Keyword Research – How to Blow Away Your Competition
September 15, 2010
Keyword research forms the basis of ALL your SEO. Think about it…you use your keywords in every aspect of online marketing:
- Titles
- Descriptions
- All site content, headers, and tags
- Inbound links
- Article syndication
- Business listings
- Profiles
- Social media – Facebook, Twitter, et al
- Video syndication
This makes keyword research extraordinarily important!
But how much time do you spend on actual research? What tools do you use? Or do you guess?
There are a lot of keyword tools on the market, or you can simply use the Google Keyword Tool like millions of other people. Which means you’ll be using the same keywords to rank your site as millions of other people. That makes competition pretty rough.
A New Keyword Tool
I’ve discovered a keyword tool that will save you hours of time while giving you a whole new universe of highly searched keywords to use. It’s not free, but it is quite inexpensive and will pay for itself in no time. Don’t take my word for it – watch the video – I was sold on Keyword Gem halfway into it. But watch all the way through, because you’ll get a terrific tip towards the end that you won’t want to miss.
You’ll still want to check your new keywords in Google’s Keyword Tool. Your newly discovered keywords will not have as many searches as the more generic keywords, but you’ll probably never be able to rank for those anyway. You may as well be realistic and use keywords for which you can get Google search rankings. This tool will help you find those more achievable, and more targeted, keywords.
On-Site or Off-Site SEO: Which is More Important?
September 14, 2010
This is a great question a commenter recently asked: Which one is more important – on-page SEO or off-page SEO?
First, let’s clarify terminology: on-site (or on-page) SEO includes titles, descriptions, content, headers, alt tags, navigation, URL naming, load speed and other ways to make a site more friendly to both visitors and search engines; off-site(or off-page) SEO comprises inbound link building using a variety of techniques and strategies. When you include social media, video syndication, newsletters, advertising and the like, the whole shebang becomes an online marketing campaign.
I once read that on-site SEO is 80% and off-site SEO is 100%. That makes sense in the world of SEO. Here’s why…
The Importance of On-Site SEO
On-site SEO should be your primary focus. A well-optimized site will load quickly; it has content that makes it easy for visitors (as well as search engines) to understand what the site is about. Both visitors and search engines will be able to navigate through it easily, find what they want, and not get lost or reach a dead end. On-page is the most important element in your SEO efforts in the beginning. A site that is not well-optimized (80%) may do okay, but then again if visitors and search engines don’t like it, you won’t get far.
The Importance of Off-Site SEO
Once your site is optimized, off-page SEO becomes 100% important. Without inbound links, a site has little to no chance of ranking in search engine results. The following breakdown from an SEOmoz survey of top SEO experts shows the importance of inbound links:
The easiest part of your SEO will always be on-site optimization. Follow basic SEO practices, avoid sneaky (black hat) tricks, and offer up the best site you can for your visitors. After that, although link building is time consuming, tedious, and can take a long time to take effect, it’s also vitally important if you want your site to rank in Google’s search results.
So what’s my answer? Both – but put them in the proper order so they will work synergistically.
