You Must Include This Keywords

Keywords are the most important SEO element for every search engine, they are what search strings are matched against. Choosing the right keywords to optimize for is thus the first and most crucial step to a successful SEO campaign. If you fail on this very first step, the road ahead is very bumpy and most likely you will only waste your time and money. There are many ways to determine which keywords to optimize for and usually the final list of them is made after a careful analysis of what the online population is searching for, which keywords have your competitors chosen and above all - which are the keywords that you feel describe your site best.

1. Choosing the Right Keywords to Optimize For

 

 It seems that the time when you could easily top the results for a one-word search string is centuries ago. Now, when the Web is so densely populated with sites, it is next to impossible to achieve constant top ratings for a one-word search string. Achieving constant top ratings for two-word or three-word search strings is a more realistic goal.

For instance, If you have a site about dogs, do NOT try and optimize for the keyword "dog" or "dogs". Instead you could try and focus on keywords like "dog obedience training", "small dog breeds", "homemade dog food", "dog food recipes" etc. Success for very popular one-two word keywords is very difficult and often not worth the trouble, it's best to focus on less competitive highly specific keywords.

The first thing you need to do is come up with keywords that describe the content of your website. Ideally, you know your users well and can correctly guess what search strings they are likely to use to search for you. You can also try the Website Keyword Suggestions Tool below to come up with an initial list of keywords. Run your inital list of keywords by the Google keyword Suggestion tool, you'll get a related list of keywords, shortlist a couple of keywords that seem relevent and have a decent global search volume.
When choosing the keywords to optimize for, you need to consider not only the expected monthly number of searches but also the relevancy of these keywords to your website. Although narrow keywords get fewer searches they are a lot more valuable than generic keywords because the users would be more interested in your offerings. Lets say you have a section on your website where you give advice on what to look for when adopting a dog. You might discover that the "adopt german shepherd" keyphrase gives you better results than a keyword like "german shepherd dogs". This page is not of interest to current german shepherd owners but to potential german shepherd owners only. So, when you look at the numbers of search hits per month, consider the unique hits that fit into the theme of your site.

2. Keyword Density

 

After you have chosen the keywords that describe your site and are supposedly of interest to your users, the next step is to make your site keyword-rich and to have good keyword density for your target keywords. Keyword density although no longer a very important factor in SEO is a common measure of how relevant a page is. Generally, the idea is that the higher the keyword density, the more relevant to the search string a page is. The recommended density is 3-7% for the major 2 or 3 keywords and 1-2% for minor keywords. Try the Keyword Density Checker below to determine the keyword density of your website.

Although there are no strict rules, try optimizing for a reasonable number of keywords – 5 or 10 is OK. If you attempt to optimize for a list of 300, you will soon see that it is just not possible to have a good keyword density for more than a few keywords, without making the text sound artificial and stuffed with keywords. And what is worse, there are severe penalties (including ban from the search engine) for keyword stuffing because this is considered an unethical practice that tries to manipulate search results.

3. Keywords in Special Places

 

Keywords are very important not only as quantity but as quality as well – i.e. if you have more keywords in the page title, the headings, the first paragraphs – this counts more that if you have many keywords at the bottom of the page. The reason is that the URL (and especially the domain name), file names and directory names, the page title, the headings for the separate sections are more important than ordinary text on the page and therefore, all equal, if you have the same keyword density as your competitors but you have keywords in the URL, this will boost your ranking incredibly, especially with Yahoo!.

a. Keywords in URLs and File Names

The domain name and the whole URL of a site tell a lot about it. The presumption is that if your site is about dogs, you will have “dog”, “dogs”, or “puppy” as part of your domain name. For instance, if your site is mainly about adopting dogs, it is much better to name your dog site “dog-adopt.net” than “animal-care.org”, for example, because in the first case you have two major keywords in the URL, while in the second one you have no more than one potential minor keyword.
When hunting for keyword rich domain names, don't get greedy. While from a SEO point of view it is better to have 5 keywords in the URL, just imagine how long and difficult to memorize the URL will be. So you need to strike a balance between the keywords in the URL and site usability, which says that more than 3 words in the URL is a way too much.
Probably you will not be able to come on your own with tons of good suggestions. Additionally, even if you manage to think of a couple of good domain names, they might be already taken. In such cases tools like the Tool below can come very handy.

File names and directory names are also important. Often search engines will give preference to pages that have a keyword in the file name. For instance http://mydomain.c*m/dog-adopt.html is not as good as http://dog-adopt.n*t/dog-adopt.html but is certainly better than http://mydomain.c*m/animal-care.html. The advantage of keywords in file names over keywords in URLs is that they are easier to change, if you decide to move to another niche, for example. 

 b. Keywords in Page Titles

The page title is another special place because the contents of the <title> tag usually gets displayed in most search engines, (including Google). While it is not mandatory per the HTML specification to write something in the <title> tag (i.e. you can leave it empty and the title bar of the browser will read “Untitled Document” or similar), for SEO purposes you may not want to leave the <title> tag empty; instead, you'd better write the the page title in it.

Unlike URLs, with page titles you can get wordy. If we go on with the dog example, the <title> tag of the home page for the http://dog-adopt.net can include something like this: <title>Adopt a Dog – Save a Life and Bring Joy to Your Home</title>, <title>Everything You Need to Know About Adopting a Dog</title> or even longer.
c. Keywords in Headings

Normally headings separate paragraphs into related subtopics and from a literary point of view, it may be pointless to have a heading after every other paragraph but from SEO point of view it is extremely good to have as many headings on a page as possible, especially if they have the keywords in them.

There are no technical length limits for the contents of the <h1>, <h2>, <h3>, ... <hn> tags but common sense says that too long headings are bad for page readability. So, like with URLs, you need to be wise with the length of headings. Another issue you need to consider is how the heading will be displayed. If it is Heading 1 (<h1>), generally this means larger font size and in this case it is recommendable to have less than 7-8 words in the heading, otherwise it might spread on 2 or 3 lines, which is not good and if you can avoid it – do it.

10 Things You Need to Know about Selling to Business Owners

Large companies have long recognized the opportunity to address the needs of small business (26 million firms <99 FTE’s).  Over the years, companies like IBM, American Express and Google have spent millions to try to understand the segment and convince business owners that they have the products and services owners need.  

Yet, marketers still struggle to capture of the opportunity in this segment, for a number of reasons.  Despite their best efforts, they often fall back into their “big company” ways.  Speaking the wrong language, misaligning offers, and/or reinforce perception that Fortune 500 companies are too big to serve small businesses.  

Whether you work for a "big company" or an INC 500 firm, here are 10 key points to keep in mind when selling to the Small Business segment.  All Insights below are taken from various research reports produced by the Executive Council on Small Business. 

1. Don’t call them Small Business Owners – despite the fact that 60% of small businesses, as defined by the U.S Census Bureau 2008, have less than 5 employees, don’t call them a small business. 
2. There are 2 different types of business owners – one type of owner is focused on growing their business, the other surprisingly, is not. Know the difference when targeting this segment. “Satisfaction owners” represent 46% of all small business owners.  Also known as “lifestyle owners” they are older (>46) and more likely to have higher revenue businesses.  They are "in it" because they love what they do and enjoy the work-life balance ownership present. “Growth” owners (36%) are more likely to be in retail, and more likely to have owned or own more than one business (serial entrepreneurs). 
3. They are in the Service Business – for the most part small businesses are focused on providing services.  60% of small business are; professional services or other services.  
4. Speak THEIR language  – As you might have already picked up, this will be a reoccurring theme in the post.  3X as many business owners find a sales person more trustworthy if he/she discusses savings in dollarsrather than percentages.  To be credible give them specific details, contact information and testimonials for other business owners.
5. Small things are a BIG Deal – according to the research, a major purchase decision starts at $500.   Cash flow is the lifeblood of small business don’t under estimate your need to prove value or ROI on what you would consider small transactions.   If you’re talking about cost savings, express it in monthly terms rather than annual.   2X as many owners expressed seeing savings monthly rather than yearly.
6. Resources and Time are Tight - owners now make a purchase decision in less than a week for complex and simple products.  43% said that it now takes them less time to make a decision than it did 5 years ago.   They search online, visit your website, and then call to confirm what they’ve learned.   SEO is critical if you’re going to play in this segment, as you will see below. 
7. They Love to Search - Business owners purchase patterns have changed, instead of contracting it’s now expanding.   Rather than narrowing their list of vendors, 60% of owners now report expanding their consideration set through research.
8. And it’s Local – business owners search for a product or services by name, not a brand, and they include their local area (e.g. “internet providers in St Louis”).  They don’t include “small business.”  
9. Search is Important, but Social Isn’t – as you saw in the previous examples Search is critical for being considered, but interesting enough, Social Media is not.   The reason - small business owners view social media as a channel to speak about their businesses, rather than hear what suppliers have to say.
10. If You’re Not Relevant…You’re Not Relevant.  In today’s marketplace to resonate with audience content must be personalized.   A recent Forrester report showed that most sales forces are very capable of discussing their products and solution, and even the industry issues, but when it came down understanding the buyer’s role or situation they failed.  

Business owners in healthcare, construction and manufacturing want information specific to their industries.  Owners of professional services or retail want information specific to them. 

Satisfaction owners are looking for products and services that save them time savings and strengthen their relationship with customers.   With Growth Oriented owners talk ROI, and time to payback.

Summary – it’s OK to categorize your services or products as small business solutions, but don’t call the buyers small business owners.  Recognize that there are two different types business owners focused on two different goals - lifestyle vs. growth.  Both groups are interested in hearing your value proposition in terms of real dollars on a monthly basis, not over course of the year.

Business owners are heavy users of search for researching vendors, and they use social media to promote their business, but not for buying from vendors.   To be relevant your content must speak to their industry or similar size businesses. 

If you talk to them like you know them, show them you are committed to building a lasting relationship this dynamic market can power your organizations growth.      

@Work State of Mind

For the last two years, I've been part of an effort to better understand how technology has blurred the lines between our personal and professional lives.  Today gyro released the results of extensive research project that shows the impact.  gyro collaborated with Forbes Insights, speaking to 543 marketers at Procter & Gamble, Hewlett-Packard and many other top companies.

We asked top executives how they receive information and how it is influencing their decisions. Most important, we asked them how they felt about it.

Almost all (98 percent) said that they send e-mails outside of the typical “9-to-5 work week.” Contrary to negative perceptions, this new reality has had a positive effect on their work and personal lives.  For the full report click here.  

The Best Meta Tag Description

The keywords and phrases you use in your Meta description tag may not affect your page's ranking in the search engines, but this tag can still come in handy in your overall SEO and social media marketing campaigns.

What Is the Meta Description Tag?

It's a snippet of HTML code that belongs inside the <Head> </Head> section of a web page. It is usually placed after the Title tag and before the Meta keywords tag (if you use one), although the order is not important.

The proper syntax for this HTML tag is:

<META NAME="Description" CONTENT="Your descriptive sentence or two goes here.">

If you're using a content management system (CMS), look for a field to fill out that's called Meta Description, or possibly just "Description."

Many years ago, the information contained in a Meta description could slightly help a page rank highly for the words that were contained within it. Today, neither Google, Bing, nor Yahoo! use it as a ranking signal.

In other words, whether you use your important keyword phrases in your Meta description tag or not, the position of your page in the search engine results will not be affected. So in terms of rankings, you could easily leave it out altogether.

But should you?

There are 3 important ways that Meta descriptions are being used today that make them an important part of your SEO and overall online marketing strategy:

1. They can be used as the description (or part of the description) of your page if it shows up in the search results.
2. They are often used as part of the descriptive information for your pages when Google shows "extended sitelinks" for your site.
3. They are often used as the default description in social media marketing links such as Facebook and Google+.

Let's look at each of these in more detail.

1. Meta Descriptions in the Search Results

People often think that whatever they put in their Meta description tag will be the default description that the search engines use under the clickable link to their site in the search results. While this is sometimes true, it's not always the case.

Currently, if you're searching for a site by its URL (for example www.highrankings.com) Google tends to use the first 20 to 25 words of your Meta description as the default description in the search engine result pages (SERP). However, if you have a listing at DMOZ, also known as the Open Directory Project (ODP) and are not using the "noodp" tag, they may default to that description instead. (Do a search at Google for www.amazon.com to see an example.)

Bing and Yahoo!, on the other hand, don't always default to the Meta description tag for URL searches. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don't. A search for www.highrankings.com at Bing or Yahoo! shows content from my home page as the description rather than the contents of my Meta description tag.

Of course, real people aren't typically searching for a site by URL, so what the search engines show for those types of search queries is not as important as a true keyword search. So don't get hung up on what you see when you search for your site by its URL or if you're doing a "site:command" search to see how they're indexing your pages.

Instead, go to your favorite web analytics program and find the keyword phrases that are currently bringing you the most traffic. Then see what your description looks like at Google when you type in those keywords.

And surprise! What you'll find is that your search results description will be different for every search query! You may see any combination of the following used:

• Your entire Meta description tag text as the complete description (typically if it's highly relevant and contains no more than 25 words).
• A full sentence pulled from your Meta description tag, but not the entire Meta description (if it contains more than one sentence).
• Text from one part of your Meta description mashed together with text from another part of it (if it's more than 25 words long).
• Some text from your Meta description mashed together with some text from the page.
• Some text from your page mashed together from some other text from your page (nothing from the Meta description).

Some of the circumstances that cause Google to not use text from your Meta description may include:

• The information in the Meta description tag was not specific to the page it was on.
• The search query used some words that were not in the Meta description, but those words (or some of them) were used in the page content. This includes words that Google considers somewhat synonymous, such as "copy" and "copywriting" or "SEO" and "search engine optimization."

But even the above are not hard and fast rules. Google doesn't always use all or part of the Meta description even when the exact search phrase was contained within it – especially if the search query is also contained within the content of the page. Suffice it to say that there are no hard and fast rules for when Google will show it and when they won't.

My recommendation is to always use description tags on any pages where you get search engine visitors (or hope to get them). Make them very specific to the page they're on by describing what someone will find when they click through to the page from the search results, while also using variations of your targeted keywords.

Because Google will show only show around 20 to 25 words as your description, many SEOs recommend that you limit this tag to a certain number of characters. In reality, however, you're not limited to any specific number. Your Meta description tag can be as long as you want it to be because Google will pull out the relevant parts of it and make their own snippet anyway.

For instance, if you're optimizing a page for 3 different keyword phrases, you could write a 3-sentence Meta description tag, with each sentence focusing on a different phrase. You could probably even insert more than 3 phrases in those sentences if you're a good wordsmith. The idea, however, is not to stuff this tag full of keywords, but to write each sentence to be a compelling marketing statement – a statement that naturally uses the keywords people might be typing into Google to find your site.

2. Meta Descriptions and Extended Sitelinks

These days, Google often uses the first few words from your Meta description tag when they create the "extended sitelinks" for your website. But this too is not set in stone and is highly keyword dependent. You'll see different sitelinks and different descriptions showing up depending on the words a searcher used at Google.

As an example, if you do a search for "High Rankings" at Google, you'll see my sitelinks for that search query.

At this moment, Google is showing my home page as the top result with 6 inner pages beneath:

• Forum home page: Description is from DMOZ/ODP. This page has the generic Meta description that is on every page of the forum.
• Link building forum home page: Description is content pulled from the page that uses the words "High Rankings" in it.
• SEO articles page: First part of Meta description.
• Newsletter home page: First part of Meta description.
• SEO/SEM resources page: First part of Meta description.
• SEO classes page: First part of Meta description.

For the most part, they're using the first part of the Meta description as the sitelink snippet, but not always. You may have noticed that I optimized those Meta description sitelink snippets that are showing by front loading them so that the first 5-7 words or so are a short description of what the page is all about.

But here's the rub. Do a Google search for "Jill Whalen SEO." You should still see sitelinks, and you'll even see some of the same ones as with the previous query, but some of the descriptions are different:

While the forum home page shows in both, this time Google has pulled text from the page rather than using the DMOZ/ODP description. This is likely because this search query had the word "SEO" in it while the other one didn't. The SEO articles page also shows up here, and it is using the same Meta description snippet as the High Rankings query. The other sitelinks are different from before, with 3 out of 4 using the Meta description.

As you can see, while you do have some control over your sitelink descriptions via your Meta description tag, Google might not always use them (just as Google does with their regular search results). Your best chance of having them show is to use, close to the beginning of your description tags, the words that you know pull up sitelinks. Also, be as descriptive as possible within the first 5 to 7 words.

3. Meta Descriptions and Social Media Marketing

Ever wonder why some Facebook links have great descriptions and others don't seem to make any sense? It's because some site owners have taken the time to write a summary of the article and place it into their Meta description tag, and some have not. If your article has a Meta description, Facebook and Google+ will default to that when you share a link on your profile or "Page." If there's no Meta description, you'll usually see the first sentence or so from the page being used as the default.

While anyone can edit the description that Facebook defaults to, most people don't. And at this time on Google+ you can't even edit the default description. You can either leave it as is or delete it all together. Let's face it -- most of the time the first sentence of an article is not a good description of the rest of it. It's not supposed to be, because that's not what a first sentence is for!

Therefore, I strongly advise you to always write a compelling 1- or 2-sentence description for all of your articles and blog content that may be shared via social media, and place it into your Meta description tag. This will give you a big jump on your competitors who haven't figured this out yet, making your social media content much more clickable because people will know what the article is actually about before they click on it.

Overall, the Meta description tag gives you a little bit more control over what people might see before they click over to your site. The more compelling it is, the more clickthroughs you should see. If your Meta description tags can help with that, then it's certainly worth the few minutes of time it takes to create interesting, keyword-rich tags that sum up what users will find when they arrive!

How Make Money For SEO

If you’re in business and make money, then you likely understand that you need to spend SEO to make money. However, unless you’re running a charity, you’ll want to make sure that the money that you’re spending in order to attract consumers and create conversions is money well spent. Most people understand the importance of hiring talented graphic designers and web builders – after all, unless you’re a programmer or designer of your own merit, it’s very likely that you will be unable to complete these tasks without the help of an expert. The next following steps in order to make money online with Google is to get your website or blog fully optimized so it will increase your chances for your site or content to get first page ranking on Google. Go to this blog post to get more details on the proper ways on implementing SEO (Search Engine Optimization) so that your site can be found from the search engines. Prior to start creating content on your website, It is essential to do the proper keyword research for your articles or blog posts. However, many people raise an eyebrow at the thought of hiring someone to write the content on their website. After all, there probably is someone on your team who possesses a word processing program and is able to type in English. Why should you pay to outsource your copy to an SEO writer when you can produce your own?

The SEO Writer: Artist and Scientist

The truth of the matter is that SEO writing that is high-quality and actually works to improve your SEO requires a considerable amount of skill and research to accomplish. Good SEO writers understand that there is more to the Google algorithm than simply inserting keywords into text. Let’s face it: if this were the secret to SEO, people would be wearing out the copy and paste functions on their computers as quickly as technology can advance.

In reality, good SEO writing involves an understanding of the science behind the way Google and Bing work. It also requires a happy talent for mixing keywords and language in a way that is informative, engaging, and encourages the consumer to stay on your site. 

1. Brush up on AP style guidelines. Many people that hire content writers require that the articles be written in AP style. AP stands for Associated Press. Every year the AP comes out with a guide, "The Associated Press Stylebook and Liable Manual," that teaches writers the top tips for writing quality articles. If you are able to string words together and are able to follow the AP guidelines then you can be a content writer.
2. Research the best SEO keywords. Keywords are words that are placed throughout an article that identify the topic. Search engines pick up on these words and give the article's web page a higher ranking depending on how relevant the keywords are to the search. The higher in rank, the more hits the site receives, and the more money it makes. People want articles that drive traffic to their website.
3. Keywords can be tested with Google AdWords Keyword Tool. Popular keywords get more hits. For example, if you are writing an article about How to Draw Ducks and used the Google AdWords Keyword Tool, you would see that the keyword "wild ducks" is very popular, so you may want to include it several times in the article.
4. Choose three popular keywords for your article that fits the subject well and and use each one two to four times in the article. SEO articles range from 300 words to 600 words, generally, so you want to adjust your keyword amount depending on the overall amount of words in the article.
5. Make sure not to put an overabundance of keywords in the article. Search engines, especially Google, will penalize the article's ranking. This is because articles with too many keywords look like articles with no useful content. Google's job is to direct users to informative content, not junk.

Selling Your SEO Articles

6. Trolling writer's job boards are probably the best way to find buyers for SEO articles. Some great boards are Freelance Writing Gigs, Online Writing Jobs and SunOasis.
7. You can also advertise that you have articles for sell on certain forums designed for selling content, such as the Digital Point Forums.
8. Avoid jobs that pay $3 an article. Even though most SEO writers can pump out a new SEO article every 30 minutes or so, $3 is still not a good rate. Think about it: one article written in 30 minutes equals $6 an hour. That is a poor rate.
9. With a little perseverance, though, you can find jobs that pay $10 to $15 per keyword article. These are the ones to get. One article written in 30 minutes equals $20 an hour. That is pretty good money.
10. Set up a PayPal account. Most buyers only pay through PayPal because it is convenient and secure. All you have to do to get payment is use PayPal's invoice system or give the buyer your PayPal email.

Google pays attention to more than the keyword content of your copy. They pay attention to the amount of time that consumers spend on your website looking for information, and they pay attention to the number of consumers that link to your page. The more one-way links that you get on your page, the more Google and other search engines consider your site and informational source. Being considered an informational source is worth more on the Google charts than any amount of keywords.

This is where your SEO writer comes into play. The SEO writer should be able to take your company and your keywords and be able to deliver on point and informative content that will not only grab the potential of Google, but also grab the attention of the web surfer. It is a unique subset of writing that deserves more consideration than it gets.