Is Your Site a Keyword Flea Market?
February 10, 2008
Don’t turn your site into a "keyword flea market!"
A friend of mine recently asked me to review the search optimization work he’d just done on his business website.
I clicked on "View Page Source" in Firefox to see the keywords he’d included in his HTML code…
… And I almost had a heart attack!
Turns out he’d included more than 60 different keywords in his keyword metatags… and most of them had no connection to what his site was actually selling.
You probably know that one thing we here at IMC preach is, "Don’t turn your site into a flea market!"
In other words, don’t try and sell a whole bunch of totally different products — such as pet supplies, jewelry, and sporting goods — on the same site, because you’ll find it absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to target your marketing efforts to the right people.
(Why? Because the people who go online to buy jewelry are NOT the same people who are searching for pet supplies or sporting goods on the Internet — and if you try to appeal to all of them at the same time, you’ll have such a mixed marketing message you won’t be able to speak to ANY of them properly.)
Well, the same principle applies to your keywords.
Whatever you do, don’t use the "flea market" approach to your search engine optimization efforts.
You have to keep your keywords as focused as possible!
When you use a keyword research tool like Keyword Discovery or Wordtracker, go for the specific keyword phrases. Don’t get sucked in by big traffic numbers, thinking the more people you get to your site the better.
After all, why brag about traffic when it doesn’t turn into a sale? Say, for example, your site sells an "all natural" solution for acid stomach problems…
… You start to do your keyword research and you discover that the keyword phrase "natural remedies" has 288 daily searches — but over 2,000,000 sites competing for it.
… While the phrase, "acid reflux natural remedies" has 67 daily searches — with just over 11,000 competing sites.
Do you want to spend all your time and effort trying to optimize for the first phrase, which gets more searches — but is so general, you’ll never know how many of those searchers want to buy your stomach acid remedy?
(Not to mention the HUGE number of competitors it has!)
Or would you go for the second term, which only has 67 people searching for it — knowing those 67 people are looking for EXACTLY what you offer? (With a MUCH lower competition number to boot!)
Obviously, the second term is the one to choose!
Sure, you might get less traffic (though with over 2,000,000 competing sites, I doubt you’ll get much traffic from the first term) — but the visitors you DO get will be MUCH more likely to buy your product.
So make sure you focus your efforts on the specific keywords that describe EXACTLY what your site offers. Don’t be tempted by more general keywords with higher traffic numbers — because they’ll never send you the traffic you want.
Finally, remember to optimize each page of your site for only 2-3 keywords MAXIMUM. It’s literally impossible to optimize a web page for more than that.
That’s why it’s so important for you to do the research and find the keywords that will pull the BEST visitors to your site — not just the MOST — so you can focus all your optimization efforts on them!
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When you say 2-3 keywords, do you mean individual words, or keyword phrases? In other words, could I optimise for these phrases?
acid reflux natural remedies
acid reflux natural treatments
stomach acid natural remedies
I understand that you can only optimize for 2 - 3 keywords in the Title tag, alt tags and content, but can it still be beneficial to add more to the Keywords tag? I like to use this to add in misspellings, reversed words in keyword phrases, and other related keywords that didn’t make the final top 3 cut.
I know that search engines look at keyword density in Title tags & content, but will adding additional keywords to the Keyword tag dilute the relevancy of your primary keywords in the Keyword tag as well?
Hi! DERECK, ihave 25 years experience in what i do but i dont have experience in computers i dont know how to build up a perfect web site how to find adreess to offer my service i am been working for companies all my life and now i have my own place but i have problems to find custumers i am a mechanic and i see my boss loking for jobs in the computer and he get it from the companies who read his ofering but my problem is i dont know not even how to look for e mails let say i want to send a message to u haul i dont know how to get the e mail adress ffrom them i need a place how to find a list of emails to offer my work and if you can sell me imformation will apreciate i need increase my custumers we are in times that computers do everything almost thank you for your service i hope i can affor it but you need to tellme what to do , how much ,howlong, and when and in which way you can help me. this is what i really need to keep going for now and keep getting education in the future see you god bleess you.
Hi Derek!
I totally agree with your knowledge and teaching. I take as much of it as I can. The only thing that bothers me is seeing me opped to IEC everytime I try to get in Info Biz Creator so that I practice on my nich market search.
While waiting for something to be fixed for me, I continue attending both IEC and IBC calls.
Livin ,ID # 3109449.
Having the right keywords and keyword phrases are, of course, of paramount importance if you want to rank high in the search engines. Most discussions on this topic concentrate on using the key words in the headline and body of the web page.
One additional place to focus on using your key words is in the name of your domain. Studies have shown that about 20% of the search engine ranking factors center around having a high scoring URL.
Now you still need to make sure you have a lot of quality inbound links and good keyword-rich content on the page itself, but having a good domain name contributes to getting a high ranking.
The only tool I am aware of that helps you come up with a potentially high-ranking domain name is called Nemeas. It’s quite a neat tool. You give it the keyword you have settled on and a list of domain names you have come up with for your web site. Nemeas then statistically analyzes each of your domain names against a database of both high and low-ranking domains and URLs and scores each of domain name in your list. You just pick the highest ranking name for your site.
Hi Derek,
I have asked you this question before but I did not get direct answer to it, so I want to ask you again. How do I search for niches in the search engines to find
out want people are looking for? I must tell you that I have little or no knowledge of
computer and internet. Since my divorce six months ago I have reorganised my
life as a single man now. I want to go into internet business which will suit my situation now. I have been making research since last year but I still don’t know
how to find niches. I know you and Nichol have mentioned using Wordtracker etc but I still can’t seem to understand how it works. I just finished using some keywords searching in Google. Please can you explain in an easy way to understand how one can master how to find niches? Your earlier explanation in the email I receive was a bit confusing because after I tied it in Wordtracker, Yahoo and Google I still did not understand it, especially how to analyse the result. How do I find what people are looking for like you said in your video?
Thanks.
Leaving your meta keywords alone is better than keyword stuffing. Long tailing can actually bring your better traffic pretty soon from search engines (sometimes even in less than few hours).
Question : “How do I search for niches in the search engines to find out want people are looking for?”
The best possible answer is to look around yourself and notice what people are buying/selling or interested in… Make a list of 20 possibles and then use wordtracker to search those list one by one.
It makes sense to optimize your keywords to reach specific targeted potential customers who are searching for the exact products and services you provides in order to earn income quickly and effortlessly.
If you want to sell practically everything, then create as many niche sites as you can with each relevant keyword optimized domain names. Then position your sites on the web of the Internet for your customers to find you. It is better that way than advertising your keywords flea market style.
Hello,
How to analize the result of research? When you type your main keyword, the program gives you thousands of phrase, then you need to analyze and sort them out and make a list of 100 niche keywords for your site. I think if you focus on Adsense, concentrate on:
- Average Bid Price (approximately this is your future income if someone ckicks)
- No. of Google Ads (the more Adds of Google Adwords the better, barometor of competition)
- No. of Searches (Searches results)
- AllInTitle (by this parameter you will see how many sites/your compatitors have your keywords in Title
- KEI2 (This tells us the effectiveness of a keyword in relation to the keyword ‘demand’ (i.e. number of ‘Searches’) and ’supply’ (i.e. ‘AllInTitle’ competing webpages). A keyword with a KEI2 value of 100 or higher is considered a good keyword.
You can use Niche Keywords Database
http://www.doublewellbeing.com/?page_id=66 to research keywords. They have English, French, Russian, German, Spanish, Italian databases and Domains search database.
It makes sense to use 2 - 3 keyword or keyword phrases to optimize a web page, but what about using synonyms or related keywords. My understanding is that using a wider net of related keywords or phrases give a more stable and probably better ranking at the search engines.
Hi Derek,
When I first started, I made a lot of mistakes that I had made.
Quickly learnt from my mistakes to target customers that are searching for specific key phrases or words.
Brad Callen gave me a good insight into SEO. However, I lost his software as corruption on my pc meant re-installing Windows XP (COUNTLESS TIMES) and Brad not getting my messages for support to re-install my purchaed items.
My belief is always to use applications, data and store files on server and have regular back ups.
Looking forward to continuing my learning, using your tools to help me grow my business. Annoucing here the launch of my first Blog on 24/7 AutoBlog Fast track marketing.
Look forward to you and your readers commenting on my AutoBlog.
Here is the site 24/7 Autoblog with lots of tools for marketing and resources to save money and time for any marketing company http://www.wealthonauto.com/members/Veddpro2/blog.htmยป
Keep up the good work.
Partners in Success,
Yogesh Vedd
www.vedd.biz
www.veddbiz.com
Yogesh Vedd
Hi Derek: I really appreciate your support. As a neophye and technology challanged individual, I am trying to be brave and to become computer literate. You are helping me be much more brave and am taking the jump soon.
You are giving me courage.
I am green as grass when it comes to BLOGs I am trying to learn, but there is so much to do so.
I am still learning how to do all of this niche marketing, Keywords, etc.
I am a real neophyte and am learning a lot just from these emails
I am considering having a blog and I want to use it to be able to get email addresses. I am planning on producing a Healthy Blueberry Store and after that a Healthy Chocolate Store. I have a Blueberry cookbook nearly comwill offer for the blueberry store. We are organic farmers and raise U-Pick blueberries in season. I also am planning to sign up to be a Healthy Chocolate store site owner and expect to have a cookbook for that store as well.
Blueberries and Dark Chocolate have high antioxidents and are considered very high in bringing good health to individuals who need to improve their health.
I have yet to start writing my key words and key word phrases, but of course antioxidents and healthy will be there for sure.
Again Thanks for helping me get the courage to tackle this great adventure!
Nikki Beare
lordbeare@cs.completed that I