Keywords versus Keyword Phrases
Published September 3, 2010 | 
Let’s take a look at how one creates a keyword list with the example of a website selling real estate in Texas, where the immediately obvious keywords are items such as ‘property’, ‘real estate’, ‘Texas’ and ‘Texan’. These can also be combined into phrases such as ‘Texan property’ and ‘property in Texas’. In general, focus should be on ranking for keyword phrases rather than for keywords.
It is true that ranking well for ‘Texas’ will give a thousand times as much traffic as ranking well for ‘Texas Property’, but understand it would cost a 
hundred times as much investment to rank for ‘Texas’ as to rank for ‘Texas Property’ very simply because competition is many times more heavy for individual words then exists is for phrases. Additionally, most of the traffic for ‘Texas’ is for topics (such as Texas Revolution, Texas Flag, Texas Food) largely irrelevant to the business, so the majority of the traffic is of no value to the business.
Consequently, in most cases, you will achieve a much better return on investment by simply focusing on relevant keyword phrases or targeted keyword phrases, than by doing Search Engine Optimization for individual keywords.
A related point you need to keep in mind is that ranking well for individual keywords in no way means that a keyword will automatically rank well for phrases that include these keywords. 
For example, a site might rank well for ‘Texan’ (perhaps resulting in lots of traffic about ‘Texan Food’) and rank well for ‘Property’ (perhaps resulting in lots of traffic for ‘Australian Property’), without ranking well for ‘Texan Property’ (which is what we were after in the first place).
In fact, many targeted keyword phrases, are more often than not the best investments in terms of attracting website visitors searching for the precise product that you might be offering. So imagine if you are selling ranches in Texas you might find the best Search Engine Optimization investment is ‘Prestige Texan Property,’ whereas if you are selling run-down ranch houses to people looking for inexpensive seasonal homes they can fix up you might find the best Search Engine Optimization investment is ‘Cheap Texan Ranch Houses’. 
So admittedly, the actual amount of traffic for these lengthy phrases is most likely low, the probability of the resulting visitors buying is much higher than for the more general phrases, and the cost of Search Engine Optimization is a small fraction of the cost for more general phrases.
Of course there will be such cases when ranking for individual words makes more sense. Let’s look at a website which provides international property rather than property in just one country that may find it cost effective to rank for ‘property,’ and likewise, websites that focus on niche topics identified by a single word. However, the fact is for the majority of websites, keyword phrases are not only more cost effective, but also tend to attract the specific type of visitors that actually match the products being sold.
Search Engine Optimization is Important to You
Published August 26, 2010 | 
Have you ever been tired from everyone constantly talking about how the Internet is revolutionizing the way companies do business, and so you didn’t miss out on the revolution you spent money a great looking website, and integrated it with your other systems so customers could order product direct from you off the website. Finally, when it was all said and done you sat back expecting the cash to roll in and you waited, and waited for activity to go crazy.
I can probably guess with some success that things didn’t turn out exactly the way you had anticipated, since nothing ever really is that simple. You, like everyone else felt the need to make a mad rush to get something onto the Web, and many businesses forgot or overlooked one very simple question: How will customers or anyone actually find our website?
Believe it or not, you literally share the Web with millions of other websites, and the question becomes a very important one to consider. 
You probably already understand there are four basic ways Web customers can find your site:
- Learning about it from more traditional type media including television, print, radio advertising, printed brochures and business cards, as well as others
- Links from other websites
- Recommendation or referral by someone
- They found you using one of dozens of Search Engines including Google, Yahoo!, MSN and many, many others
You need to understand you only have any kind of major control of the first method, but it seems to be costing more and more to get the same results traditional advertising enjoyed fifteen or twenty years ago. The purchase of links from other websites similar to and including the Yellow Pages is also available, but for small businesses and entrepreneurs that don’t have the same kind of budget enjoyed by large multi-national corporations, the fourth method is the only real cost effective manner of attracting any new visitors to your website.
You should know that in order to make Search Engines a viable method of customers finding your site, it must really appear in the top ten results of the search, or at least on the second page, as the reason is that 90 percent of Web surfers do not ever go past the first 30 listed search results, many don’t go past the first page of results, while even more will not proceed past any further that the top 10 results, so that needs to be the focus of any Search Engine Optimization and link building campaign.
Business Blogs and Content Marketing – Information Experts
Published June 10, 2010 | I recently visited with a couple of insightful Entrepreneurs from different areas of the U.S. that contacted me, as they were really starting to understand the vision of what the Social Media (R)evolution is all about, and one of the questions they both asked was about ‘blogging and its future,’ and to tell you the truth, I chuckled a little at the question because blogging, or 
Content Marketing, is not a quick fix, but it’s something you will never quit doing, because honestly, blogging should be to a business what milk is to a baby or breathing is to man, performed naturally almost without thought, but without it the business’ future survival and success becomes jeopardized.
The serious misunderstanding that many businesses share is that Content Marketing is not static, since search engines, as well as consumers, simply appreciate web sites that are constantly evolving and being updated regularly, and with this strong attention, they’ll keep coming back, and in addition, the scope and influence of the site itself will continue to grow and grow, with every new bit of valuable content that you add.
This is why your business, for as long as you own and operate it, should at a minimum add or upload 1-3 fresh articles to the business’ blog every week, with no exceptions.
You must completely understand that at this point, adding articles isn’t a question of ‘if,’ because it’s become a significant part of our Social Media Culture, and in addition, Content Marketing includes adding more and more video and relevant pages to the website itself, on a very consistent and ongoing basis, I can’t emphasize enough to you that it’s not all about just more information, 
but more GREAT information, and therefore, such is the goal, and once an Entrepreneur realizes and embraces this critical paradigm for their business, they will see everything start to change.
So finally, that is the challenge we share as Entrepreneurs and business owners, to become known as “the information experts,” embrace information, and visualize yourself, and your business, as a powerful Content Marketing machine, and as you strive to accomplish this, do so with complete confidence and certainty, that all the energy and effort you invest will be returned to you and your business many times over, as such has been the case with thousands of other forward-thinking persons that have visualized beyond the market-horizon, and who have made the decision to see business and marketing in the whole new light of the Social Media (R)evolution.
Business Blogs and Content Marketing – Content Marketers
Published June 9, 2010 | I talk to so many Entrepreneurs each day that are starting to understand what the Social Media (R)evolution is all about, but for every single Entrepreneur that “gets it,” there seems to be many more that struggle with the changes that have taken place in the market dynamics, 
and if there was only a way I could convince everyone to stop seeing the world through their own eyes and instead see the world through the consumer’s eyes, but alas, many that fail to see will indeed, be left behind to fail, falling victim to their own narrow shortsightedness and lack of market vision.
Many businesses will simply not embrace and adapt, and many will simply fade off as so many did before them, and you must understand the changing market, as always, waits for no one, such is the way of business cycles, and such is the times in which we all now live.
So my question for you, and one you have to ask yourself is quite simple, “Are you in, or are you on the outside looking in?”
Seriously, have you decided to make a commitment to elevate your business to the expected standards in the next 10 years and beyond, and are you ready to make blogging and content giving the lifestyle it should be, and not just a poorly thought-out new year’s resolution?
An Entrepreneur, whose entire foundation is built upon giving information to others in order to build high value in the marketplace, has come to be known as a ‘Content Marketer’ or ‘Information Expert.’
The best way for me to explain Content Marketing, really has to do with an Entrepreneur’s approach to business, for example, it used to be that Entrepreneurs saw their business as a ‘XYZ service company’, and for all practical purposes, that’s exactly what it was, a business that provided lots of service and therefore it was a service company, nothing more, and nothing less.
In looking back through 20/20 hindsight though, this way of viewing business was wrong, and today, Entrepreneurs should view their business as a Content Marketing company, or in other words, their entire goal is to provide more valuable, helpful, and ‘remarkable content’ in addition to ‘excellent service,’ to consumers than anyone else in their field, which in-turn will lead to greater sales, and why should you use such methods of operation?………………Because the strategy really works!
After some careful thought, I think you will understand, that the more valuable the information you can give to others, the more you will become viewed as a valued expert in your field or industry, and therefore gain their complete trust, and even more important, you gain their business, and therefore, the you have the utmost need to blog.
And when I say ‘blog’, I don’t mean that your business has a section on your website that says ‘blog’ on it, so when a visitor views the page they see a handful of articles that are weeks, maybe even months old. You should view such a strategy as completely ludicrous, and an utter waste of your valuable time, because it is.
Understanding Effective Use of Keywords and Key Phrases
Published April 15, 2010 | 
Most of us understand that for the most effective search engine optimization, you must use your keywords and keywords phrases effectively, but not everyone knows that for optimal effectiveness, you need to use different keywords and/or keyword phrases on each page of your website, and optimize each page for those keywords and/or keyword phrases that are most relevant to the content of that particular page.
Title Tags
- For the title tag, use keywords and/or keyword phrases as a descriptive title for each page.
- Use your most relevant keywords and/or keyword phrases in your home page title.
- To be the most effective, title tags should contain only keywords and/or keyword phrases.
Repeat the keywords and/or keyword phrases 2-3 times, but you have to make sure that the title makes sense, as an example for this page would be: Understanding Keyword Usage, Using Keywords and Keyword Phrases Effectively.
Meta Tag Keywords
- Place all relevant keywords and keyword phrases in your Meta tag….
- If possible, avoid using single keywords as they may be too competitive. Use keyword phrases instead.
- Don’t repeat your keywords more than 2-3 times to avoid offending some search engines.
- Separate keywords and keyword phrases with commas or spaces, not both, for example: keyword,keyword phrase,keyword or keyword keyword phrase keyword.
- Use common misspellings or miss-keyings. Ex: keywrod or keywird.
- Use different forms of keywords whenever possible. Ex: web site and website.
- Use singular and plural versions of keywords. Ex: website and websites.
- Use upper and lower case. Ex: Website and website
Meta Tag description
- Use your keywords and keyword phrases in your Meta tag description…..
- Repeat your most important keywords and/or keyword phrases a minimum of 2-3 times.
- The total length of your description tag should be no more than 20-25 words.
- Your description should make sense as this is what often shows up in the search engine results page, and this is your opportunity to persuade users to click through to your site so be sure your description is enticing and contains keywords and/or keyword phrases that will attract visitors.
Content
- Many search engines concentrate on the first 250 words of your text when looking for keyword relevancy and density so concentrate your keywords and/or keyword phrases there.
- Strive for 5-7% keyword density (5-7 keywords and/or keyword phrases per 100 words of text), and if your keyword density is much higher than this, your copy may not make sense AND the search engines may consider it keyword spamming.
- Use your most important keywords and/or keyword phrases throughout your copy but without sounding repetitious.
- Use your most important keywords and/or keyword phrases in your H1 tag, and to give more weight to your H1 tag, use only one H1 tag in your copy. (Your H1 tag should contain your most important statement so you shouldn’t need to use more than one H1 tag.)
- Use keywords and/or keyword phrases in your image ALT tags. For example your logo ALT tag should say something such as: ALT=”keyword logo image”.
META tags are not as important as they once were as most search engines are now searching your copy when looking for keywords and/or keyword phrases, therefore, it has become increasingly important to have the first 250 words of your copy be keyword rich.
Sometimes, it may be better to write your content first, then choose your keywords and/or keyword phrases from the content, and rewrite your content as needed, adding keywords and/or keyword phrases that pertain to the theme of the content, so in this way, you’ve chosen keywords and/or keyword phrases that are relevant to your content, instead of trying to write content to fit your keywords and/or keyword phrases.