The Maine SEO Blog

Dear Nicki,

Are there any advantages to purchasing a domain with strong keywords and redirecting it to my website?

–Wondering in Wisconsin

Dear Wondering,

No, there are seemingly no SEO advantages. But let me take a step back. I would argue that if this was a new website, then you might as well go with a keyword rich domain. There are still discrepancies as to whether or not search engines actually pay attention to keyword rich domains. Humans, however, might click on a keyword rich URL before what I would call a spammy-looking domain.

The only way this strategy might possibly work is if a) you promote those other sites for tracking purposes or b) other websites link to your other domains (assuming they use keyword rich anchor text) and the link juice would thereby be passed to your current website. But, why waste the in-between domain and simply worry about promoting your current domain and getting keyword rich backlinks to your actual site?

The thing is, if you’re doing all the right things at your existing site, there’s no need to start building a network of keyword rich redirects.

Nicki Hicks
No Need to Red Flag Google

You’ll have to excuse me, I have a little Paula Cole stuck in my head…

I feel like I’m constantly talking about the art of keywords and keyword research, but never about where keywords should actually go.  So, put your keywords in the…

Page

• Title – put the best of the best here. Changing the title is the easiest way to increase your on-page search visibility.  It’s both at the top of the page (up near your maximize/minimize/close buttons) and the link to the page on the Search Engine Results.  Include your location if your business is local.
• Header – synonyms/alternative words used in the title – you really don’t want to use the term “cheap hotel” over and over on a page.  You could mix it up with “Affordable Inns” (if that’s what people are searching for, that is).
• Copy – duh. I can not emphasize enough that copy should both incorporate keywords, while also balancing your company’s tone and making the page informative.
• Navigation – make the links in the nav short, sweet, and keyword rich!
• Links – “Click here” really isn’t going to cut it. Incorporate keywords in the anchor text – as those words have a little more search power than regular words on the page.

Code

• Meta-description – or the “search engine description”.  It should be a good synopsis of the page, incorporating those keywords, as well as your location and contact information.
• Meta-keywords – Yahoo is the only one that pays attention to these, and it doesn’t hurt to use them.  Just be sure to keep it to 10 or 15 keywords and phrases, all specific to that particular page.
• Alt Tags - image descriptions can be a great way to acquire traffic from image searchers.

Web Marketing

• Blogging and Article Marketing – As every blogpost and article is a new page, it’s a great way to focus on a niche audience or a hot topic.  You can further optimize with categories and tags too.
• Video – Optimizing for video is becoming more important with universal search – YouTube offers great options for optimizing your videos.

Nicki Hicks
Maine SEO

Twilight of Stroudwater by Charles Frederick Kimball

I think one of the most difficult parts of doing keyword research is selling the client on it.  You start with the most scientific of processes: down and dirty keyword research, where you quite literally “figure out what people are searching for”.  Seems logical enough.

Then comes the tough part: How can I use “Brangelina” in a sentence? (Just kidding, but if you notice, I totally just did it.)

In all seriousness, the hard part – the artistic part – is the writing.  SEOs can do all sorts of techy (read: geeky) and Google-approved code work and link building  to make your website rank well for specific keywords.  But at the end of the day, it’s the content that is king!

It’s the content that’s the art form: using the words people are looking for and magically interweaving them into copy in a way that makes sense to bots and, now here’s the tricky part, human beings.  No wonder copywriters make so much money.

Nicki Hicks
Wish I Could Paint Like That

In its simplest terms, keyword research is done to find out what people are searching for in your industry.  In addition, a keyword analysis may do one of two things:

1. Verify that your customers use the same language you do, and are already searching for the terms you’ve optimized for; or
2. Identify keyword opportunities you are missing out on (and in certain cases, to the point of making you rethink the industry jargon you use with clients on an everyday basis).

Finding Keywords

There’s a whole process SEOs use to find out what people are ‘Googling’, and every SEO is going to give their client something different in terms of a keyword analysis.  The results we get at flyte can vary anywhere from 300 – 10,000 quality, applicable keywords.  Finding these keywords is half the battle; the other half is implementing them.

Give each web page a focus

I think the best place to start putting a keyword analysis to work is by understanding that each page should have a purpose; and thereby a focused, unique set of targeted keywords.  Top tier pages have a more generalized group, and as you get deeper into the site – to secondary and tertiary pages – the keywords should get more and more specific.  Each page on your website is a different possibility to rank at search engines.

Page titles should include your richest keywords (being careful, of course, not to stuff) – describing the page effectively and including your geographic location (if you differentiate with it).

Body copy is the main destination for your keywords.  I generally suggest a specific keyword phrase is not used more than 3-4 times for content of about 250 words in length.  This is where copywriting becomes an artform: balancing incorporating target keywords and writing naturally.

What if what people are searching for doesn’t align with my target customers?

To expand on the second point from above (identifying new keyword opportunities): I will often include keywords in analyses for clients that may not necessarily align with their business model, but do relate well to their industry.

For example, I may find people may be searching for “cheap vacuums” (this is purely an assumption), when a client only sells high-end vacuums.  So what do I suggest?  They use it to their advantage; by writing a blog post or article: “Buying a Cheap Vacuum Will Save You Money Now, But Buying a [Our Company] Vacuum Will Save in the Long Term” or “5 Reasons Not To Buy A Cheap Vacuum” for a little less “sales-y” approach. For almost every case, there’s an opportunity to incorporate hot keywords in a way that will apply to your audience.

Remember who you’re writing for

It’s not all about keywords.  That may seem counter intuitive to my craft, but it’s crucial to remember that you’re writing for people first and foremost, not search engines.  So, never stuff your keywords anywhere (in the code or otherwise), or to try any other black hat methods.

Optimizing for keywords is much more an artform than a science: it takes remembering all of these things (plus some) and a fair amount of experimentation.  But in the end, it’s about writing natural, enticing copy for your target audience.

Nicki Hicks
Keyword Analyses for Dummies

Lately, I’ve been writing a lot about Google – attempting to keep up with their never-ending additions to the search world.  Most recently, they’ve launched SearchWiki (as a default setting to their SERP) and a new search-based keyword tool.

SearchWiki

Rich posted a great article yesterday on the flyte blog about SearchWiki.  To summarize, if you’re logged into your Google account, you can literally change your results page – either by removing results entirely or pushing them to the first position(s).  You can also write comments about a result, and see what other people have written.

Currently, SearchWiki does not affect search results; but with millions of people “voting” on websites, I think it’s only a matter of time before Google adds it to their algorithm.  Only problem being…it is incredibly easy to spam.

Search-based keyword tool

This new tool is reminiscent of Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool.  The comparison is not unlike the similarity between Google Trends and Google Insights.  The data comes from generally the same place, with a few differences in presentation.

The new keyword tool uses your website or blog as a base to search for keywords, in addition to the ones you tell it to search for.  Like the AdWords tool, you see the same categories, plus the suggested bid price for AdWords.  You can save and export your keywords with both tools.

Here are the top ten keywords from Google’s new search-based keyword tool for this blog’s domain, along with the terms “seo” and “search engine optimization”:

You can see the differences in the top ten keywords between the two tools.  The Adwords Keyword Tool pulls this data for the same search query:

All of these tools are great – and can be used in conjunction with one another in order to find the best keyword opportunities.  But, good grief, what will Google come out with next?!?

Nicki Hicks
Does ‘Googlers Anonymous’ already exist?

Let’s get right to it, shall we?

Keywords/Trends

1. Keyword Discovery – for all the keyword research you could ever care to know. It does require a subscription – this or Word Tracker (which I’ve never tried) are considered the best.
2. Google AdWords Keyword Tool – supplement keyword research; also gives better stats as to what people are actually searching for.
3. Webconfs.com Keyword Density Tool - there are a million keyword density tools out there, but I’ve found this one to be the most user friendly.
4. Google Insights/Google Trends – both give good insights as to what’s hot and what’s not.  Insights will also give you upcoming popular search terms.

Link Building

1. Marketleap’s Link Popularity Checker – gives you both Google and Yahoo!’s index of backlinks, plus others.

Plug-ins and Apps

1. SEO for Firefox – see nofollow links; look up PR, backlinks, meta-tags; plus much much more!
2. SeoQuake – many of the same benefits as SEO for Firefox, but you don’t necessarily have to have Firefox.  Plus, when activated, SeoQuake will give you a handy little toolbar with at-a-glance SEO stats.

Analytics (the one and only)

1. Google Analytics – it’s free and gives you everything you need.  Why go for something else??

I use quite a few more, but these are my favorite, and the ones I use the most often.  Do you have any favorites?

Nicki Hicks
I think I need a bigger toolbelt…

Online trends are changing constantly, just look at the new Google Insights for Search to find that out.  What’s especially interesting about Insights is their “rising searches” element – showing you what the “hot” new searches are.

While performing a single keyword analysis and optimizing a site is great (and i obviously highly recommend doing it), it’s also important to constantly optimize your site.  SEO is an ongoing process.

Change for the sake of “hot” keywords

There is a “myth” in the SEO world that says copy which is constantly updated and changed will rank higher, simply because Google’s spiders have to crawl the site more often.  Whether this is true or not isn’t the point.  There is no reason to change copy just for the sake of change.  That being said, copy can and should be updated and molded over time to follow keyword trends.

For example, if I own a business where I breed and sell Labrador Retrievers, and today the hot keywords are for yellow labs and black labradors.  (NOTE: I have not done the research, and in fact, have no idea if people are searching for those words.)  But in a month or two, I find people are search for labrador retrievers, I might add the word “retriever(s)” into my title tags and copy a few more times.

The key, as always, is to make your changes naturally, without stuffing keywords.

Change for experiment’s sake

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: while we have an idea of what causes high rankings, we’ll never know for sure.  That’s why experimentation is helpful.

In my dog selling business, I might optimize something (say, my title tags) for my geographic location.  Then, a few months later, maybe I’ll optimize for the fact that we have every color labrador (yellow, chocolate, and black).  Or perhaps, I will update my robots.txt file, adding my contact page.  Then, I could also add a new page about how to train puppies, because I found in my keyword research that “How to Train Your New Puppy” was a hot keyword phrase (again, I have not done the actual research).

What’s the point?

The point is that you need to constantly be optimizing and follow keyword trends.  Continuously looking for opportunities for backlinks is also important, but a topic for another time…

Also, remember site changes take time to be recognized by spiders.  It can take up to six weeks for Google to update their index, and even longer for rankings to change accordingly.

Nicki Hicks
Yes, Labs are my favorite

In a word, yes. Allow me to clarify by saying that anchor text is the actual word or words you use to link to other web pages (whether your own or external ones).  That means anchor text can only be a text link (so images don’t count); text links are found primarily in the navigation and copy of a web page.  Although image links do not have anchor text, they can have alt tags which, arguably, hold some search engine clout.  But that’s a topic for another time.

How do web users read web sites?

You might ask yourself – what does this have to do with anchor text?  Well, a lot actually.  You’ll see below that users look for links to click on when scanning pages.  This is important to note because adding descriptive, keyword rich links will help your users in their decision to click or not!

Navigation Anchor Text

Navigation and copy anchor text, while both anchor text, must be treated differently.  First of all, many SEOs believe that anchor text in the navigation holds more weight than that in the copy.  Therefore, you want to place your richest keywords there.

That being said, links still need to be user-friendly before search engine friendly and therefore be titled intuitively.  In other words, you want the links in your navigation to make sense – many are standard (like About Us and Contact).  Finally, there is an issue of space – so be sure the links in your navigation are short and sweet – you do not have the ability to even think about keyword stuffing here!

Copy Anchor Text

The fact of the matter is that while you do not want too many links within your copy, a good smattering is nice.  Even more importantly are the keywords you use for the links – they should be natural.  When writing, I tend to write everything first, noting where I want to place links.  Afterward, I’ll go through and choose the best set of words to use as links.  That way, I’m not consciously choosing which words to use for links.  At the same time, if no good words present themselves, I’ll add in good keyword rich anchor text.

Like navigation anchor text, those in the copy must still be titled intuitively.  However, let’s get away from the “click here” or “contact us” links, shall we?  When indexed by search engines, those don’t help anyone!  Take the opportunity to increase your visibility with a link like “Find out how to increase your Search Engine Visibility” or “Contact flyte for a free Search Engine Optimization consultation”.

Please don’t misunderstand me.  Entire sentences should typically NOT be anchor text.  However, the important words should be!

So…how do we know anchor text is important?

Well, for one thing, Google has even been reporting the matter for over a year now in their Webmaster Tools.  Plus, since Google holds their PageRank algorithm in such high esteem, we’ve learned that anchor text that is also important.  When asking for links, it is always good to suggest which keywords and phrases to use.

For help with deciding which anchor text you should use, contact flyte.

Nicki Hicks
Link Master

I’m pretty sure I got into one of the most exciting fields there is. I’m learning a ton of new information every day, and as Rich says, SEO is one of the sexiest topics in e-marketing. Plus, it’s fun for me…that never hurts.

The issue is that I’m a relatively new blogger, so I’ve found it increasingly difficult to come up with new and different ideas to blog about. Sure, I read a ton of SEO and SEM newsletters, forums, and articles everyday; but I need new, fantastic blogpost ideas! Because, let’s face it, who wants to read regurgitated stories – that is, unless they have a new and different twist to them?

Then it hit me…I’m an SEO. I’ll just fire up my Keyword Discovery tool and find some perfect blog titles! So I did just that, and these are some of the “hot” topics I came up with that could pretty easily be turned into titles:

• Organic SEO Services
• Search Engine Marketing Case Study
• SEO Complete Link Building Service
• SEO Basic Tips for New Web Developers
• SEO Tips for Joomla
• Copywriting for SEO

Other fun ideas that seem to rank relatively well (but just sound spammy to me):

• Certified SEO Professional (There’s no “certification,” just so everyone knows.)
• Free SEO Tips and Tricks (I’m pretty certain that if you even *mention* the words free or cheap in any blog/article title, you’ll get [completely irrelevant] traffic in no time.)

Perhaps I’ll work off from this list for a while…

Nicki Hicks
Blog Newbie

As I’ve mentioned before, flyte uses a program called Keyword Discovery to research our clients’ keywords.  There are quite a few keyword tools out there, but we’ve had the best results with this program.

After clients supply us with 20-30 keywords (those specific terms and phrases they believe their customers use to search for their website).  We start with these words, add many others we found through our research (via the client’s website and their competitors’ sites), as well as those words Keyword Discovery finds that users have been searching for.  Essentially the program comes up with synonyms and related terms to the query.  In the end, we discover approximately 10,000 keywords and phrases that our client’s customers may use to search for their site.

Basically this means that there are a TON of opportunities to capitalize on!  If you’re interested in increasing your search engine visibility, call flyte today!

Nicki Hicks
Search Engine Marketer