Editor’s Note: This is a guest post by Emma Tomlinson.  Please read more about Emma in the bio footer.

You have probably heard plenty of Internet marketers say that uploading videos is an effective and efficient addition to their marketing campaign.

Now, if you are the type of person who wants to see proof before nodding to particular issues, you will be amazed to know that…

There are over 30 billion video searches beating keyword queries (which have reached more than 15 billion) by around 50%.

YouTube (Image via CrunchBase)

Given this data, you are most likely considering the idea of creating your own clips. But before you do, you should check this out these…

Fascinating YouTube Facts

It has already obtained more than 13 billion visits.

• It is the most reputable video platform, especially for bloggers.
• It amounts to 81.9% of overall videos embedded and shared on blog sites.
• There are around 23,000 videos viewed every second and 2 billion each day.

Do these figures seem promising?

If you do, then you already have an idea where to upload and share your creations.

Now, whether your affinity for making videos is…

• Personal – you want to go viral and become a Web sensation
• Business – you want your promotional campaign to have a global reach
• Purely fun – you find the activity engaging

You need effective ways to make it rank in both video and keyword searches.

With that said, here are…

 Great Strategies to Help You Bring Together YouTube and Search Engine Optimization

1. Come up with a good title

As you are doing this, you have to remember the following aspects:

•  Incorporate keywords
•  Include the word “video” because many people are going to use it
•  Ensure it is catchy and worthy enough of clicks

2. Create a brief description

Through it, search engines and users have a basic idea of what your video is about. Again, you have to take note of essential factors, which consist of the following:

•  Come up with 2 to 3 sentences
•  Place relevant keywords
•  Begin the first sentence with the URL of your social media page, blog, or website

3. Include a transcript

This is a written version of your material. So, if the video is not long, you can transcribe it and add the transcription to the description.

4. Put tags

This strategy is similar to tagging traditional Web content. To help your video get listed under YouTube’s “related video” category and boost the possibility of going viral, you should find out which tags are most popular and effective.

5. Ensure backlinks

One way to link back to your YouTube content is through blogging, wherein you can choose any of the following ideas:

•  Focus on a topic related to the video’s main theme and incorporate the link in the body
•   Place the URL in the author bio

6. Keep track of its performance

You can monitor your video’s ranking by using YouTube Analytics.

There you go. Take note of these techniques for optimization purposes.

Now, before we end this topic, here is an important pointer:

Always encourage interaction from your viewers. You can make this possible when you enable sharing and embedding. You can also ask the users to rate and comment on your videos.

I recently had a visitor leave a comment on my blog asking the question “What’s more effective, off page or on page optimization?”

He had spent a significant amount of time optimizing on page using SEO Presser to control and guide him on his keyword density and placement yet hadn’t seen any significant increase in traffic.

Well, here’s my definitive answer to the onpage/offpage optimization question…it depends.

It really depends on what you are trying to accomplish with the page. Let me explain.

Google is out of the business of determining page rank based solely on content.

That may seem like a radical idea but with the Panda Program that’s exactly where Google is today. Gone are the days when Google tried to assess the relevance of a page based on an arithmetical formula involving keyword phrases. Today Google relies on the opinion of others to judge the relevance and quality of a page of content.

Those “others” are websites linking to your site.

Google now looks at “who likes you” for a particular keyword phrase and based on the quality of that referer determines where you rank. For example if you have a website promoting cancer awareness and you have an incoming link from an authoritative site like the Mayo Clinic, then you are golden with Google. If however, your backlinks are from sites like BobsWitchcraftCuresForCancer.ru you could actually be punished in the rankings based on the people who are pointing at you.

There’s another batch of people who Google looks to when it comes to developing the “trust factor” of a site and that’s all the social media directories. If your site does well on the Diggit and StumbleUpon directories Google sees that as humans referring to other humans and grants you a higher trust factor.

It really doesn’t matter what your website is about, rocking chairs, online auto insurance quotes or digital photography, offpage optimization is essential if you want to compete for the more competitive keyword phrases. So in terms of where you should spend your time optimizing, offpage is the place to be to build rank for the domain.

And there is another value in gaining credibility and ranking for the domain that applies directly to onpage optimization that I’ll touch on in just a moment.

Onpage optimization – the easy way to harvest low lying fruit.

While offpage optimization is important, you can’t ignore onpage all together. After all Google has to have someplace to start in order to evaluate the content. That someplace is located in two areas of your page.

Always have the keyword that you are targeting in the title of your page. The same goes for your meta description and this is an area that many people forget about. Most platforms will simply grab the first 160 characters from the content and use that as a description by default.

Take a look at your first paragraph. Does it include the targeted keyword phrase? Does it give a description of the content of the page? If you’re not a master of the journalistic skill of writing in an inverted pyramid style the answer is probably no.

Getting the meta description right not only tells Google what the page is about but can also tell the searcher a great deal about the content. Often that description is used as the blurb that appears under the link to your site. In most platforms you can write a custom description that can be more inclusive of the page content.

For example if you have a site on home remedies for dogs you can have a meta description that says “Great home remedies for common dog ailments like fleas, itchy skin, vomiting, kennel cough, constipation, vomiting and diarrhea, hot spots and more” that gives a much broader description of the site than the first paragraph does.

Customizing the description does three things. It gets Google’s attention, it gives the searcher a better idea of what they are going to find, and it gets you a lot of low lying fruit.

Quality content brings unexpected traffic

The real key to onpage optimization is creating quality content that is meant to be read by humans not search engines. In other words, you have to know your subject and be able to deliver information that the reader will find informative and of value.

When you write this kind of content you will inadvertently rank for many of the lower competition long tail keyword phrases. For example, that dog health site that I mentioned only has 25 pages and it receives traffic from over 1800 keywords most of which have fewer than 100 searches per month. You can think about that traffic as a bonus for writing good content.

While the page itself may not rank all that well for competitive keywords, online optimization can bring you traffic for the lesser sought searches. But there is a way to jack this up big time.

If your offline optimization has done its job and you are ranking for a number of keywords, that juice that the domain has can be a big influence on less competitive pages.

For example my podcasts have absolutely no content on the page that they appear on. There’s nothing there but an audio file. Yet they rank on page one thanks to the Google juice of my domain name.

So the next time you’re adding content to your website that can compare auto insurance quotes, understand that offpage optimization makes you more competitive for more desirable keywords but that online optimization can bring you traffic quicker from less competitive searches.

That’s my take on it…what do you think. Share your ideas in the comment box below.

Lately, I have been getting questions from small business owners about SEO tools. Although Google has changed the playing field on SEO tactics, there is still a need to optimize your site for search engines. As a blog owner and writer, I focus on content more than anything. However, if you are trying to sell products or services on your site, you will have a different plan for your web business. Content is still important, but there are more elaborate SEO techniques to consider.

As I mentioned in a previous post on out-dated SEO, the old ways of keyword stuffing and any old backlink is not a valid SEO method anymore. Especially if you are a legitimate business with legitimate customers. Google has gotten smarter and I am sure the other search engines are following suit.

When you look for SEO tool for your business, it pays to do your research. Since SEO is such a hot topic, there are a variety of websites claiming to be “SEO experts.” While I am not an SEO expert, I know quite a bit about SEO since I am a web developer and do create content for the multiple blogs I own.

I still think it is always important to put up quality content. No matter how the algorithm changes over the upcoming years, search engines will never look down on quality. If anything, it will become more important.

But you may be looking for more because you also need traffic to get people to your website. Otherwise, all the best content in the world will be irrelevant to customers.

SEO Tools to Consider

An SEO service that seems like a promising all-in-one service is SEO Samba. It is a simple and intuitive bundle of Internet marketing software that makes it easy to create a search engine optimized (SEO) site. The domain has been in existence since 2007 and the site is a PR 4. So, this is not a site that just popped up last week. This is just one of the things to look for.

If you are looking for an eCommerce site, partnering with SEO Samba is the new SEOTOASTER, a shopping cart allows online stores to function with unparalleled ease, and is coupled with the most advanced out of the box search engine optimization feature set found in the website builder market today.

Other considerations for SEO services is the reputation and ethics of the website owner along with information about the site. Having a trial period and a money back guarantee is also a positive for this service.

In a nutshell, SEO Samba automatically executes all on-site SEO techniques and provides access to automated off-site link building tactics and more. As part of the services, they distribute your information to the web, RSS directories, and specialized search engines such as Google News.  They also distribute unlimited optimized press releases automatically.

“Our priority is helping small e-merchants achieve high visibility with search engines. This goal is part of all the product’s facets including the shopping cart and our integration of micro-format into SEOTOASTER to entice Google to display rich snippets for your website’s products listings.” says Michel Leconte, SEO Samba’s CEO.

All in all, SEO Samba knows what works, and provides simple, effective solutions to clients.

If this a need you have, SEO Samba may be the right choice for your business.

Denver recently opened up an IKEA store and the traffic and parking getting into that place is insane. Why do people do this? Personally,  I like to shop online. I am not a fan of Black Friday.  I don’t like lines or wasting my day in a mall. And I am sure not going to spend my day going to a store that requires traffic cops in their parking lot.  I am pretty sure I am not alone one who prefers this method of obtaining goods.

More and more businesses are selling products and/or services on the Internet, which makes it convenient for those who prefer to shop online.  It seems like there is no limit to what you can buy online these days.  But with all these sites popping up, customers are going to be more choosy on where they buy from.  Reputation is everything.  Competing with sites like Amazon is no easy feat.

SEO for eCommerce

For those of you who are thinking about starting a business and developing an eCommerce site, be aware that you have stiff competition.  If people are going to be handing over their credit card, they are going to look for sites that look professional.  When your site comes up #1 on Google for a specific product, you gain credibility.  However, the checkout process should also be simple and easy to navigate.

There are a few things to think about when setting up a site that is optimized. When you are developing an eCommerce website, it may be helpful to know a bit about Search Engine Optimization (SEO).  Better yet, look for an SEO Company that knows how to develop a thing or two about e-Commerce website design.

Top Search Engine Rankings is an Australian SEO agency based in Sydney that spcializes in providing comprehensive SEO services to local clients – whether they conduct their businesses locally or internationally.   Top Search Engine Rankings will conduct an SEO audit to analyze your website, find ways to make it more search-engine friendly, and increase the amount of buying traffic it receives.

In order to to conduct transactions online, and to deliver products and services either digitally or through more traditional channels,  you need a professional e-Commerce website design.

I know when I shop online, I look for a streamlined design, easy navigation, and multiple payment options.  Since I don’t have an eCommerce website, I am not the expert in this area.  Finding a business who specializes in eCommerce SEO may benefit you as a eCommerce business.  You don’t want people to turn away because they can’t navigate your site.

While sitting in traffic may appeal to some shoppers, it also turns many people away. Unlike traditional brick and mortar shopping malls or stores like IKEA, you actually want traffic to your website – and LOTS of it!

Linknami for Backlinks

I am going to assume that if you have a website, you want traffic. Even if you are not selling a single product or service, you still want people to read your blog posts.  Otherwise, you probably wouldn’t put it online for all the world to see.  Right?  Well, let’s just go with that assumption, since that will apply to most website owners.

Traffic comes either directly, a referral link from another site, or search engines.  A variety of SEO techniques can help your site get discovered in search engines.

Backlinks, Backlinks, Backlinks!

Backlinks are the hottest SEO topic and if you have a website, you most likely know what I am talking about.  If not, quick review – backlinks are HTML links back to your site.  They can come in a variety of flavors: contextual, website profiles, blog comments, forum signatures, directories, article marketing, and more.

They not only help you improve your site’s search engine ratings, but readers will click on your site if the link seems helpful. All if this equals more traffic.

Okay, sounds easy to get that!  Can’t you just pay someone to throw up a bunch of links back to your site?

No…

SEO has changed from several years ago when there were link farms (there still are – don’t do that) who put your URL on thousands of sites – for a free.  These sites were poor quality and had thousands of other people just like yourself with links back to their site.  This is NOT a good backlinking strategy.

More Complex Backlinking Strategies Today

Today, you have to be more creative with backlinks.  They are still important, but the quality of the link is more relevant than in the past.  There are many businesses that offer this premium backlinking service.  Some sites will have a monthly charge, some will charge only for premium services, and others are completely free.   For example, Linknami offers a wide range of link building tools including free tools and premium tools.  Their various services can help you find what technique works best for your budget needs.

Do your research! 

Before you sign up with ANY service be sure you understand what you are doing.  Of course, you don’t have to use any service and can provide your own natural backlinks, manually.  This can be time consuming, but still effective if done properly.  However, if you don’t have that kind of time, research some of the more reputable link building service providers and MAKE SURE they are not a link farm!

It may be tempting for you to cut corners and pay a premium for 10,000 backlinks.  I would not recommend this – the sites are often spammy or low quality. Google will pretty much ignore those kind of links.  If high quality, high PR site links back to your site – that offers more authority.  That is a good thing.  At least for now in the ever-changing world of SEO.

Related articles

• I Wish Google Would Crack Down on Irrelevant Backlinks (internetmarketinginspiration.com)

Editor’s Note:  This is a guest post from Pat Tate.   She gives you a good rundown on the proper use of PLR. Please read more about Pat in the bio footer.

If you’ve been hiding on some secluded island somewhere dreamy, you may not have heard about Google’s latest attempt at cracking down on spam in March 2011. The ‘Panda’ is the latest of Google’s algorithm alterations in the battle to remain number one. This Internet content ‘raid’ targets low quality, repeated content.

Rightfully Worried PLR Users

We’d be lying to say that PLR users shouldn’t be at least concerned about Google’s fairly recent actions. Numerous webmasters and article directories like Ezine Articles were most affected by this clean sweep.

Many PLR users think that their products won’t be ‘wanted’ anymore but that may not necessarily be the case. Although it may mean a little more work for you. As PLR sellers, you will have to teach the public about the right way to use the products.

Proper PLR

Did you know that original PLR was not supposed to be used just as it is? It was supposed to be tweaked and altered, even just a little, to make it better. The idea with PLR was to save time on brainstorming and to give you a solid base to start from.

So What Is PLR?

Private Label Rights (PLR) is content that anybody can buy instead of content made specifically for someone. As long as you aren’t re-selling it, you can use it over and over again. PLR is found on sites as content, blogs, press releases, and product information, and basically anywhere you need content of any sort.

The Goods Of PLR

Simply put, you can have instantaneous access to lots of content that is ready to go when you are. If you are a very slow typist or hate researching, PLR could take that pain away from you. PLR also allows you to get your website up and running at lightning speed because you don’t have to wait for the writing to get done and that can take quite some time.

The Not-So-Goods of PLR

Well I’m sure you’ll agree that the main negative with PLR content is that it’s not unique, there’s nothing ‘special’ about it. Chances are, someone else bought the exact same content, which makes it difficult for you to find your ‘niche’ in the market.

Another downfall is that the content is crap. You are getting it cheap you get what you pay for. As well, you’re taking your chances because Google is not fond of it. Don’t forget, Google decides the rules when it comes to Internet content.

PLR has really become popular with web masters and Google has caught wind of this. They don’t like this and have taken action to make it tough for PLR users. Right or wrong, that’s the way it is.

Now you can get away with using PLR content as intended originally, by tweaking or rewording it. Even just changing the headings is enough to technically make it original. Although if you completely re-write PLR, Google will view this as an original article and reward you for it. Obviously this is the best route to go.

Is This The End Of PLR?

Well the sites most affected were article directories. These sites use PLR specifically for republication. Before Google pulled out their ‘Panda’ move, these sites did well in the rankings. They took a big hit afterwards, knocking them on their fannies.

The general idea is to offer free content to the directory. By having a link at the base of the article, you will draw people back to your site. This happens every time the article is republished; hence you get a wide range of users visiting your site, while you’re sitting in the beach sipping a cocktail.

Of course you will get a healthy dose of backlinks doing this and in theory Google would see this as a good thing and rank you high. The issue arises when the site that your link is on is crappy and ranks a zero, so you have a zero backlink and this does nothing for you.

Does this make sense?

Can We Still Use PLR?

The simple answer is yes. Although not like you’ve been able to in the past, that’s for sure. Try not to have a big freak out session. Stay calm and choose to have a fresh look at marketing strategies and use fresh eyes to look at content.

Google did the update to erase as much of the poor writing out there that it could and they did a pretty good job of it. They targeted the larger sites with weak content and the smaller sites with original good content are just fine.

So essentially if you have good content and don’t try to get your high ranking by being lazy and cheating, you should do just fine. If you’re on the flip side of the coin, you’re not going to get off so easy.

By using high-quality content you will avoid any issues and if you choose to use junk and ‘filler,’ you are going to end up sorry you did.

There Are Ways To Effectively Use PLR

Chances are pretty good that PLR will still be an effective method of getting content for your site, so long as you make a few minor adjustments in your thinking.

Use Your Own Words

Didn’t you learn in school not to copy? Shame on you if you did! The simplest route by far to use PLR is to rewrite it. If you don’t want to or can’t do it, hire a writer!

It’s a lot cheaper to hire a writer to rewrite an article, rather than research and write it from scratch. A good writer will be able to quickly give you an article that’s so much better than the low quality PLR content you bought.

Redo With Templates

By plugging the PLR content into templates, you can create new content. An example might be that you have an article on ‘Ten Ways You Shouldn’t Swing Your Golf Club.’ If you turn each of these into positives, your new content would be ‘Ten Tips To A Good Golf Swing.

Hook The PLR’s Up

Another route would be to take a few PLR articles and connect them to make a larger article. Of course you will need to make a few changes but that won’t take too long. As well, you could take sections from a few different PLR articles and mold them together to make a brand new article you can call your own. Again, you will need to change a little bit of the wording to make it flow together nicely.

Educate Yourself

A PLR article can give you a base to the topic of interest. In other words it can warm you up to start your research. If you had an article on convertible cribs you could find out the basics of baby equipment and then research the parts that interest you to write your own original article.

By reading through these PLR articles you will become knowledgeable and have the choice to find more information or to just write the article in your own words.

Find Another Purpose For PLR

Rather than using PLR for WebPages or articles, you could use it for information products, auto responder messages, free reports or an analysis. Here, it really doesn’t matter what Google does because it won’t make any difference, as you don’t need them to pick up your content.

Transform Your PLR Content

Google can only look for repeated or copied content, if it’s in text form. So if you translate the PLR text into a video or audio, it won’t be detected. One valuable option is to use your PLR content as script for your video works. Video has really taken off lately and it’s quite simple to make use of this affective marketing tool.

If you are stubborn and refuse to change, your PLR content for your articles or websites it just isn’t going to work for you. You need to flip your mindset and start putting quality first, not quantity.

Not Finished Just Yet

There’s a good reason why Google is on top of the Internet world. It’s because they are always ahead of the game. They don’t like low-quality content and figured out a way to start getting rid of it. By regularly refining their search algorithms, they ensure the world Google will stay on top.

The ‘Panda’ update was just Google’s latest bid to get rid of the crap that’s out there on the web. But don’t kid yourself; this isn’t the last time something like this is going to happen. There will be a lot more changes for the better in the not too distant future, as Google continues to deal with lots of unfinished business.

Bottom line is, you can still use PLR, just don’t use it naked. Make sure you change the article and rewriting it is the easiest route. If you’re a little lazier, ensure you at least change a few words around or combine a couple articles together.

If you want to be a couch potato and plaster your site with PLR content, your ranking will go down and you’re basically going to get nailed because YOU are what Google is determined to get rid of.

And guess what? Google usually gets what it wants more often than not!

Editor’s Note:  This is a guest post by Jade Evans.  Please read more about Jade in the bio footer!

Writing for search engine optimization is not about gaming Google. I’ve had a lot of people tell me that SEO was ‘that thing you do to trick Google.’

“No, person-who-does-not-understand-that-Internet-Explorer-is-not-the-only-way-to-access-the-internet, it is not that.”

Not if you do it the right way, anyway. There are quite a few ways to do it the wrong way and try and game Google. But if you did that, you could – and likely would – end up like JC Penney, dropping completely out of the first page of Google search results only to land somewhere on the sixth or seventh page – which is completely in Neverland when it comes to search engine results – who ever goes beyond the first or second page of search results anyway? We’re all too ADD and/or lazy anyway.

What writing for SEO is all about is finding the right words to use and integrating them. Of course, if you’re a heating oil company and want to get your website found for the phrase ‘heating oil prices’ you could just write an article about heating oil prices and use it every other phrase – but my friends, that is called spam, and I don’t mean the weird meat you eat from a can.

As a relatively well read person, the hardest thing for me when I was learning how to write good content for websites that would get found in Google, Ask, Yahoo and the like – was re-learning how to write. See, unlike authors – who avoid repetition in favor of synonyms, if you want to get found for a specific keyword, you have to use that specific phrase multiple times. No way to get around it. So you have to build your content around your words to a degree, rather than letting the article form itself completely organically.

Looking back at some of my initial writing for websites, I wince. It was legitimately like learning to write all over again. A lot of the writing sounds like a four year old wrote it.

As someone who has done quite a bit of SEO writing now, let me tell you, it is not easy. SEO is not easy. Nope. It’s not just writing relevant content or having a pretty site – though that is part of it. There are so many layers of SEO – from analysis to programming to content writing and design. I can’t say I know all of them, but I can tell you it is an odd combination of art and science and your average Joe can’t walk off the street and say they’re an SEO expert.

Unless that average Joe is named Matt Cutts.

In steps Google…

And though writing is only one facet of search engine optimization, it is a very important part of it. Google recently changed their algorithm – they called it ‘Panda’ – to increase the importance of fresh, relevant content. You would think that would be something that was a default for everyone who owns a business, who owns a website. But it isn’t. There are a lot of people out there, apparently, who think that gaming the Internet is better than just being honest from the get-go.

So long story short, my advice to anyone who owns or manages a website is as follows:

Know your company and your main selling points, and regularly write a blog on your site using the kind of language you want people to find you for.  It’s a rough sketch of what SEO could do for your website – but at least it’s a start.

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I have some bad news…

Traditional SEO is dead!

Watching the changes on the Internet in the last couple years, I have seen so many websites go up and nothing happens to them.  I myself have put up websites because I thought I would get into niche affiliate marketing.  I decided not to.  In the meantime, these sites are online and not much happens to them.  Little traffic, little sales.

People are using old SEO tactics, thinking they can put up a site, do some on site SEO, and watch traffic come trickling in.

Today, it is even more difficult to get ranked for sites!

Search Engine Optimization has changed!

I have also seen people creating websites with a bunch of horrible content overstuffed with keywords in order to try and rank their site.  Quality is becoming more and more important, but people still try and use old SEO tactics.  I just shake my head when I see many of these sites.

As a writer, I am ashamed of the poor content, and as an Internet marketer I am embarrassed at their lack of current knowledge.

In another post I wrote a few months ago, I discussed some great tools I use for keyword research.  One of the tool I have mentioned (and that you see in the sidebar) is Market Samurai.  I don’t promote too many products here, but this is one I find very useful.  It is not only useful as a tool itself, but the owners of the tool, Noble Samurai, stay on top of the latest with SEO.

SEO is changing constantly and it is quite difficult to stay on top of it all.

If you’ve tried to do any SEO lately, you’ll have noticed that it’s getting pretty HARD (almost impossible) to get a page 1 ranking… even for “easy” keywords!

If you’re still using the “traditional” techniques for ranking your website and you DON’T change what you’re doing …then you’re headed straight for search engine oblivion.

What’s going on?

Noble Samurai has created a free video series (yes FREE) that walks you through what SEO professionals do TODAY to snap up position #1 rankings for any keyword they can think of.  All you need is to put in your email and you will have access to the videos.  These SEO Pros have the confidence to rank for the most profitable, most competitive keywords on the planet! When you watch the videos you’ll understand why.

About the Author: As a senior, Pat Tate started to explore Internet Marketing.  She uses her blog as a journal to keep track of the people that she has met along the way. At Grandma’s Internet Marketing/blog. She is also an avid golfer and invites women to join her to talk golf at Women’s Golf Center.

When working from home, seniors are often at a loss to find answers to their puzzling questions. One such question in learning Internet marketing is ‘why when my site is full of great content am I not getting lots of traffic’. It is possible that the answer to this question is that as seniors we don’t really understand keyword research.

What Are Keywords?

Although all online searches depend upon search engines, it is real people who are doing the search. The words or phrases that they use to find an answer to their problem or query are “keywords”. The search engine will return the results of these searches based on how well a web page is optimized for the keywords used to search. This is Search Engine Optimization.

It is important to realize that Google ranks web pages not web sites. However if your web site is a review of toys but you place a page on it about women’s golf, your visitor is going to quickly click away.

When deciding about the content of your web site you need to get a grasp on what keywords will be relevant to the niche. Who will be your target audience and what keywords will they use to find you? By drawing up a profile of what your visitors needs are you can then have more targeted pages.

Finding Relevant Keywords

After researching the relevant visitors you need to brainstorm what would be the possible words and phrases they would use to locate your pages. Write down as many phrases as you can possibly think about. Maybe ask family or friends to help with this brainstorming.

The words that you use to search can be quite different than the words your daughter would use. For this part of the research use broad search terms then look for more focused words. An example of this might be baby equipment as the broad term. A more focused term might be baby convertible cribs or a portable baby bed.

Using Keyword Research Tools

There are a number of programs that can help with your keyword research. A frequently used free program is the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. Within this tool you can search for broad matches, phrase matches, and exact match. The latter is the most relevant to SEO.

Type in your brainstormed keyword phrases one at a time and you can see how many times it has been used as a search term and how much competition there is for it. Other Google tools that can be used for zeroing in on keywords are Google Suggest, Google Wonderwheel, and Google Trends.

Another free keyword tool is Wordtracker. You can upgrade to a paid tool but the basic tool will get you started. Market Samurai is a paid tool that many Internet marketers are currently using. There is a free trial with this tool so you can try it out before you decide. With the paid keyword tools you get extra functions. You can expect to them to help with the competition for the keywords, available domains for it, analysis of Google’s top ranking for the keywords, and point to products that can be used to monetize the page.

Deciding on Which Keywords to Use

The goal of putting the effort into creating web pages is to get them on the first page of the Google search results – hopefully in the first position on the page. There are 200 signals that Google uses to rank pages, most of which we have no idea of what these signals are. We think that these signals include quality content, backlinks, SEO, age of the site, and how targeted are the keywords.

Once we have a list of possible keywords we want to eliminate those that have no relevance to our site. Then sort the keywords looking for those terms that are most closely related to your site. You want a mix of broad and exact match keywords. You want to find relevant words that are not overly used. From the point of monetizing your page it is better to have fewer searches for something like ‘Beginner Golf Clubs for Women’ than many less targeted searches for ‘Golf Clubs’.

Use three or four related keywords on a page. It is important to use your keywords in a natural way and not to stuff the page with them. They can also be used in the title tag, meta description tags, headings, alt text, anchor text, and navigational links.

As a work at home senior all this may seem very overwhelming. However taking the time to learn this skill will pay big dividends in the end.

Related articles

• When It’s Time to Revisit Your Keyword Research (customerthink.com)
• 20 Most Expensive Keyword Categories in AdWords (verigentllc.wordpress.com)
• The Long Tail: How to Use Long Tail Keywords to Improve Article Ranking (inspiredtowrite.com)

Author’s Bio: 

Simon is a computer wizard working in the accounting profession. His passion for writing comes from his lifelong love of reading. He writes on a variety of subjects on article sites such as HubPages and his blog,  Earn Money by Writing, which is dedicated to helping amateur writers discover ways of earning with online articles and assist them in the nuances of creating decent articles.

Long-Tail Keywords?

The recent Google algorithm has forced amateur writers on the web to delve into the sordid world of Search Engine Optimization (SEO); while there are dozens of decent techniques that will help your articles rank well, one simple technique will have a very good effect, and that is the long tail.

What is a long tail?

Ornithologists out there will be wondering what a duck has to do with article writing; the long tailed duck stands out from other ducks simply because it does have a long tail, and that is exactly what you are aiming for – articles with headings that stand out in search engine results.

In SEO terms, the long tail is a series of words (usually 3 or more) made from quality keywords. The long tail is formed into a sentence or question with the aim to create a phrase that readers will type into a search engine.

As an example, if you were creating an article about the long tail duck, you would use the three words in a phrase such as “What does a long tail duck look like?” or “Where do long tail ducks live?”

Creating a Good Long Tail Heading or Long Tail Phrase

Simply creating a long tail phrase or heading is only half the battle; as you do with keywords you have to research traffic and competition levels using tools like Google’s Keyword Tool.

As I created this article I began doing research with the keyword, “long tail.” Doing some research on this and other headings my results were:

• A discussion on how to create a good long tail heading: monthly searches: 0, competition: low.
• The long tail: monthly searches: 14800, competition: low
• Long tail heading: monthly searches: 0; competition: low
• Long tail phrase: monthly searches: 170; competition: low
• Long tail keywords: monthly searches: 6600; competition: fairly low
• What is a long tail: monthly searches: 2400; competition: low
• How do I use a long tail: monthly searches: 0, competition: low
• Long tail keywords: monthly searches: 3600, competition: low
• Long tail: monthly searches: 110000, competition: low

As you can see the word ‘Long Tail’ has the best results. The next step is to actually research what happens when you search for the above phrases. Searching for the phrase ‘Long Tail’ I get over 20,000,000 websites – I noticed that none of these sites are specifically called ‘Long Tail’ but have this mini-phrases within their title – so simply putting ‘Long Tail’ will not specifically get a reader to your site.

Researching the above, I finally settled on the title “The long tail: how to use long tail keywords to improve article ranking”. It uses the mini-phrases ‘long tail’ and ‘long tail keywords’ and therefore will take advantage of the monthly searches and competition levels for both of these.

How do I use a long tail phrase to improve article ranking?

Now that you’ve researched a variety of long tail phrases, you can now start incorporating them into your article. The following guidance will give you the best chance of being listed highly in search engines:

Your heading should always be a long tail phrase – try and aim for a heading that is very specific, but also contains some great keywords.

Your sub-headings should always be long tail phrases – sub-headings be logical and fit in with your article, but they can also be long tail phrases that will be searched for within search engines.

Repeat variations of your long tail throughout your article – do not over-stuff your article or destroy the flow of the article!  A lot of writers make the mistake of filling their article with keywords and long tails and end up with a very poor article – you may get traffic to your website, but if they are put off by your writing then you’ve wasted your time.

Conclusion: Why should I use long tail phrases?

You don’t have to use long tail phrases in your articles, but if you are serious about publishing on the web and attracting readers, then the long tail is an important tool that when combined with other SEO techniques will help your article get more targeted traffic.

Getting a million visitors to your website is great, but getting ten thousand visitors who actually want to read your article is even better.

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• Study Looks at Searcher Verbosity, Ask “Wins” (searchenginewatch.com)