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Choosing Keywords to Land Your Webpages on Google’s 1st Page

Picking the right keywords can take time and a large chalkboard

No-one knows the exact way that Google (or any other search engine) ranks websites.  There are over 200 factors that are analyzed that determine how your website will rank for any given keyword set.  It is known that content is king.  If your website is easy to find, navigate, and gives a reason for users to return it will likely have a higher search result.  This article is all about making your website easier to find.  Read more specific detail in Step 7 Implementation for specifics on how to use the keywords you have chosen.

A small business client of ours asked us a question this week how we go about choosing keywords for our website to land on Google's first page.  Many small businesses with limited budgets need a process for choosing keywords themselves without paying for automated or professional keyword assistance.  We remind our clients that picking accurate keywords and optimizing their web pages for them enables natural search traffic, which is the best (and cheapest) kind of traffic to have.  Our own team has considered several different tactics for picking keywords over the years, but the one we have the most success with is detailed in the following 7 Step Process.

Step 1: Brainstorm

Of utmost importance is thinking of what products, services, news,  promotions, etc. you offer that have a high probability of being interesting to the target market.  Begin with that list and then come up with some basic keyword ideas that you believe people may search for that are interested in those topics.  The picture at right gives an example of an online fitness training company brainstorming keywords it may like to optimize its site for.  Choose your keyword sets and move on to step 2.

Step 2: Research additional Keywords based on Actual Search

Very important is to not just pick keywords that your team thinks may get searched a lot, but to use an analysis tool such as Google's Keyword Tool to find words relevant to your products or services that your target market actually searches for.  Imagine the example for the online fitness training company having selected the keyword set "online fitness coaching."  When putting the keyword set in the keyword tool they realize that no-one ever searches for that keyword set.  However, the tool does suggest to them "online fitness trainers" and "online fitness training" which generate 590 and 3,600 local searches on a monthly basis respectively.  Notice that just because one search generates 3,600 local searches per month does not necessarily mean it will be the best overall result until we finish the entire process.  Also note that the Google Keyword Tool does provide Local Search data as well as Global Search Data.  To avoid confusion 'local' here means in the country you are accessing the search from (USA in this case).  Also, to be even more specific you can use the tool to only look for phrase or exact matches monthly searches to be even more accurate.

Step 3: Cross Reference Potential Keyword Sets against Google Search Results

It's always good to know how much competition you may have.  That is exactly what we do here as we take those keyword sets that have been selected and run a simple keyword phrase search in Google.  To run this test, simply go to Google and enter in the keyword sets in parentheses (like this "online fitness trainers") to obtain the search results figures Google presents.  In this example Google presented 498,000 results for "online fitness trainers" and 30,000 results for "online fitness training'. These figures represent the total amount of web pages you will compete against when optimizing for each keyword set.

Step 4: Obtain the Keyword Score for each Keyword Set

Finally, you will divide the Search Results total by the Local Searches total to obtain each Keyword Score.  The lower the Keyword Score, the better as it means there are more monthly searches and less competition for that keyword set.  In this case you will find that "online fitness trainers" has a score of 844 while "online fitness training" has a score of 8.  Then you will select the keyword set with the lowest score for your page.

Step 5: (Important but Optional) Head to Head Comparison with First Page Search Results

For even higher probability of choosing keywords that may gain you the respect of the search engines' algorithms, you can take the process a step further.  If you are evaluating many keywords with similar Keyword Scores, you can compare your site against the websites that come up on Google's 1st page of search results for any keyword set.  Using Alexa's free toolbar ranking system, compare how your website ranks against the other 10 pages on Google's first page of results.  If you rank higher than a majority of them, then you have a much greater chance of replacing them on the first page of search results.

Step 6: Implementation

Now that you have found your keywords, how do you use them?  Well, you don't load them up in the keywords meta tag and expect good things to happen. Google has explicitly stated that they no longer use that factor in search rankings because of the amount of spamming found there.  You do want to use your keywords in the Title, Description, link URL, and definitely in the overall content of the page.  Those locations, especially the Title, help Google understand what your page is about and deem it as relevant to its users.

Step 7: Monitor Your Results

It is very important to monitor your results and constantly improve.  You can download the RankChecker add-on for Mozilla to easily run your keywords and see how your optimization efforts are doing.  If you find there are words that just aren't working, then go through the process again and choose new keywords.

Finally, there is no guarantee for how to land your web-page on Google's first page of results.  If any company says they can guarantee that, your best option is to turn around and run as far as you can from that liar.  For more information from Google about how they rank websites, see the Google Webmaster Blog.