Judging by the number of websites on the web today, it is becoming harder and harder to find key words for optimization that your competitors are not already using. But finding keywords that your competitors are missing might be easier than imagined. Here we shall have a look at both conventional and unconventional means to overcome the competition in search engine rankings by showing you some effective but often overlooked ways of beating the competition at the SEO race.
Viewing your competitorfs Source code This is one of the easiest and most effective ways of learning more about your competition and their SEO strategy. It gives you the opportunity to have a look at some of their keywords, and better still you can get to see what keyword phrases they target in the search engines. Though not as important as they were in the earlier phases of the internet, meta-tags still play a key role in Search Engine Optimization techniques. Create your own keyword phrases by using a combination of some of the keywords targeted in your competitorsf meta tags. Go through the source code and pay particular attention to headings and titles. The higher up they are in the source code, the easier it will be for search engines to find them and this gives you an edge about where and how to place your keywords on your own page.
Place yourself in the Search Engine Userfs Mindset Knowing your customers can eliminate a lot of wasted time and effort. If you know the people that you are targeting, you can then be able to customize your efforts to suit them. Think of the terms that you would search for if you were looking for your own site. It is also good to let someone else compile a list of words that they would use to search for your site, two minds are better than one. Search words that may not be obvious to you may be common with a particular group within your targeted clientele. Make sure you focus on the real content on the site, keep the topics in mind when looking for competitive keyword phrases. Even within your targeted group, there are bound to be a few other groups within it. For example, if your site sells second hand blue jeans, there may be people who will look for Edwinfs blue jeans while others may type in Levifs blue jeans. Knowing these minor details about your customers can improve your site traffic dramatically.
Keyword tools Before settling down to the terms that you are going to use for your site optimization, run them through any keyword suggestion tool to see their popularity and any variations that you may have overlooked. Here I would recommend the Overture suggestion tool, it is both free and reliable and thus a perfect fit for an entrepreneur. Use it to edit the list of words and phrases that you prepared for optimization.
Multiple words and phrases Single words are unlikely to bring you any qualified visitors. If you have a site selling homemade butter cookies, having cookies as one of the keywords might generate a million leads but chances are that very few of them are potential customers for your product. Half of them might be computer nerds searching for information about cookies and sessions for all you know. You would be much better off having gHomemade Irish Cookiesh or any other descriptive term that will drive specific and qualified customers ready to purchase your product.
Keyword variations As I mentioned in the previous section, optimum results are more likely to be obtained using multiple words than singular words. Adding on to this, it is important that you create as many variations as possible for the selected keywords so that you expand the scope of your reach. For example if you are promoting a site selling second hand magazines, you can have not only esecond-handf but similar words such as eUsed magazinesf, and eLast Yearfs editionsf and so on that will effectively reach a more far reaching market for you.
For more tips on how to optimize your site and market your effort online, you can access more articles available at http://www.e- gnorance.com.
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