A very common question
I frequently get e-mails from individuals wanting to know how they can get their website to rank high for a highly competitive keyword i.e. forex or real estate.
And the worst part is they don’t have that keyword in their domain, title tags, or anywhere on their page.
And yet they expect me to somehow give them a magic bullet that will make them number one on Google for a supercompetitive keyword.
Sorry folks, but it just doesn’t work that way.
The Secret
The secret to getting traffic is to select the correct keywords. This is the very first step.
If you skip this step then nothing else will work.
Sure, I have lots of posts with creative ways to build back links get your site indexed and to rank high in the search engines. But all of this is built on the assumption that the correct keywords have been selected.
How to select the correct keywords
Selecting the right keywords comes down to two things: relevance and competition.
If you take care of these two things everything else will fall in place.
So what do I mean by relevance?
When selecting a keyword you must make sure that it is super relevant to whatever product you’re selling.
You must know the needs and wants of the visitor you want to attract. You must define exactly what they are looking for. And then choose your keywords based on this.
I recently received an e-mail from someone asking me how to get their site to rank high for the keyword: computers.
The problem is that you know nothing about people that search for computers. They could be looking for computer parts, or computer repairs, or computer software, or computer tutorials, or computer classes, or computer books.
The picture below displays the most common computer related keywords according to the Google wonder wheel. (Learn more about the Google wonder wheel here.)
You can see how it is very difficult to advertise to people that have such diverse wants and needs.
So the solution is simple: choose keywords that are very specific.
A good keyword phrase tells a story about a person and helps you to understand their wants and needs.
For example, the keyword phrase “stop hair breakage” immediately tells you what a person is looking for. Armed with this knowledge you can select highly targeted advertisements and making more money and get better conversions.
Typically good keyword phrases are comprised of 3 to 6 words. “Stop hair breakage” has 3 words and “how to stop smoking” has 4 words.
How to determine the competition
Once you’ve selected a good keyword phrase it is time to evaluate the competition. It is very likely that you have found several potential keyword phrases and you would like to know which one is best.
One thing to remember is that keyword phrases with more words in them typically have less competition.
For each keyword phrase that I am considering I go through the following steps. I have outlined how to do keyword competitive analysis in other posts but I will put it in this one for your convenience.
The process
I use Google’s free tool to determine how many people are searching for a particular keyword phrase. You can check use the tool here.
For my keyword stop hair breakage there are 2,900 monthly searches on average.
Next I will go to Google and search for: stop hair breakage
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&q=stop+hair+breakage&aq=0&oq=stop+hair+br&aqi=g4g-m6
Looking at the search results I can see that there are 75,300 websites competing for this phrase.
Next I will go to Google and search for: “stop hair breakage”
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=”stop+hair+breakage”&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g2g-m2
Looking at the search results there appear to be over a million competing sites. This seems a little off considering the previous search results. I may choose to ignore this.
Now I’m going to search Google and see how many people have the the words stop hair breakage in their title
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=allintitle:stop+hair+breakage&aq=f&oq=&aqi=
There are only 1,480 sites that have these words in their title. This is a low score and it looks very good.
Now I am going to search Google and see how many people have the words stop hair breakage in their URL
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=allinurl:stop+hair+breakage&aq=f&oq=&aqi=
Only 373 websites have these words in their URL. I can definitely compete with that!
I go through this process for each keyword phrase that I’m considering. When I have completed this process there will usually be at least one keyword phrase that stands out having the most searches and the least amount of competition.
The next steps
Once you have identified your keywords it is time to optimize your site for the search engines using those keywords:
- 7 Ways To Improve Your Search Engine Optimization
- 11 Ways To Get Indexed By Google Super Fast And Start Building Backlinks
After you’ve optimized you need to start creating back links and start getting traffic:
- How To Build Back Links Super Fast
- FREE Back Links To Your Site
- 4 Ways To Get Traffic From YouTube
- 5 Reasons Your Website Is Not Getting Any Traffic
- My Traffic Generation Checklist
- 6 Reasons Quality Content Receives More Traffic And Makes More Money
- 10 Ways To Get More Traffic From Twitter
What do you think?
I would love to hear your thoughts so leave a comment below!
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks Nick for this step by step system, onece again simple and to the point, like so many things effective doesn’t have to mean complicated…
Thanks again
Brye
Just where were you when I was just beginning my online journey? It’s a great find here, I bookmarked your site sir! you rock!
Ive just read your step by step ‘keyword’ choice of words. Is it really this simple? I must check out the other links…fast! Thank you so much for taking the time to help us newbies on the Internet.
I will be talking to my website builder (lovely lady) and just maybe, my’ pet au pair’ site will reap some new business. I always assumed your tips were for computer ‘people’…Google seems to be U.S. based..so perhaps I need to check that the word ‘Spain’ are on the front page.
Sincerely and with thanks
Elisabeth
Thanks Elisabeth! Keyword research is fairly straightforward but you can make it more complicated if you like.
A lovely detailed article. I liked the way you presented your views. Many a time I face the same problem with regard to the relevance and importance of keywords. Thanks for your help.
Thanks a lot the info was very useful.
I loved the article and the way you presented it. It was easy to follow for a fool like me. I tell you, this has helped me a lot.
You have excellent content for amateurs like me. I could follow your thoughts and advices very easily, and I guess this would help me great deal in my website design and promotion. Thanks.