Useful Tips on Keyword Research October 2, 2008
Posted by seonotes in On-page Optimization, SE Rankings, Search Engine Optimization.Tags: keyword research, keyword research tips, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, tips on keyword research
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Keyword Research is the heart of any SEO project. It is a crucial phase in doing optimization for your web pages. Your choice of keywords can either make or break you in the Web world. No doubt, the keyword research stage in optimization entails analytical planning, and careful research.
To help you out in doing it right the first time, here are some useful tips in keyword reasearch to take note of:
Think Relevance
Some people fall into the trap of picking the most popular search term there is. Be careful though, because every topic has a particular niche. The hotel and travel industry for example, has several niches – from high-end luxury hotels, to medium-range accommodation providers, to cheap or budget-friendly inns and motels. The key isn’t about going for the most popular search term. It’s about carefully studying which key phrases are most relevant to your business. Remember, related does not necessarily mean relevant.
Consider Both Search Volume and Competition
Search Volume versus competition – aim to strike a balance between these two factors. Of course, most keywords with the highest traffic normally get the tightest competition in the SERPs. However, you can consider first your webpage’s search engine standing before choosing your keywords. If you have a stable site with good links, and your stats say you can compete big time, then go ahead and dive in the bigger ocean. That means you can consider optimizing your site for the high-traffic and highly competitive terms. But if you are a fairly new site with lesser links to begin with, you can choose search terms with an easier level of competition, but have “fairly” significant amount of traffic to give you. Long-tail key phrases can give you that, when their traffic demand are summed up together.
One more Tip: specific and long-tail keywords are known to be great for translating traffic into conversions – or user site visits into sales, as an example.
Make use of tried and tested Keyword Research Tools
Don’t just rely on sheer gut feel when drafting your final keyword list. Sure you can list down any term you can think about in the preliminary phase of keyword research, but always test the “profitability” of these straight-from-your-brain words and phrases by using tried and tested keyword tools. You don’t want to mess up your final keyword list with mere guesses.
One more Tip: Wordtracker, SEObook, Google Adwords Keyword Tool, Keyword Discovery, and even your Analytics and PPC stats are useful sources of data.
Allot enough time for doing keyword research. Most people think this is just some 10-minute click and copy activity when starting SEO. Don’t allow yourself to commit the same mistake. There is value in doing it right in the beginning.
Supplemental Pages: How to Get out of the Trap September 18, 2008
Posted by seonotes in On-page Optimization, Search Engine Optimization.Tags: google sandbox, google supplemental index, page optimization, SEO, supplemental pages
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Getting off the supplemental pages of Google is not as hard as you think. In fact, you are already indexed in the search engine, only that you have poor chances of appearing in the first three pages of the search engine results.
What do you then when you fall into this trap? Most sites falling into the supplemental pages’ trap are normally those containing duplicate content – either in meta codes or in your main body itself.
Here are three tips on how to get out of the supplemental page trap:
Create unique meta titles and descriptions.
The first thing that a search engine spider looks at in a web page is your meta tags – titles, descriptions, and keywords. If you have a generic meta titles for all your pages, chances are you will really land the supplemental page index. Revise this and make each unique for every page.
Make sure content is not duplicate.
Because Google has been growing less tolerant of spammy pages, you can’t trick them by reproducing a bunch of pages of almost the same content – keywords and all. Create writing that’s acceptable to the search engines. Craft content that is of value to your readers, and you earn more points, too.
Build links for supplemental pages.
Give authority to your site’s pages by fishing links from quality, high-PR sites. You earn more chances of being noticed by the search engine by the number of quality links pointing to you. Once your page has been revamped (getting rid of duplicates), gaining a good number of quality links will be the final shot to get out of the supplemental page trap.
How to Utilize your Old Indexed Pages July 7, 2007
Posted by seonotes in On-page Optimization.add a comment
Now that most webmasters have upgraded their websites using Content Management Systems or CMS, they often face the dilemma of finding out that some of their old pages (that they no longer want the visitors to see) are still up there indexed by Google.
How do you bring out a positive out of this negative situation?
Keep in mind that this is not exactly a negative situation especially when the “old unwanted pages” are getting good rankings from the search engines. You can benefit from this in 2 ways:
1. Applying 301 redirect, or what they call as permanent redirection. That way you lead visitors to your newly-made pages as you benefit from the good rankings of the old pages. Good rankings = good CTRs (click-through-rates) more often than not. 301 redirect is SEO-friendly, and the most recommended method.
2. Now if you are optimizing someone else’s site and you find irrelevant pages (out of the niche or something) that you think must be removed, simply delete these unwanted pages/files, and create a custom 404 page. The 404 page must be customized in such a way that:
a. It has the presentation feel of your website’s theme.
b. Your visitors will follow an obvious link to your most important page, or the most relevant page in relation to the old page that you want to delete.
A custom 404 page or Error Page achieves 3 things:
- It benefits you from the old pages’ probable clicks from visitors.
- It provides a link going to your most important page (or which ever page you want people to visit).
- Traffic from broken links that you might have in the future will be safely rescued because of the obvious link in your 404 page.
404 Page: Customized July 7, 2007
Posted by seonotes in On-page Optimization.2 comments
A 404 page is known as the ‘error page’ that shows up for pages that do not exit anymore or for broken links.
It is important to customize your 404 page so that you will rescue those traffic received by those deleted pages of yours that are still indexed in the search engines. How do you create a customized 404 page:
Go to your site’s main directory
If you already have an 404 page, find the file named .htaccess and you may now edit or customize this.
If you do not have an existing 404 page, create one by opening notepad and inserting this code:
ErrorDocument 404 http://www.yourdomain.com/custom_page.html
Save as .htaccess and upload it to your site’s main directory
Tip: 404 page must be customized in such a way that:
a. It has the presentation feel of your website’s theme.
b. Your visitors will follow an obvious link to your most important page, or the most relevant page in relation to the old page that you want to delete.
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