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Keyword Research for Small Business – Initial Keyword selection

admin — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 22:56:46 +0000

Selecting the proper keywords to optimize on your website may be the most important component to getting the right traffic to your site. While many claim that keyword selection is a bit of an art, there are several initial steps you can take to choose the right keywords. It does take a little practice but it’s well worth the effort to learn.

When people type a search term into a search engine, that search engine generates a ranking of all relevant sites and provides that ranking to the user. Keywords are a major component of that ranking. Whether you realize it or not, as far as the search engines are concerned, your website is already targeting certain keywords. Let’s make sure they’re the right ones.

Brainstorm a list of possible keywords. The longer the list the better. Think of every possible keyword that a customer might use to find you. Consider geographical variations, particularly if the business in question only has walk-in customers, like a dentist, for instance.
You’re not screening right now, even if it only seems marginal, go ahead and throw it out there.

Keyword tools, like Google Keyword Tool, will provide additional suggestions based on your primary search term. See what they have to offer.
Assess relevancy. Now go through your list and eliminate any keywords that aren’t relevant.

How likely is a potential customer to use a term?
How frequently does that term actually get searched?

If you think you have a great keyword, but it only receives 3 searches a month…. Well, you’re probably wrong; it’s probably not a great keyword. Don’t fight the data.

Some keywords get a high search volume, but are likely to be used by those that are only looking for information. Ask yourself if those are the people you want to target. Those that are looking to make a purchase right now may use an entirely different set of keywords.

Assess competitiveness. Take the remaining keywords and use a keyword tool like Market Samurai or Micro Niche Finder and look at the competition. You’re not only looking at the number of searches per month, but also at the strength of the competition.
A keyword may only have a 100 searches a month, but if you’re competing with 20 authority sites like www.wikipedia.org and www.amazon.com, then it’s probably not going to happen. Likewise, a term may have a very high search volume but relatively poor competition. This is every website owner’s dream come true.

The tools above (there are many others) do a good job of assessing basic keyword competition.

Keyword selection should be done before you even begin construction of a website. Your site should be build around your keywords. By using the preliminary process above, you will be ahead of most of the websites out there. Most sites don’t seem to give this aspect of site design any attention. Finding the right keywords is the first step to getting the traffic you desire.

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admin — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 18:57:18 +0000

This is an example of a WordPress post, you could edit this to put information about yourself or your site so readers know where you are coming from. You can create as many posts as you like in order to share with your readers what exactly is on your mind. This is an example of a WordPress post, you could edit this to put information about yourself or your site so readers know where you are coming from. You can create as many posts as you like in order to share with your readers what exactly is on your mind.

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admin — Mon, 01 Aug 2011 18:54:12 +0000

This is an example of a WordPress post, you could edit this to put information about yourself or your site so readers know where you are coming from. You can create as many posts as you like in order to share with your readers what exactly is on your mind. This is an example of a WordPress post, you could edit this to put information about yourself or your site so readers know where you are coming from. You can create as many posts as you like in order to share with your readers what exactly is on your mind.

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How to build a following for your business

admin — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 00:15:09 +0000

You can sign up for a free Twitter account and you can send out tweets every five minutes for a year, but that won’t lead to any kind of profit if there isn’t anybody on the receiving end. To get real value (and real profit) from Twitter, you need a big enough group of followers to make a difference.

What does big enough mean? It depends. You could have 10,000 followers that are made up mostly of spammers, competitors, people trying to pitch stuff to you—and it would be almost as if you had no followers at all. On the other hand, you could have 500 followers and get amazing traction from your tweets.

The point is that profiting from Twitter is not just about the quantity of followers you have. It’s also about quality. Sure, you’ll have tweets like this in your stream…

but you don’t want your entire list populated with them. You want followers who care about you and what you have to offer….followers who will engage with you, spread the word about you, buy from you.

How do you make this happen? What does it take to start from scratch and build a following on Twitter? The answer might seem counterintuitive:

Follow to be followed.

The odds that someone you follow will follow back are pretty high. Many people have their accounts set up to “auto follow,” so following them guarantees a follow back. This is a great way to build a basic foundation for how you contacts who have Twitter accounts. Following them is easy.

For specific areas of interest, use the “Browse Suggestions” tab. You can browse particular topics and find people who have interest in them.

With Twitter Search, you can use key words to check out topics of interest to you and see who’s tweeting about them.

Get involved in TweetChats. There are a number of weekly or monthly chats that take place at prescheduled times and that focus on a particular topic or business sector. Showing up and participating is a great way to network and building your following. You can find the continuously-updated schedule at:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=ruaz3GZveOsoXUOOt86B3AQ

It will work best to use a tool such as tweetchat.com rather than your usual Twitter interface.

Tools like Twellow, Twitter Grader, and Mr. Tweet can also help you get connected with people with similar interests or that are local to you. Browse the topic list or enter a topic in the search tool, and you will be presented with a list of Twitterers who have registered under that topic. Be sure to register your own account under the appropriate categories.

Don’t underestimate the following power of the retweet. If you pass along another person’s tweet, the people in their network will see it, and they may pass it along themselves. This will get your name out, and will also get some eyes onto your profile and more followers onto your list.

Here is an important thing to keep in mind: If you follow a large number of people at one time, the Twitterbots may mistake you for a spammer and may even suspend your account. Follow, tweet, follow, tweet—a little at a time, and grow from there.

The majority of people you follow will follow you back, either manually or automatically. You can use a tool like SocialOomph or Socialtoo to set up an automatic direct message that will get sent when someone follows you. This autoDM is convenient; it would take a lot of your time to track and personally thank every person who follows you. If you set this up, make the message a simple thank you, not a pitch.