Saturday, December 17, 2011

Conflicting Keyword Advice

Online "experts" are always offering conflicting keyword advice. This is because different keywords are good for different reasons. Once you know the factors involved, you can decide which ones are best for your web site.
1. Make sure there is enough total demand for a keyword. This will vary according to the nature of your site. If you are making a few cents per visitor an average, you need more traffic than sites that average a dollar per visitor. I won't optimize for a keyword that is searched less than a few hundred times per month.
2. Look at keyword demand/supply ratios. Last month there were 289,000 searches for "fishing," but with 35 million results showing up on a Google search for the term, can you compete? A Keyword term like "bass fishing tips," with 3,700 searches, and 31,000 results is a more likely winner.
3. Consider total supply. Google shows 300 results for "dirt bagging," 15 times the 20 monthly searches for the term. Still, it is easy to get on the first page of results for the term. A keyword with a demand of a million, and a million search results has a better ratio, but can you really get on the first page of search results? Whatever the ratio, you have to be able to compete against the total supply. Nobody will find you on the tenth page of results.
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