Research Your Targeted Keywords
When you are looking to optimize for specific keywords that will draw traffic to your niche marketing site, it is vital that you take the time to actually research the keywords that you have chosen to invest your time and money into so that you are not utilizing keywords that not enough people are searching for or that may be too broad in their scope.
For example, if you are selling fitness equipment through your site, you would not want to optimize for keywords like “workout”, “fitness”, and “exercise” because the users looking for those keywords are probably looking up a variety of subjects, from the best workout for women to what to eat before you work out. If you are out there promoting your fitness equipment site, then you must ensure that your keywords have been well researched and will give you the right resulting traffic to your site.
Start by optimizing for long-tail keywords, which have the brand and the model specified within the keyword itself so that you can know that the people searching for that term are most likely going to be looking to buy since their search is so narrow. Also, you can easily rank as number one for that keyword, such as “yoga fitness mat”, and you can link them directly to that page of your site instead of your home page.
If they are searching for a “yoga fitness mat”, then they want to be taken directly to that page to purchase and not back to your home back, where they may have to relocate to find what they were looking for all along.
On the flip side, you also do not want to be too specific in your keyword that you are optimizing because then you will be putting your effort into something that virtually no one is searching for. To research your keywords, go to sites like keyworddiscovery.com, wordtracker.com,and Goodle Adwords keyword tool. (See our step-by-step video tutorial: How to use Google’s Keyword Tool properly.)
There you can type in the keyword you are looking for to see how many people search for it on a monthly basis and how big the competition is based on people who run ads on those specific key words. Note that all three of these sites are prime for finding the best keywords for you because they will give you suggestions based on the keywords that you enter. So helpful!
So in conclusion, you will see that there is a delicate balance in finding the most useful keyword to rank your site higher. Do not just be careless in your selection of keywords that you are optimizing because you may find that you are barking up the wrong tree, and how disappointing is that to spend your time and effort on something that is not even working for you or your business? I’m just trying to save us all some time here.
When you are able to locate the best keywords that are both long-tail, yet broad enough, you will begin to see an immediate increase in traffic to your site because it will be like you are finally casting your net into the right waters. If people out there are looking to find the highest quality yoga mat, then you need to make sure that your site is ranking at the top every time. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya!
Aim To Rank For Long Tail Keywords
When new bloggers start out writing about their favorite topic, they are excited and just writing away. They then start to investigate why they don’t really have much traffic, and they start learning about search engine optimization (SEO). So, they start targeting their main keyword. Let’s say it’s a blogger writing about his debt, and how he hopes to end his debt through blogging. He starts to target the keywords “debt management.” After doing some SEO basics, and maybe a little bit of link building, he still is frustrated by not being in the top few pages on Google for “debt management” so he starts to give up. Instead of giving up, he should aim for long tail keywords.
His problem was that he was trying to blog about a keyword that many people are competing for. When there’s a lot of competition, it’s harder to rank higher in Google, therefore less visitors from Google. So, how can this problem be solved? By using long tail keywords. Long tail keywords are groups of keywords that are not too common when they are by themselves, but when they are grouped, they will be able to draw more customers to your website. Also, since those groups of keywords aren’t as popular, then it will be a lot easier to rank higher in the search engines. And since you’ll be targeting a fairly specific set of keywords, the people searching for those keywords will be more valuable customers since their search results will be laser targeted.
So how do you find long tail keywords for your site? The first step is to dive into your site statistics. Most statistics programs show you the keywords that were used to find you in the search engine. Start looking at some of the longer phrases that were used to find your site, and then write an article about that topic specifically. Also take a look at where you stand in the search engines already for those phrases. That will give you an idea if you really need to target that phrase with a few pages about that topic, or if one page will do. Make sure that you link to this new page from a couple of your other pages and external pages, using that long tail keyword as your anchor text for the link.
Another way is to use a free online tool from Google. (You can find it at: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal) You can search for the generic term that you want to use and it will often give a nice long list of popular searches, with a rough estimate of how many searches a month. (To see a more accurate monthly search volume, change the “Match Type” from “Broad” to “Exact”. Try searching the term “debt management” to get an ideas of long tail keywords.
The thing to remember when targeting long tail keywords is the value of small things when multiplied. Sure, it’d be awesome to rank first for a keyword that gets 300 searches a day. But, that will be a little bit harder. If, instead, you focus on 10 long tail keywords with 30 searches a day each, you’ll still get about 300 visitors to your site, but it’ll be a lot easier since you’ll probably rank higher for those keywords since they are long tail, and therefore less competitive.
