Need help with SEO please! Newbie looking for guidance!

Hello everyone. I recently decided to give the "internet biz" a shot and started a retail website using a "drop-ship" method. I know... probably not giving myself a very good chance at financial success, but my main goal is to learn the ropes with this first attempt, before diving in to a larger commitment.

I am really hung-up on SEO strategy.... specifically, how to choose good keywords for a new website. I've read through a lot of different threads and did some of my own research using free tools (mostly google keyword), but am wondering if anyone can give me some "idiot proof" advice as to how to go about choosing the best keywords out of the gate... and how/where to place they keywords within the pages of my site. I'm just looking for "the basics" to get me headed in the right direction.

Some of the questions I have are:
- What is the ideal # of words and/or phrases to start with?
- # of words per phrase to start with?
- How do I read the Google Keyword tool results... and what level of competition should I be targeting for my keyword(s)?
- What about Local and Global search volumes? Is there an "ideal" range??

I will also take any advice anyone has in regards to creating back links. I'm completely in the dark as to the best way to approach that.

In short, I basically feel like I have no idea what I'm doing at this point... and its probably pretty obvious based on my post. I've read a lot of articles, forum threads, etc. and feel like I learn something different every day that contradicts what I had confidence in the day before.

Any help you are willing to give would be greatly appreciated! I just want to learn the right way to go about SEO and web traffic generation from the start.

Thanks in advance!!

Moose77

 

Keywords
In general there are two types - head terms and long-tail terms.

Head terms are broad keywords (or phrases) generally searched for earlier in the buying cycle when people are doing research and not yet ready to convert... for example, "DVD players". They are generally 1 or 2 word phrases that have LOTS of competition (millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of results at Google when you search for the phrase).

Long tail terms are more specific keyword phrases searched for later in the buying cycle closer to when people are ready to convert and buy... for example, "Samsung Model x9123 blu-ray DVD player". They are generally 3, 4, 5, or more word phrases that have less competition.

Generally speaking, your home page should target the broadest terms you want your site to rank for (i.e. your head terms). The deeper you click into the site from the home page, the more specific or long tailed the targeted keywords should be...

Each URL on your site gets ranked separately. With the exception of the home page, each page on your site should target a single keyword phrase (possibly 2-3 keyword phrases if they are VERY similar). Once you decide on the phrases the page will target, they should appear in the <title> in order of importance - most important first and if applicable, least important last.

Use a single <h1> element on each page with the primary targeted keyword phrase from the <title> (or a slight variation) in the <h1>.

Use a multiple <h2> elements on each page with the primary (and if applicable, secondary and tertiary targeted keyword phrases) from the <title> (and/or slight variations) in the various <h2>s.

Include those keyword phrases throughout the content of the page. Be sure it sounds natural as if you were explaining something to your neighbor or a family member. Don't make it sound like you're stuffing keywords into the content just to get ranked. Moderation is key.

When you link from one page on your site (Page A) to another page on your site (Page B) use a keyword phrase (or slight variation) from the <title> of Page B as the link text for the hyperlink on Page A. In otherwords:

When Google crawls Page A and discovers the link to Page B, the link text tellse Google what the target page is about. Do this same thing when you build links on other sites pointing back to your site. Use keyword phrases from the <title> of the page being linked to as the link text of the hyperlink.

Link Development
Without a doubt the hardest yet most important part of SEO. I would suggest reading around in the link development forums here under Digital Point -> Marketing -> Link Development for a few days.

 

Thanks Canonical! Very valuable info to a newcomer like myself! I appreciate you taking time to reply and will definetly apply your suggestions to my site.

Can you, or anyone else, provide any insight on what sort of keyword "statistics" i should be going for when selecting my keywords and/or keyword phrases? Do I comletely stay away from keywords that have a "high" level of competition? In Google terms, whats the highest % rating of competition I should consider? Also, is there a minimum Volume level I should consider when selecting? Any info/direction on this would be appreciated!!

Moose77

 

A master clasS! Very good explanation!

 

It depends on how much work you're willing to put into it... how much you think you can accomplish MAINLY in getting back links from other sites pointing to your site with the relevant keyword phrases you want to rank for.

"refinance" for instance has 180,000,000 results. This is a VERY competitive head term. It's not likely at all that you will rank on page 1 for this anytime in the next 5 years lol. Lendingtree.com who ranks one has something like 3.3 million backlinks to their home page according to Yahoo! A LOT of those likely contain the word refinance... at least 10s of thousands. So it wouldn't be reasonable to target that...

However you might be able to compete for something like "Refinance in Rock Hill, SC" (only 27,500 results). However, if there is no one searching for that keyword phrase then ranking #1 for it is worthless. The key I think is striking the right balance between finding keywords that have at least a decent amount of search volume and yet are not too competitive for you to be able to compete (i.e. that don't require WAAAAAAAAAAAY more inbound links from other sites than you could every get).

I like to use http://www.google.com/insights/search to get an idea about keyword search volumes as well as get other suggestions for keywords. I start out with a broad term, search insights... look at bottom of page to see top 10 related searches... drill down on those... etc. to get ideas for keyword phrases to target. You have to play with it a good bit to understand the results, but it's a great free tool IMO. Combined with other things like Hitwise (if you have access to it), it can be powerful.

 

Thanks again for taking the time to share your knowledge Canonical! I definitely have a more comfortable feel for things after reading your posts... which is exactly what I was hoping for. Thank you very much!!

Moose77

 

I have another questions in regards to how Google (or any search engine) "discovers" keywords in the title (or anywhere on the page, for that matter).

For instance... If I'm targeting the keyword phrase "Tractors", will having "All About Tractors" in the title produce a "hit" on the word "tractors".... or would i have to have my title say "All About - Tractors". I guess i'm wondering how/if keywords/phrases are parsed. Does a phrase that has no separation by commas or dashes have to be searched for using the exact phrase to produce a hit? I'm probably explaining my questions horribly... but if anyone has any input I'd appreciate it.

Thanks!

Moose77

 

It depends on what you think people are searching for and what you want to rank for. If you think people go to Google and search for "all about tractors" then you might actually want to rank for that. So a good <title> for that page might be "All About Tractors". If you think a lot of people search for tractors and you want to rank for that (and think you can actually compete w/ all the other sites trying to rank for it - remember that would be a head term) then "Tractors" might be a better <title>.

Personally, I try to maximize keyword density within the <title>, <h1>, <h2> elements... ESPECIALLY in the <title>, to a slightly lesser degree in the <h1>, and to an even lesser degree in the <h2>, <h3>, etc. So if the primary keyword phrase I want to rank for is "tractors" then my <title> would likely be "tractors" (100% keyword density within the <title> element itself). If I'm trying to rank for "tractors" and my <title> were "All About Tractors" then this wouldn't be as good of a <title> IMO because the keyword phrase "tractors" only has a 33.33% keyword density within the <title>.

If I have a page that I am primarily targeted the word "mortgage" but there are a couple VERY similar but less important terms that I want the page to also rank for like "mortgage loans" (2nd most important) and "home loans" (3rd most important) then I have several options. For example,

<title>Mortgage Home Loans</title>

would help me rank for "mortgage", "mortgage loans", and "home loans"... but each word has a 33% keyword density. The following:

<title>Mortgage Loans - Home Loans</title>

would also help me rank for all 3 phrases... but now "mortgage" (though it appears first) only has a 25% density, "loans" has a 50% density, and "home" has a 25% density... So I don't really like this either... So I would probably go with something like:

<title> Mortgage - Mortgage Loans - Mortgage Home Loans</title>

Now "mortgage" has a 50% keyword density, "loans" has a 33.33% density, "Home" has a 16.66% density... I'm not sure exactly how multiword densities are calculated but it's quite obvious that "mortgage" is the most important keyword phrase I want to rank for in the <title> w/ 50% density (3/6 words) AND appearing 1st.

Basically, remove as many superfilous words from the <title> as you can since it carries the most weight of any on page factor. If you're trying to rank for the primary keyword phrase "tractors" then don't use extra words like "all about tractors" in your <title>. It only dilutes the keyword density of your targeted keyword phrase within the <title>. The <title> should be VERY focused. If you want it to rank for primarily "tractors" but also secondarily "all about tractors" then I would use "Tractors - All About Tractors" as my <title>. That gives you 50% keyword density for "tractors" (your primary keyword phrase) AND it's first in the <title> and "All" and "About" have a 25% keyword density each.

Now, when I get to the <h1> I lighten up a bit on density and don't worry quite so much about it... I wouldn't make the <h1> (page header) be just "Tractors" typically. You want the page header usualy to be a little more jazzy to catch the readers interest... so my <h1> in the main body of my page where I'm trying to rank for "tractors" might be "All About Tractors" even though I'm targeting primarily "tractors". At least it contains the primary keyword/keyword phrase I'm targeting. Yes the density is lower than if the <h1> were "Tractors" but this is where common sense and gut comes into play... This is where I start trading off a little SEO to gain some usability and trying to keep the visitor's interest so I can keep them on the site.

Then on my "tractor" page in the left rail or right rail of the page I might add little components highlighting other pages on the site. These components might look similar to:

Note that the <h2> includes the word "tractor". Yes it's singular and my targeted keyword is "tractors" (plural) but this will still help the page rank for "tractors", just not as much as if it were the plural "tractors". But that's ok. It's actually good to work in slight variations like singular vs. plural, different conjugations or tenses of verbs that might be part of your keyword phrases, etc. It makes the page read more naturally and not appear as if you are spamming a single keyword. I might even use "farm equipment" instead of "tractors" in an <h2> because Google likely knows through lexical semantic analysis that "farm equipment" is very closely related (almost a synonym) for "tractors".

You get an added bonus by creating these types of spotlight components on pages throughout your site. Now I have my "Tractors" page linking to my "tractor maintenance" page (relevant page linking to anther VERY related page) with "maintaining a tractor" as the link link text. The <title> of the "tractor maintenance" page might be something like "Tractor Maintenance"... The link text has "tractor" in it, and Google will know that "maintaining" is VERY closely related to "maintenance" so it should be a nice slight variation of the targeted keyword phrase "tractor maintenance" as the link text.

I have been VERY successful using the above approach.

Hope that helps...

 

For Google external keyword tool I would look at local results as global probably won't be particularly relevant to you. Export as a csv file, and sort by traffic. As a rough guide look at advertiser competition as how hard it will be to rank the phrases. You are looking to try and rank for relevant phrases that have a high traffic to difficulty ratio.

Yes, and go for one or 2 core phrases, then several long tail phrases, perhaps containing your key phrases. As you start to rank for these long tail phrases you can concentrate on ranking the core phrases.

 

Do you recommend including the business name in the Title? For example, "TractorInfo.com - Tractors"? Based on what you said, I would think that adding the biz names deflates the keyword density. Is that correct?

Thanks again!!!! You've renewed my confidence in my project!

Moose77

 

I never include the business name in <title> on my pages EXCEPT for pages that truely are about the business itself (not it's products)... like Contact Us or About Us pages. On those I actually do include the business name. I think people just like to see their "name in lights" so they like to put it on every page. But you should rank well already for the site name because it is your domain and a lot of other sites over time will end up linking to you w/ the site name as the link text. If a client of mine absolutely insists on having their business name in the <title> of every page, I insist on putting it at the end. But I typically refuse to include it except for contact us and about us pages 99% of the time.

 

Its not difficult to get 30 posts in ur account !!!

 

Should the broad keyword used on the homepage be included on all of the deeper pages as seperate keyword? ... or is the idea to have the broad term within the long-tail phrases and to use only the long-tail phrase on the deepr pages? Not sure if that question makes sense??

For instance:
If my broad term is "Music" and one of the product categories on the main page is "Rock Music"... should the keyword(s) for the main page of the "Rock Music" category be ["Music", "Rock Music"].... or just "Rock Music"? Same question going deeper... with "Soft Rock Music" being a 3rd level category. Just use "Soft Rock Music" as my keyword phrase.... or do I include "Music", "Rock Music" and "Soft Rock Music"?

Thanks!!

Moose

 

Also, what about using a keyword phrase for your main page, that may not necessarily be the most specific to your content, but has has a low competition rating and significant volume? Is it a poor strategy to use a phrase on the homepage as your target phrase that does not necessarily carry through the rest of the site?

For instance:

Homepage keyword phrase = "All For Pets"
... and then have "Large Pets", "Small Pets", "Long-hair Pets", etc. as categories on the homepage and use those terms as target keyword phrases for each respective page? If thats ok, do I also include "all for pets" in the meta title and keywords for the category pages (going along with my question above)?

Thanks!!

Moose77

 

If I had a site about music and I had different categories of music (like rock) and different subcategories of music (like soft rock music) I might end up with something like

www.example.com/ (TITLE: Music)
www.example.com/rock-music/ (TITLE: Rock - Rock Music)
www.example.com/rock-music/soft-rock/ (TITLE: Soft Rock - Soft Rock Music)
www.example.com/rock-music/heavy-metal/ (TITLE: Heavy Metal - Heavy Metal Music - Heavy Rock Music)
etc.
www.example.com/top-40-music/ (TITLE: Top 40 Music)
etc.

But it's hard to say... It depends on how people typically search for those categories and subcategories.

If you have some one-off term you want to rank for that has low competion and significant search volume, IMO you should have a page dedicated to this and NOT try to make the home page rank for it. This way you can have a <title>, <h1>, <h2>s, content, etc. optimized for that focused keyword phrase. Don't dilute the keywords in your home page <title> to try to pickup rankings for some random one-off term.

 

if i were you, i would stick with the same keywords as target keyword phrases for every page of my website

 

Thanks Canonical,
Best overview of seo i've ever read! You should start a blog, rep added!

 

Hi,

Hi,

We provide all the SEO services without cost... If you are interested, please let us know. We also provide

banners, logos, templates, brochures and such without charging. Waiting for your reply...

regards,
steve

 

Working on one now... thanks!

 

hi Canonical, you seem very familiar about this, and I am very interested to try the suggestion above.
keep up the good work and thanks for this