internet marketer’s (i.e., your) point of view. For example:

What is your site about? “eBooks”. What’s that web page about? “Writing eBooks”. And what’s that other web page about? “Free online eBooks”.

“eBooks” is called a keyword and “Writing eBooks” and “Free online eBooks” are considered keyword phrases. The content you create about each page should focus on a keyword or keyword phrase. In simple terms, a keyword or keyword phrase is merely the topic for the content of a particular web page.

Keyword and Keyword Phrase Explained

The term keyword normally is used to refer to a one-word term. A keyword phrase refers to the use of two, or three or more word-combinations. However, one-word keyword terms are extremely hard to obtain high rankings for, and unless that one-word term is very obscure with little online competition, I would not encourage you to use them.

As a matter of fact, very RARELY would I suggest to write content around a one-word keyword. Reason? Think about it … a one-word keyword, such as “eBooks”, is much too general. Most searchers nowadays have learned to enter two or more words in their searches to get better (more precise) results. Such as “eBook to learn SEO” or “learn guitar eBook”.

On a side note, yes indeed, internet searchers have gotten much more savvy over the years. But this is good! The more specific the terms the searcher uses to search for something online, the more targeted that individual will be when they land on your well written, keyword phrase focused page of information.

All the words on each web page are “content”. The content provides supporting information about the keyword phrase you’ve targeted for that web page. And on it goes, with each page you write focusing on a specific keyword phrase.

What’s the Second Point of View?

The second viewpoint is that of the surfer’s … in our case, a potential client or customer … a person who is typing keyword phrases into the search engine trying to find a specific product or service that YOU wish to provide.

When a surfer searches for certain keywords, the search engine delivers a number of SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). The pages are a list of all the pages that contain the keywords the surfer was searching for. Each of the listings offers a title, short description and a link.

That Link is What it’s All About

Ideally, (please note I said “ideally”) one of your pages is among the Top 10 (no worse than the Top 20) listings on that SERP. When a surfer enters their keywords into Google, for instance, they will see your relevant keyword-focused content page among the top listings. And then …

They read the keyword focused title and informative description that you have provided. Learn more about why the Title tag and Description Meta tag are so important to your rankings: Meta Tags: Worth Their Weight in Gold

These two pieces of information grab the surfer’s attention over all the other competing entries on the SERP and they decide “this information sounds like what I’m looking for” and CLICK. They click the TITLE (which is in blue on the results page). The Title is an active hyperlink and off the surfer goes to visit your site.

This is the Very Best Traffic that Money Cannot Buy

Your content is “editorial” and not an ad. It’s informative, well written and provides your visitor with the answer or information they were searching for. It is, therefore, more credible and visitors do not feel “pitched” on arrival.

Your new visitor sought out information on specific keywords they typed into the search engine; your Title and description were targeted to those keywords; that information grabbed their attention; and when they landed on your web page there was keyword-targeted well written content containing the information they were searching for. Voila – mission accomplished!

There is a great free trial version of a keyword research tool that I highly suggest you try out if you are planning on building a list of keywords that are relevant to your product or services. Please go to: Free Keyword Research Tool.

Don’t Want to Do the Keyword Research Yourself?

For a very thorough and detailed listing of keywords appropriate to your marketing niche, I will be happy to provide that professional SEO service for you. Please refer to my Keyword Research Report page for more information and pricing.