Find and Target Related Keywords
Published September 15, 2010 | 
Let me start by saying variation is good, but where do we begin? Starting with traditional keyword research tools should help you, but many have found as it turns out that the search results themselves are a fertile ground. 
I’m sure you have noticed when you begin to type a keyword into a Google search box on the Google homepage that Google’s new real-time search feature tries to auto-complete your search query.
Aggregate search volume is used to power this, which tells you a couple of things about the keywords they are recommending including those are keywords other people searched for in the past, and those are the keywords Google is recommending new searchers to search for, helping to drive traffic to them.
When you closely examine the top ranked listings in the search results, many of those websites will also include related keyword modifiers in their page titles. As you click through to some of the better pages, you should also notice the related keywords and concepts they are targeting in their page copy. 
You should understand that almost all major search engines offer a related searches feature on their search results pages, and examine those for possible additional keyword ideas.
Now that we have looked at the process driven off aggregate user data, one of the most important lessons to learn in SEO is that no data source will ever be as useful as your own web analytics.
Do not forget to make sure you are tracking traffic and conversion data from day one, and make it part of your routine processes, because through your analytics data, you will uncover many ranking ‘accidents’ or alternate keyword ideas it might not have occurred to you to target. 
If you notice that you are doing particularly well in a certain area, you should contemplate making more pages targeting related variations of those keywords.
It is critical to understand that since conversion and user experiences are very important, do not fail to make sure your content is easy to read. You should also use generous formatting to break up the content with short paragraphs, bulleted or numbered lists wherever they are appropriate, relevant headers and sub-headers throughout in order to make scanning easier and conversion-focused links within the content area of the page.
Additional Prioritization Variables to Consider
Published September 14, 2010 | 
Many times there are other variables to take into consideration when attempting to establish correct prioritization to achieve the best results for SEO, and these additional variables might include:
- The lifetime value of item client is important because if the sale of any given item is made, then the current value of the sale cannot the only consideration, since it is very important that you should also take into consideration the average lifetime value of the “purchaser” of the item being examined.
- It is important to clearly understand the profitability or how profitable is the product or service you provide, and obviously, the more profitable items in most cases are more desirable to promote, but you must be completely familiar with what is most profitable for you.
- You must understand with confidence your ability to scale or fulfill with your inventory control and order processing or if your ability to fulfill is limited. If so, you must determine other products and services with more
potential that might be a better priority in both the near and long term.
- You should have a firm knowledge of your competitive advantage, and most importantly is it a well-defined competitive advantage (in terms of price, quality, delivery time etc.) that can be leveraged to increase the probability of sales?
More often than not, you will find that the keyword terms with comparatively high search volumes and low competition are the best opportunities, and of course don’t forget, relevance must be always be factored into this equation as well.
You should always keep in mind that in addition to closely examining volume vs. competition, it often helps to look at the additional prioritization variables, and they shouldn’t be mistakenly overlooked.
On-Page Search Engine Optimization
Published September 9, 2010 | 
On-page optimization is a critical but much too often overlooked aspect of Search Engine Optimization. Let’s first examine the problem with doing only on-page optimization, which is the fact that there is a glass ceiling to it, as Search Engines rank websites according to both their authority and relevance specific to the search terms, in addition to their authority on the Web. Remember, on-page optimization creates relevance, while building inbound links generates authority, thus the glass ceiling.
Now, even though off-page optimization actually offers more in the way of SEO benefits, while in reality on-page optimization is the first step to SEO improvement. 
In closer examination we find that your off-page Search Engine Optimization is about building inbound links from relevant websites. One simple but very important question to answer is, how can Search Engines consider your pages relevant to your specific keywords if you have not even made it clear to them just what your page is about?
On-page optimization is basically about two things including choosing the very best keywords around which to establish each of your pages, and making it as clear as possible to search engines that your page is relevant to those keywords.
With the old way of on-page optimization many people simply took a fairly automatic approach to on-page optimization because it was what worked way back then.
There were literally hundreds of tools congesting the web that allowed you to measure the keyword density of your page, and there were many of them that taught more was better, so as a result, webmasters would crank out keyword-stuffed text that was not interesting in the least, as well as very brutal to read.
Finally, to optimize your page content way back then, you simply stuffed your keywords everywhere including the URL, the page title, the Meta description tag, the on-page H1 heading, and aggressively throughout the page content.
Assessing Keyword Competitiveness
Published September 5, 2010 | 
It’s only natural for people to have a tendency to emphasize traffic over relevance, quantity over substance, and of course you need to always make sure that the search terms you’ve selected for targeting have sufficient traffic, but quite often you don’t want them to have too much either, since more traffic more times than not goes hand in hand with high competition.
Let’s look back to the Abilene law firm for example, which has decided they want to rank for the term ‘lawyer.’ Probably without realizing, the decision puts them up against almost all law firms in the entire English-speaking world, which of course include much larger and much more powerful firms. The last time I checked (two seconds ago), there are 406 million Google results for the search term ‘lawyer,’ and always remember there are only 10 listed on the first page of Google search results.
You must learn to choose your battles wisely when deciding on which keywords to target, and let’s examine just how you might go about doing that.
When it comes to assessing keyword competitiveness, there are several free tools. For example, the SEO Chat Keyword Difficulty Check Tool shows the higher the score the keyword search term gets, the more competitive the term, and the greater the difficulty it is to rank for. Remember that generally speaking, terms with a difficulty score over 60 require much more than just “on-page optimization” if you want the ranking on the first page of search results, and the first page ranking is right where you want to be.
Keyword Prioritization
Published September 2, 2010 | 
There are a couple of things you need to consider when prioritizing keywords, the competitive advantage and profitability of the products/services associated with the keywords. In addition, prior to entering the vetting process, a Keyword Opportunity List should be generated.
The initial phase of creating the initial Keyword Opportunity List simply involves brainstorming as many keyword ideas as possible including listing root brands and product/service names (e.g. lawyer), brainstorming variations of product and brand related keywords, talking to clients to determine what terms they use in search, studying competitors’ sites, adding geographic variations (e.g. Miami lawyers, Dade county lawyers), adding descriptive variations (e.g. personal injury lawyers, slip and fall lawyers), taking all the variations and entering them into the Google AdWords Keyword Tool, which will suggest numerous other variations.
In the keyword list you prepare there could very easily be a hundred terms that you like and think should appear in the search engines. 
However, consider that obtaining a good rank sometimes takes an investment, and there might be a number of these terms that may not bring sufficient traffic to justify the investment you plan, and to take it further, even for the terms which you are willing to invest in, you should definitely prioritize and understand that it is virtually impossible for you to work on all simultaneously unless you have huge resources at your disposal.
Finally, it is important to understand the importance of keyword research, so don’t fear the investment of time in this component of your Search Engine Optimization puzzle, and if your strategy foundation isn’t based on solid findings and insights you develop, all your efforts could turn out to be a waste. Even worse, your competitors will be laughing all the way to their bank.