This is a guest post by Alex Papa.
Reviewing the traffic statistics of blog posts it becomes evident how undereducated many bloggers can be when it comes to keyword strategy that places articles at the top of search engines. The greatest difficulty most bloggers seem to have is understanding that blogging is not like traditional copywriting. Marketing blogs online involves optimizing your content words in order to leverage on search engines and thereby have more viewers. To do this, you have to understand how to choose and use keywords.
How to determine which keywords are the right ones for your article?
To begin, you’ll want to use a keyword research tool. Options are available, some of which are free while others require a small fee. You can use Google Suggest that generates the top ten keywords based on a word you choose or you can use the Google Keyword Tool which provides a list of exact or phrase keywords together with their monthly local and global number of searches. These numbers give you a good idea of who is searching for what and what the trends are on a world wide scale. Also, Overture offers a keyword research tool that links to Yahoo’s search engine. It is a good idea to pick words that have a substantial monthly search volume and a relatively low competition. Using these words at the start of your headline will massively increase your chances of ranking at the top of Google search results for the particular keywords.
Two Things You Should Never Have in a Headline
Using a keyword research tool is just the beginning. You also have to know where in your article you must place the keywords for maximum effect.
When it comes to the title, the first few words are crucial and should be keyword rich. Avoid wasting the first few words of your headline with meaningless words. Here are a couple of tips.
Tip 1: Only use the alphabet in your title. Do not include quotation characters, asterisks, dashes or back slashes. A search engine will have to shuffle through these characters and then ignore them in order to understand your article’s title.
Tip 2: Do not adopt any spamming techniques such as using keyword rich titles that have nothing to do with your article’s content. Search engines now are incredibly adept at recognizing and filtering this type of technique, and it will only hurt your traffic potential.
To summarize, recognizing that the title’s keywords are critical to gaining a high search engine rank is the first step towards optimizing your article’s traffic potential. Mastering keyword strategy through the use of keyword research tools, and understanding how to select appropriate keywords, is the second key to increasing traffic to your blog posts. Finally, it is important to know what not to do when choosing keywords and this will reward you with an enhanced online profile.
Put another way, choosing your keywords wisely, and placing them strategically, will help you reach your full traffic and profit potential.
Alex Papa owns many online businesses and has invested heavily in search engine optimization. His new website is a platform for people to connect and exchange business ideas reviews. In his blog Alex also offers the Symantec Norton coupon.
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{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
Twitter: webmaster_serve
November 8, 2010 at 4:03 pm
Nice tip on headline, one of the easiest way to make users read a blogpost is to catch their attention with an engaging headline also if your content is appealing to search engines, one way to start is by writing headlines that will appeal to search engines.
Biodun | UK ecommerce forum recently posted..Start-up Capital for a Clothing Line Business
Twitter: alexanderthegry
November 9, 2010 at 1:21 am
As Biodun said, I agree that you have to optimize the title to reach the top of search engine results but you also have to make it in such a way that when someone sees it they will be enticed to click it.
A high SERP ranking and low CTR doesn’t really satisfy anyone.
By the way great article, Alex!
Axel@Jocuri recently posted..Dubita pe circuit
Twitter: richescorner
November 9, 2010 at 10:57 am
Hi Alex,
Good post on creating search engine optimized content. One thing you can do is to use a plugin to do your titles for the search engines, so that you can keyword optimize those more, but do your regular title more for the reader.
Richard recently posted..Shakespeare Didn’t Do SEO
Great post – keyword optimization is a must, and research is the way to do it!
Hi Biodun
Indeed, a catchy headline will attract more readers. An keyword optimised title will attract more organic traffic. Creating a title that does both is an art!
Alex, Yes that is so true! Hi SERP is of no use really if the CTR is low. People will chose to click on other peoples’ sites, even if you rank higher than them. That’s scary! The title has to attract eyeballs!
Hey, nice. I like the way this has been crafted. Keep up the great work.
Praveen@Techperk recently posted..25 Best Free iPhone Games
Hi Praveen, Thank you very much for reading this post and for your nice comments.
Not bad at all indeed. You learn something new everyday and would definitely be able to use this concept. 5 stars, knowing which keywords to match your business is the most important
Generating traffic is always the most time consuming part of making money online.You’ve optimized your AdSense, Chitika and Affiliate programs, you’ve even written a little seasonal content…. but there’s one missing element…. Traffic.
Anyway,thanks for sharing this great post,I enjoyed a lot.Just to tell you keep up your good work and wish you the best.
seph from engine optimization recently posted..Site Map
Hey Seph,
Thx for the comment there. I’m glad you enjoyed the article here. Traffic generation is something that everyone on the internet desperately needs but I think it all boils down to getting the right kind of traffic and not just thousands of non targeted visitors per day.
Have a great day and wishing you all the best too!
I drop by on your blog and it gets my attention and can’t stop but reading on it, great post.
SEO is quite complex so you’ll need lots of things. Thanks for the nice info. This would be great help for everyone. Specially for those people who’s works is totally depend upon the blogging and SEO.
True that keywords is so important! Also , great post thanks
Zely241 recently posted..Starting An Online Business 101 – Your Ticket to Financial Security!
Keywords are definitely important but still too much emphasis is bad for your content. Appreciate you dropping by here.