Web optimisation tools are essential. This article discusses three approaches based on three levels of budget. Recomended tools include the Google Adwords keyword tool, Wordtracker and Adword Analyser.
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romotion should begin during the
site's initial planning. Really! If you design the
site to be search engine friendly, you'll get the
highest position possible through its content. By
this I mean the pages contents will be focused on
the search engine phrases (known as "keywords")
your site is relevant for.
Keywords will need to be broken into three groups. Those which
have a lot of traffic volume (and proably a lot of competition), those with average
volume and average competition and "niche" or "long tail" keywords with little volume and
little competition. All are valid sources of traffic for your site.
How do you know which keywords fit into which category? Well initially you don't
but read on and I'll explain four methods of achieving this knowledge.
"Promotion should begin during the site's initial planning."
The very first step should be to Brainstorm a list of keywords describing your business. Identify search terms that potential customers might use in a search query to find you. Use offline sources too - customers should be your no.1 source. If your site already exists, check your Web logs for popular search phrases, entry pages, and products.
A comprehensive guide if your site is going to generate income via affiliate selling (i.e. your site sells others products for commission) is the Affiliates master course is written by the owners of siteSell.com.
Now you have a starting point its time to find out what people are really searching for. There are four approaches to this:-
- Google Adwords without launching a campaign (Free)
- A keyword subscription service (Cheap, per use payment)
- A keyword searching program (Cheap one off payment)
- Use Google Adwords and pay for clicks (Expensive)
Free Google Adwords. Set up an account, set up a campaign put it on pause. Set up an adgroup per topic of your site, find keywords using the keyword tool. Look at the advertiser competition and av search volume bar charts. Sort by av search volume descending to see which keywords are most searched over.
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The advantage of this method is that its quick and free. The dissadvantage is that its not that accurate. I've seen some keywords appear to be high volume but in practise not mean the same level of use from keyword to keyword.
Adword Analyser is the quickest way of researching your industry. This program will give you all the keywords for Google within a couple of minutes of starting each search, plus it shows how many adverts are being paid for on Google adwords and other networks.
Advantages: Its a very cheap one off payment (about £40). I moved from Wordtracker to this program in 2005 and my research time decreased four times over. Dissadvantage: Google will not thank you for using this program which represents Spam traffic to them. Heavy use of the program will just get your IP address blocked, and you'll have to wait a few hours before Google will respond again. Also I would not want to anger Google and risk this research being linked with my site. Best used sparingly per day, then its ok.
WordTracker. This is an online service that you subscribe to. You can even subscribe for as little as one week, which costs £15. A whole year is £165. This is the most comprehensive database of all the search terms (keywords) used on all the major Search engines and directories.
Advantages: find out about all the keywords with a reasonable feel for which group they fall into (major, average or niche). Dissadvantage: Takes time to "dig" for keywords and you still don't really know the actual search volume to base any business plan upon. I haven't found the predicted volume to be pin point accurate, but still useful.
Google Adwords. Set up an account, set up a campaign, group etc and pay enough to get on page 1 for each keyword you are investigating. Within a couple of hours you'll get an average position for your advert if its a high volume keyword and if budget is tight 24 hours is enough to get a feel for how much traffic you are competing over. Send all traffic to your temporary home page. Why not put a phone number on there to generate some income before you've even set up your site? This is a standard technique used also for finding the right name for your site or a product by the way. Advantages: The most accurate way of finding traffic volumes and how relevant your sales pitch is per keyword. Dissadvantages: Expensive unless you already have an offline sales mechanism in place.
