Research and select your keywords carefully, using such tools as Google’s and Yahoo’s Keyword Tools. Google Trends is a new development tool that lets you compare general keyword search popularity visually on a graph- they don’t reveal the actual number of searches, however. You can also do manual research, by simply going to each of your competitors’ websites, analyzing their keywords, and trying to notice any consistent patterns in their keywords and how they rank for those keyword searches. Further, if you do cost-per-click (CPC) advertising through Yahoo! Or Google, its interface gives you another means for calculating the popularity of keyword phrases- it will tell you how many people search for the keywords you add. Tools such as Good Keywords (http://www.goodkeywords.com/products/gkw/ ) consolidate some of these useful tools and is completely free. If you have a search engine on your site, you should use the search logs as a benchmark before choosing your keywords. If you do not have a search function on your website, you can get one free with FreeFind. When activated, they can automatically email you a report of the top searched words on your site. Researching keywords is like doing police detective work- there are several tools, but they each only give you small pieces of the puzzle. It can be a time-consuming effort to sort through the data, but worthwhile.

a. Google’s Keyword Tool:

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

b. Overture’s (Yahoo! Search Marketing) Keyword Selector Tool:

http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

c. Manual research of competitor websites

d. Yahoo! Search Marketing (Overture) and Google AdWords CPC campaign summaries

e. Wordtracker – http://www.wordtracker.com/ pay $7.73 for 1 day of keyword research.

f. NicheBot - http://www.nichebot.com/

g. FreeFind - http://www.freefind.com/

g. Google Trends - http://www.google.com/trends

For best results in the search engines, it is important to keep your keywords consistent and simple. Use only 1 keyword phrase per page, and don’t be too general. For example, if you were selling cell phones, it would probably be a wasted effort to target the word “cell phones” as there are too many competitors, but the phrase “cheap camera cellular phone” is more likely to help you to rank high in search engines. This phrase was searched for 807 times last month, according to Yahoo!.

Use the exact same keyword phrase in all of the following page elements:

Use your keyword phrase within:

a. Page title

b. Meta title

c. Meta keywords

d. Meta description

e. Header tags: h1 to h4

f. tags and/or tags

g. tags and/or tags

h. Four times in the body copy

i. At least once in a URL link

j. Make a folder with the keyword phrase as its name; use hyphens – between multiple words.

Various tools exist to check where you stand in search rankings, links, and more. Instead of continually checking manually, try some of the many tools available. One helpful tool which happens to be free is: http://www.webuildpages.com/cool-seo-tool/ Other pay-based tools exist, such as: Microsoft Submit It and WebTrends’ WebPosition. If your pages are not getting indexed by Google, you may consider making a Google site map. You can generate an XML based site map for free here: http://www.freesitemapgenerator.com. Also, make sure you have web statistics programs installed on your host server, such as AWstats, Webalizer or other free tools. Google Analytics is an in-depth stats program and is free. Because of the demand, you have to get on a waiting list, but it is worth it: http://www.google.com/analytics/

The following is a short list of websites that appear to be successful in their search engine optimization efforts.

http://www.acclaimimages.com/

http://www.sparepartswarehouse.com/

http://www.seochat.com/

http://www.timbercon.com/

Though not always as aesthetically pleasing, viewing the winners of Google optimization contests can be a learning experience. Links and information can found on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEO_contest

Trent Mueller is a Webmaster at Timbercon, Inc.

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