SEO and Keyword research
As a blogger, I never really thought about this subject until I was in a discussion with someone about traffic volumes and the need to be always looking for more traffic, and optimizing the available traffic.
I also write over at hubpages and I was looking through the work I have done there, wondering why a few of my recipes get so little traffic. This one in particular, Smoked Trout Creams,
gets almost no traffic compared to some of my others that get hundreds, even thousands of visits a day.
So, I was talking to my friend and mentioned to him that this page gets no views. He took a look and suggested I make a few changes.
Specifically, he said, You want to go with “trout recipes” in the title and several times in the body, and include rainbow and steelhead in the body at least once. And then get several dozens external links with anchors “Trout recipes…”, “Rainbow trout recipes…”, and “Steelhead trout recipes…”. to change the title of the page from “Smoked Trout Creams,” to something including the term, “Trout Recipes.”
It is now, “Smoked Trout Creams – Best Trout Recipes,” and I have added the terms he suggested. I am busy adding links to it as we speak:
Rainbow Trout Recipes
Now I am playing a waiting game as I continue to spread the links around. Only time will tell if this advice pays off, so you can bet I will be reporting back with the results.
What about you? Do you do keyword research or do you just write your blogs?
And if you are interested who was giving the advice, this is his hub page, and this is his Moscow Driving Directions website.
Andy MacDonald | March 4th, 2008 at 1:27 pm #
A great post Mark. Yeah i personally research keywords before i post each of my blog entries, to make sure im targeting the keywords which will likely bring me the best return on traffic.
Whilst its important to have keywords in your article, as well as in the meta tags, its also vitally important not to over-do keywords. I posted an article yesterday which talks about the dangers of keyword stuffing, which readers of this blog post might want to check out.
http://swiftmediauk.co.uk/blog/index.php/2008/03/03/avoid-keyword-stuffing/
Mark Knowles (Post Author) | March 4th, 2008 at 2:03 pm #
Thanks Andy,
I have always been of the opinion that if you write it naturally, it will have the correct keywords in organically. But I guess that’s only if I am the one reading it
Misha | March 4th, 2008 at 6:57 pm #
OK, I changed the link so it does not go to trash without appeal
It was a quick and dirty keywords research, it took me less than 5 minutes to come up with those recommendations.
So, you caught me on this, Mark, and now I have to deliver
I still think it will work, give it some time and some effort, and we’ll meet here in a couple of weeks to check on it…
Misha
Mapquest
Mark Knowles (Post Author) | March 4th, 2008 at 7:01 pm #
Will do. I am looking forward to seeing what happens.
Sastra Vardhana | March 4th, 2008 at 9:22 pm #
Good idea mark. I learning more with your post. thanks
Fred | March 4th, 2008 at 9:50 pm #
Hi,
Have been following your feed since I started blogging. I also subscribed to other SEO sites. Since I implemented some SEO techniques, my sites went from zero listing in first 2 pages in SERP to number 1 in 30 days. I make sure I have sufficient keywords spread throughout my posting.
I started blogging on this new domain name in November 2007. Did the SEO in December 2007. At the end of December 2007, was the top 5 in my major keywords SERP. On 1st March my ranking suddenly jump from NOT RANKED to 5! I must have don’t the right SEO technique.
You can visit my sites at http://www.fredchanblog.com.
Fred Chan
Barry O | March 5th, 2008 at 12:29 am #
The proper usage of keywords in your title tags can definitely increase your search engine rankings. Of course, it’s also good to know what people are actually searching for so you can target those phrases. I posted about a tool that can help you get that info here: http://1cat.biz/if-keyword-research-is-so-important-why-arent-you-doing-it/
Mark Knowles (Post Author) | March 5th, 2008 at 5:14 am #
Thanks for the input guys. I will be reporting back on this one. It’s interesting because this particular one was getting basically no traffic. It had sat for six months as it was, so after a few weeks, I will update this.
They weren’t my ideas though. Check out Misha’s sites too.
And congrats on your various
successes.
Steve Pronger | March 6th, 2008 at 12:21 am #
Be careful not to have your targeted keywords in ALL your anchor text links. This can trigger filters in the engines. Get some links which have only the URL as the anchor text. The engines expect this type of link to occur naturally.
Cheers
Steve
Mark Knowles (Post Author) | March 6th, 2008 at 4:09 am #
Thanks Steve - that sounds like good advice.
Mike K-H (chabrenas) | March 6th, 2008 at 5:07 pm #
I guess I’m lazy - or sloppy. It’s only when traffic looks really sick that I get round to asking why.
I’ve still got the problem with an attempt to sell Kalahari Desert Race t shirts and other stuff on CafePress. Now I’ve realised that there is a place where you can input stuff that actually ends up in the tag, so maybe things will improve.
Mark Knowles (Post Author) | March 7th, 2008 at 8:58 am #
I hope you get rid of the T shirts.
SEO Expert | March 7th, 2008 at 4:20 pm #
It really depends on whether I am targeting traffic, or just writing a casual blog post. In the latter situation, I just write naturally. In the prior, I am consciously co-creating spider food.
Mark Knowles (Post Author) | March 7th, 2008 at 4:27 pm #
I think that’s a good approach with a blog.
chabrenas | March 8th, 2008 at 3:31 am #
Thanks for the good wishes, Mark, but ‘getting rid’ of the t shirts (plus hoodies, caps, buttons, and even what CafePress calls a thong and I’d call a jockstrap) would be like trying to drink the ocean dry. They print on demand, so they’d have to go bust or I’d have to withdraw the product…
The only 6 clicks I got from Adwords were for a key phrase (desert race) where I appear to have been the only bidder, since my ad appeared alone on the front page. But yesterday they made the ad inactive for that keyword, saying I must improve ‘quality’ (how can I do more than play with on CafePress?, or up my bid by 50%. Cheeky. No thanks. No point in advertising costs that eat the whole profit margin.
So back to SEO, but I’ll have to do it on my own sites and link to the shop, I suppose. I need to build myself a list - which is another brick wall so far, but I spy a small crack. A friend has a very untargeted newsletter, so perhaps I can persuade a small fraction of her subscribers to buy into a more targeted one from me? Small beer, but it coud be a start.
Here’s something else that I believe is on target for this comment thread:
I’m part owner of a site that retails espadrilles and berets. After a year of trading, we are now on Google’s page 1 for several of our keywords. However, we are finding that people who are shopping on the web all click on the ad rather than the search result… Time to withdraw the ad for a keyword and see if we lose sales?
Mark Knowles (Post Author) | March 8th, 2008 at 4:49 am #
That’s also a good question. Not as easy as you might think to juggle all this stuff - And still write decent content
Motorhome Hire | March 9th, 2008 at 3:30 pm #
Hi, well yes indeed, keywords is really what it is all about. However with blogging I quite like to leave a lot of the real human stuff up to the writer themselves, unless it is a post designed to hit something hard. Funnily enough my friend Steve Pritchard has just made a great looking site called http://www.bitethenews.com - a satitical look at the news. He got his first subscriber the other day and then asked me how he should approach with the follow up emails. A quick look at the stats and I discovered that the guy had found the site by looking for ‘barnsley prostitutes’. Barnsley, by the way, is an exceptionally grim town in the north of England!!
Aden Fraser | March 12th, 2008 at 7:09 am #
Hey, thanks for the good advice. Will definately help get my site further up when i concentrate on SEO.
Thanks.