Keywords and Key-Phrases
Keywords and key-phrases are the foundation of search and
the foundation of SEO. People search Google, Yahoo and MSN
using keywords and key-phrases to find the information, products
or services for which they are looking.
So, in response to this activity by users of search engines,
web pages also need to be optimized around particular keyword
phrases as well. Picking the right keyword phrase for a page
the attracts the right kind of visitor is paramount if a web
business is to succeed.
This is why the keyword research
component of SEO is so critical. If an SEO (and client) pick
the wrong key phrases to optimize the web pages around, then
the wrong types of visitors will come to the site and will
then either quickly leave or stay but not buy or participate.
So, when one picks keyword phrases for a web page, what does
one look for to optimize a page around? First, picking one-word
keywords for any page is usually a bad idea unless there is
extremely low competition, such as the company's unique brand
name. For branding purposes some web business are only interested
in getting their brand name to the stop of the SERPs and this
is there prerogative.
What is more effective is to pick a two, three or four word
key phrase with low competition to optimize a page around.
Beside keyword research, competition analysis for the keyword
phrases is also necessary in estimating the likelihood of
being able to rank in the top 10 listings for each particular
phrase.
Without competition analysis, a web page could be buried
way back in the SERPs where no one will ever find it, due
to overwhelming competition from older, more authoritative
pages. Any decent SEO will do both the keyword phrase popularity
analysis and competition analysis to find out how many people
are inputting a particular keyword phrase into the search
engines and the competition in the SERPs for those phrases.
Once this work is done and list compiled to optimize a clients
web pages for, then all that is left is the hands on work
of on-page optimizing and / or SEO copywriting to make the
page tightly focused. That, and of course the link-building
campaign to follow must also have this list of keyword phrases
in its anchor text as well.
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