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Ten Steps To A Well Optimized Website
Step One - Choosing The Right Keywords

By Dave Davies

This is part one of ten in this search engine positioning 
series. In part one we will outline how to choose the keyword 
phrases most likely to produce a high ROI for your search 
engine positioning efforts. Over this ten part series we will 
go through ten essential elements and steps to optimizing a 
site. Some steps take a few hours, some may take months 
depending on the competition, but in the end and, if done 
correctly, you will have a well optimized site that will place 
well and hold it's positioning.

Of course, all websites fluctuate up and down. However, well 
optimized sites will spend more time on the upper end of the 
rankings than poorly optimized or spammy sites which may see 
high rankings but which will lose those rankings over time.

The Ten Steps We Will Go Through Are: 

- Keyword Selection
- Content
- Site Structure
- Optimization
- Internal Linking
- Human Testing
- Submissions
- Link Building
- Monitoring
- The Extras

Step One - Keyword Selection

Arguably, keyword selection is the single most important stage 
in the entire optimization process. If you do not choose the 
correct keyword phrases you will not maximize your ROI on this 
campaign. I mention ROI and use it as a reminder that keyword 
selection is not necessarily about looking for the most searched 
phrases. A profitable optimization is one which produces the 
greatest return on investment for the time and money that are 
available to put towards it.

Bigger Is Not Always Better
If you are a web designer in Seattle who has just started your 
own business, you could make "web design" the targeted keyword 
phrase for your site as it certainly has the highest number of 
searches with 707,962 in September 2004 according to the 
"Overture Search Term Suggestion Tool". If you have thousands 
of dollars and many months to dedicated just to attaining those 
rankings it could be done. However, would that be the best use 
of your time? Alternatively you could target "seattle web site 
design" with 5,070 searches in September. A Google link check 
shows the number of links for the top three competitors for the 
Seattle search had 132, 21, and 47 respectively whereas for "web 
design" the top three had 18,700, 5,420, and 1,310 incoming 
links each.

With a good site you would get more work than you could handle 
with 5,070 searches on Overture alone if you were ranking well 
on the major search engines. This would clearly provide the 
highest return on investment for the small business owner who 
most certainly does not have the time and money available to 
target "web design" and who wouldn't have the manpower to take 
advantage of the rankings even if they were attained.

This is an extreme example, but it clearly illustrates that 
sometimes the phrase with the highest number of searches is 
not necessarily the best target for your business.

Phrases That Sell
Another consideration you will want to make when choosing your 
keyword phrases is whether or not they are "buy phrases". Phrases 
with a high number of searches that are not "buy phrases" will 
tend to bring a lot of traffic, however the conversion ratio 
will be far lower. Should you choose to target "buy phrases" you 
may not get the same number of visitors but your ratio of 
visitors to sales will be much higher.

In this example, let's assume you are the marketing director for 
a well-known accounting company. There will be many choices you 
can make for your targeted keyword phrase. The top searched 
phrases in September 2004 that were accounting-related are:

- "accounting" with 156,095 searches
- "accounting software" with 54,621 searches
- "accounting job" with 32,015 searches
- "accounting services" with 19,260 searches
- "accounting firm" with 13,089 searches

Many might go with their gut instinct and attempt to target 
"accounting". The problem with this phrase (other than the 
competition for it) is that the people doing that search are 
not necessarily even looking for an accounting firm. They may 
be accounting students, small business owners not interested in 
hiring an accountant but just looking for tax information, etc. 
"Accounting software" and "accounting job" are irrelevant, which 
leaves us with "accounting services" and "accounting firm" as 
the two main options.

>From this point an evaluation of competition should be performed 
and the pros and cons of making each the primary target should 
be weighed based on the amount of work it will take to attain 
the phrase vs. how many searches there are for that phrase.

Often promotions that target multiple "buy phrases" will end up 
far more successful that those targeting phrases based solely on 
the number of searches due to the increased conversions and 
generally decreased competition.

Tools To Use
Armed now with knowledge on how to recognize and choose between 
different phrases there remains only one question, how do you 
know which phrases are even searched? Fortunately there are a 
couple great resources out there to help you find out how many 
searches are performed for specific phrases. They are:

The Overture Search Term Suggestion Tool
(http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/)
A decent tool for researching keyword phrases. It indicates 
which phrases had the highest numbers of searches on Overture 
during the previous month. The biggest weakness it has, as far 
as applying it to the natural search engines, is that Overture 
counts singular and plural as the same and also corrects 
misspelling so the totals are all lumped together in this tool 
whereas on the natural engines they are considered differently.

WordTracker
(http://www.wordtracker.com/trial/index.php3)
WordTracker is very similar to Overture's Search Term Suggestion 
Tool except that this tool differentiates between plural and 
singular searches, does not correct spelling (i.e. it gives the 
number of searches for misspellings rather than correcting them 
and giving a total for correct and misspelled words) and gives 
the results in predicted numbers of searches over all the 
engines per day rather than just one engine over a month.

They have a great free trial that doesn't give you as many 
results but which can be very useful.

When using these tools I recommend beginning with the Overture 
Search term Suggestion Tool and once you've narrowed down your 
choices, switch to WordTracker to insure that you're getting the 
right information in regards to tense (singular vs. plural) and 
also that the numbers match. Sometimes you will find that the 
numbers are completely different from each tool. In this event 
you will have to use your best judgment.

Don't forget to check misspellings when using WordTracker!

Tips & Tricks
There are no real "tricks" to uncovering the keywords you should 
target however there are a few tips. A few pointers that will 
help you maximize your keyword selection:

Think like a layman. Just because you know your industry terms 
doesn't mean that everyone does. Don't just think of the words 
you use to describe your products/services, think of the words 
you would use if you knew nothing about it other than the fact 
that you needed it. You may want to recruit a friend and have 
them run some searches for you.

Think like an expert. On the other side of the coin, there may 
be phrases used specifically in your industry that people "in 
the know" would use to search for your products and/or services. 
Be sure to look into these phrases. You just may find some 
hidden gems that no one else has thought to target.

Don't target too many phrases. Some SEOs and webmasters target 
dozens and sometimes even hundreds of phrases. The end result, 
they often miss the ones they most wanted to attain. Keeping 
yourself and your keyword list focused will keep your site 
focused. If your site is focused, you'll rank higher for the 
phrases that will produce the highest return on investment.

Testing
Test your phrases. If there is any debate about whether a search 
phrase is worth targeting, it's often a good idea to test the 
conversions through pay-per-click engines. Set up an account 
with a PPC engine and bid on the phrases that you would like to 
target.

You have to remember that the PPC engines do not provide for the 
same amount of traffic as the natural engines. Test the initial 
phrases, test alternative phrases, and see which produce the 
best results. Something else to keep in mind is that PPC are not 
natural engines. If your ROI is not as high on more costly 
phrases, that doesn't mean they won't produce the higher return 
on the natural engines where a top ranking does not cost money- 
per-click.

In the end you will have confirmed a solid list of keyword 
phrases and, if the PPC campaign is providing a good return on 
investment, you might as well keep it running and enjoy the 
"bonus" traffic that it provides.

In part two of our "Ten Steps To an Optimized Website" series 
we will be covering content. This will cover everything from the 
optimization of existing content to the creation of new content 
for your website.

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Dave Davies is the owner of Beanstalk Search Engine Positioning 
(a href="http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/). He has been optimizing 
and ranking websites for over three years and has a solid history 
of success. Dave is available to answer any questions that you 
may have about your website and how to get it into the top 
positions on the major search engines.
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