Analysing chosen keywords

There is a basic “formula” used to determine which keywords we want to focus on:

  • At least 1,000 monthly searches
  • No more than 30,000 pages in Google “in quotes”
  • No more than 10,000 results for “allintitle”

When you get your list of keywords from a Google keyword tool, it will tell you approximately how many searches each phrase receives each month. Some SEO companies prefer not to use keywords that have less than 1,000 searches per month because they don’t usually bring enough traffic to justify the effort.

Next, you have to assess the competition. You want to make sure to target phrases you have a good chance to rank for, otherwise, you’re wasting your time because you probably won’t be able to rank on the first page if there is too much competition.

Focusing on topics instead of keywords can help you understand their search volume and ways to structure your text.

How do you assess your keyword competition?

First, you need to find out how many people are using each keyword phrase on their pages. You do this by entering the keyword into Google in quotes. This will tell you how many other pages contain that exact phrase.  For example “keyword in quotes” is used on about 6,090 other pages. This means you should have a fairly easy time ranking on the first page for that phrase.

Next, you need to see how strong those other competitors are. Google and other search engines usually give a tremendous amount of weight to the words appearing in the title of the HTML document, so you need to see how many of those pages are also using the phrase in their title.

This is done by entering this into Google: allintitle:”keyword in quotes”. For example, only 3 pages have the phrase “keyword in quotes” in the title

This is great news if you want to rank for that phrase because it means you will almost certainly be able to rank on the first page for that phrase if you use the phrase in your title.

After you have used all of the keyword phrases you found that fit the main criteria, you can expand and use other keywords. Just stick to those that do fit the criteria in the beginning, because you will get better rankings quickly, so you can start seeing traffic and income sooner.

Where to place keywords on your website?

Search engines give a lot of weight to text in the title of your document, so it is especially important to ensure that you place your keywords there.

Of course, there are other places in your document that are almost as important for keyword placement.

Domain Name

Having keywords in your domain name can really help boost your site’s rankings. If you wish to rank for “buy golf clubs”, you might wish to buy a domain like BuyGolfClubs.com or BuyGolfClubs.net.

In order, the best domain extensions for SEO seem to be:

  1. .com
  2. .org
  3. .net

URL(Uniform Resource Locator)

It’s not just the domain that counts, either. You can also put your keywords elsewhere in your URL. For example, you can name directories after keywords, and you can name HTML files with keywords, too.

For example http://www.golfkeyword.com/golf-clubs/buy-golf-clubs.html

Heading Tags

Heading tags are used on websites to separate various sections of a page. The H1 tag is given the most weight, but it should be used sparingly. You should use your main keyword in an H1 tag once on your page. Then you could use a couple of alternate keywords in H2 and H3 tags.

Body Content

Obviously, you would want to use your keywords in the body text of your site, as well. It’s a good idea to use your keyword phrase at least twice per page, but be careful not to overuse it. When you repeat the same phrase too many times on a single page, it can appear spammy and actually hurt your ranking.

If this all seem overwhelming, ask a reputable agency like Webbage to explain. Being an SEO company in Norwich, we have alot of experience in researching and anaylsing keywords.

every website is unique

A website should be as unique as the business it represents. At Webbage, we take the time to get to know what makes your business tick. This way we can build a website based around you, your business and your customers.