This short presentation walks you through the basics of keyword research, qualification, and explains how to create a webpage that's optimized for your target keywords. It's focused on the wine industry, but the principles carry over for any industry.
2. Why does this matter?
Over 80% of online transac- “Online wine search queries have increased
more than 33% in the past 2 years. In
tions begin with a keyword addition, wine searches via mobile phone
search. increased ten times in the same time pe-
riod.”
Helps attract higher volume of - Joe Rosenburg, Google Manager
targeted visitors to your
website
Search trends for “napa” “sonoma” and “winery” at all time highs
3. Keyword Research
Think about what makes your winery Evaluate keywords based
unique – from the varietals and re-
on:
gion to special events, weddings, or
guest rentals. Brainstorm a list, then Search volume: Try to find keywords that get
expand it with more research. at least 500-1000 searches/month
Competitiveness: Don't try to rank for “caber-
net”. Instead, go for “2007 Cabernet
Sauvignon”
Keyword research tools Intent: Do you think the keyword is specific
enough for a visitor to buy, or are they
just looking for information?
Google Keyword Research Tool Relevance: Does your site relate well enough?
Your Google Analytics organic search terms
(see resources on last slide for more links)
4. Qualifying keywords
Use search modifiers to
judge competition.
“keyword” > 50k
allintitle:“keyword” > 15k
Inurl:“keyword” > 10k
Evaluate top ranking sites
for:
Domain age
Pagerank
Incoming links
5. Qualifying keywords
Use search modifiers to
judge competition.
“keyword” > 50k
allintitle:“keyword” > 15k
Inurl:“keyword” > 10k
Evaluate top ranking sites
for:
Domain age
Pagerank
Incoming links
6. Longtail Keywords
Long tail keywords are a type of keyword phrase that
has at least three, and some times as many as five
words in the phrase.
A study of 7 million visits to
three major retailers found
that long-tail terms converted
two and a half times more
than head terms.
7. Optimizing your website
Title Tag: Your target keywords must be included in the title tag (and
front loaded). This is the most important piece of content on your web-
site, both on and off-page.
Links: Keyword optimization should be integrated into your link building
strategy. Internal links, inbound links, breadcrumb links, navigational
links should all have your top optimized keywords. It's also important to
track and manage your link text efforts
Content strategy: If you want to rank well and connect with searchers,
you need to use your target keywords in your content, and on uniquely
relevant pages on your website.
Images: Don't forget to optimize keywords in the pictures on your web-
site. Target keywords should be used in your image alt attribute and file
names, to name a few.
Meta Description: There's some debate over whether or not including
target keywords in your text snippets helps rankings. But there's little
doubt that having your optimized keywords here produces more clicks in
searches, which is optimal.
URL: Be sure to include keywords for SEO in file name slugs, like I've
done with this page's URL. The page is about keyword optimization, so
the slug name is /keyword-optimization.
Site Structure: Keyword optimization is also critical to how you structure
and organize your site content. Not only do you need to select the right
keywords, but you need to group them hierarchically and order the cor-
responding pages on your website accordingly.
9. The results?
Shown below is the trend of search traffic for one of my sites
January: 550 visits from 235 keywords
June: 2,000+ visits from 645 keywords
10. Resources
Research tools Other useful links
Wordstream Google Trends
Google Keyword Tool Google Insights
Wordtracker Keyword analysis (GA Report)
Keyword Discovery
Ubersuggest
http://www.bluedogsolutions.com