Monday, May 24, 2010

Setting Proper Expectations For Keyword Performance On Websites

This is a great article on the importance of setting the proper expectations when it comes to targeted search performance relative to competition. One of the key strategies for any successful online marketing process is to know your level of competition, knowing the assets you have to work with, setting the proper goals and expectations for the clients based on their progress and propagation on the web and repositioning when necessary...

Concentrating solely on one or a few highly competitive keywords at the beginning of any SEO campaign can lead to a loss in profitability, as well as less than ideal expectations for a client or your management team.

Many client engagements begin with one goal expressed by the client: to rank at the top of the first page in search engines for their industry's top term, and fast. While this is often quickly countered with the realization that honest SEO takes time and should be a concentration across several terms, it still seems to fall on deaf ears in many cases. We live in a world of dreamers, and "fast" is too often becoming "not fast enough."

Any new SEO campaign should actually begin with a focus further down the tail of keyword terms. Effort and thought toward the broad keyword goal should be just that, a goal.

These terms should be identified in initial keyword research as the pinnacle of the information architecture. Don't get me wrong, you'll optimize the home page, top-level website pages, and internal link text back to these pages, etc. with these terms, but you must not obsess early in an SEO campaign about why you aren't ranking highly for these competitive terms.

Your obsession should lie in compartmentalizing site sections and the page themes that expand upon the broad keyword theme. This allows you to take advantage of the low hanging fruit (i.e., all of the less competitive terms that can begin to drive traffic soon while you work at building up the overall site theme that will help you to compete for the top terms you or your clients so desire). This "branches-in" approach requires you to enable sound SEO practices further into internal pages, such as your many product or service pages.

Many clients have become greedy and obsessed over single term performance in the past. While nerves are frazzled over one term, it's hard to see the actual progress that's taking place.

Instead of fretting over why you aren't getting the rankings or referrals for x, perform a broad match filtered search in analytics for x plus other words. I've experienced this many times where exact match referrals were non-desirable but there were a plethora of terms, including the broad term, in the keyword referral. In addition, these longer tail terms are often more qualified, leading to higher conversions.

Structuring a site to be SEO-friendly, as well as reinforcing a keyword theme in your content strategy that greatly expands the broad term desired, will likely result in great rankings for competitive terms. The funny thing is, often when you look at the big picture all the long tail keyword traffic you helped drive to the site will collectively drive much more traffic to the site and convert better than the competitive broad term that became an obsession.

From a cost-benefit standpoint, you can start getting rankings/traffic/conversions soon from the expanded term focus rather than battling solely towards one or a few terms which may take a year or more to see success.


Source: http://searchenginewatch.com/3640423
Contact us today to learn more about keyword SEO, facebook seo and law firm website design new york city


5 comments:

  1. Thanks for this great article. This article is really very helpful for SEO purposes. I have also gain huge profit by following these tips.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Typically the organization over at Bit Brother's found well-known time for the purpose of healthier and others absolutely consistent prints on their purses. hermes outlet Many assumed who in order to make his or her's label be different, many would need to need healthier prints on their purses. fake handbags Necessary many opted Amazing Western Packing and shipping being packing and shipping other half. gucci replica Any time you adopt the link following, notice both of them purses following that together. A lot of our pouch might be at the departed. You can actually naturally observe positive an outstanding laser printer are generally for a logo. louis vuitton outlet Small Bros Bakery designate essentially jumps off of the pouch. dior replica Furthermore, nonetheless clean, frosty difference of this green not to mention old watches will make the total arrangement more appealing. The sole at the best suited almost unachievable to study, not to mention will in no way flourish in getting recognition. Upon processed basic pay ones preoccupied with a device, not to mention rightfully which means. But, it is critical who quite as long concentrates at the packing and shipping. Since of course, typically the packing and shipping might be the initial thing your visitors will find, including your primary logo probability.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Many clients have become greedy and obsessed over single term performance in the past. While nerves are frazzled over one term, it's hard to see the actual progress that's taking place.
    kurti stitching factory ,
    stitching factory in pakistan ,

    ReplyDelete
  4. Many clients have become greedy and obsessed over single term performance in the past. While nerves are frazzled over one term, it's hard to see the actual progress that's taking place.
    best web development companies in canada ,
    web design vancouver ,

    ReplyDelete
  5. The obligation of SEO experts is to create exposure to businesses. They focus on SEO Internet marketing goals and provide top search engine rank like Google and Yahoo. digital marketing spokane

    ReplyDelete