Choosing Right
Keywords
Right set of Keywords are the starting point for any Search Engine Optimization approach.
Unless the keywords do not match with your business activities or are not
frequently searched on the web, either you will not get the targeted traffic or
there would not be any traffic at all. So it becomes vital to find the best
possible keywords that suits your line of business, they are searched the most
among your category. This is then followed by the Keyword Ranking Process.
How to perform a Competitive Research?
Google updates its Algorithm in a short duration, usually once every
three to four months. And every update may bring new search engine criteria for
your website ranking, Page Ranks, Inbound links affecting your ranking process.
This brings a chance for us to loose our rankings. One can never predict the
changes that would be incorporated the next time by Google, but there can be
preventive measures that a webmaster can take in order to maintain their Organic
Search Engine Optimization efforts from being lost.
With any new
Google update, you may discover fluctuation for your keyword ranking. You may
all of sudden see your keywords far below to the present ranking. Google has
many evaluation standards which are been handled by various data centers spread
across the globe. There is no need to panic on it. They keep changing for the
first week and then are stabiles. The ranking usually do not change drastically
in each of the Google update. It takes at least a few updates before you may see
a big drop. But a constant monitoring after each update is a signal for the
Search Engine Optimization team to determine the next course of action.
With each update, the
webmaster must research and evaluate their Search Engine positions. One must perform keyword research, web
statistics monitoring and positioning reports for all major search engines. This
must be accompanied with Competitive research. Competitive research helps you
understand your competition, what are they up to and what needs to be done to
overcome the competition. Lets look
to some of the points that one must keep in mind when performing a competitive
research.
The research is not to identity the top competition but also to
make your site an authority site that is been referred and respected in your
business domain. Start with looking to the present Google Rank for your set of
keywords. There are many ways you can do that. But any good research needs help
of great Search Engine Tools that are capable of generating all the vital
information and clues that would be necessary for the purpose. There are many tools that can help you
doing just that using your own Google API key. One can go to Google and register
for a Google API key. The webmasters must verify the Link Saturation and Link
Popularity for the major competition which helps you to understand the
difference between you and their positioning.
Keyword Density - Once you know you’re
your core Keywords, you then must verify the Keyword Density between yours and
your competition. You can perform something like a keyword Density test that
will help you understand the keywords and Key phrases that you are trying to
rank on. Keyword Density is vital for any Search Engine Optimization effort.
Other then the Keyword Density, it is also important that there is a perfect
distribution of the Keywords
between the Page URL, Title, Meta
Description, Meta keyword, H1, Hyperlinks, bold and body.
In order to improve your keywords, you can change your text
to speak more relevant to your keyword. For example I can write “Offshore
Software Development” instead of programming, or Search Engine Optimization
instead of SEO. Different Search Engines prefers different ration of Keyword
Density. The best alternate is to target the top search engine and average for
the rest of the Search Engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN. You can also look to
your competition websites and verify the density that is been applied by them.
Do not Over-optimize your keyword Density. This can work against you and your
Keyword Ranking.
Inbound Links –
Inbound links are very important for your ranking process. The more number
of back links you get, better are your chances to be ranked higher. One must
ensure that other then getting higher incoming links, their quality, and
similarity between the business domains counts very much. Your back links must
come from renowned and high ranking websites that have relevancy to your
website. Any links from the banned or different category will harm your ranking.
Google Page Rank – A lot of people have
a misconception about Google Page Rank, also termed as PR. A high PR does not mean to have a high
Keyword Ranking. You can find many examples where a PR 2 website ranks on top of
a PR5 website. Though a higher PR certainly is a goodness indicator and is a
preferred ranking indication. PR must not be compared with a SERP (Search Engine
Ranking Process). Keyword Ranking and PR does not have much relevancy.