Choosing Good Keywords – Part Three

March 13, 2008 by 4 Comments

Now that you have a list of keywords for your site (see Part One and Part Two in this series), it is time to put those keywords to good use. You should put together a list of keywords that describe your site and you should also think about keywords when you write an individual post.

Back in the day, bloggers and website coders found that using the meta keyword tag was an easy way to let search engines now what your blog or website was about. Not so anymore. There are very few search engines that rely on the meta keyword tag. Too many devious webmasters found that stuffing their meta keyword tags with every available keyword would be beneficial. However, it was soon discovered that the keywords being used did not even slightly relate to their website.

Search engines now rely much more heavily on keyword density. There are two tools that I use to check keyword density. The first one is Word Counter. Word Counter allows you to copy and paste text into a box and will show you the frequency of words used in your post. I copied my first post in this series and found that “keyword” is the most frequently used word with 14. The next word is “post” with 7. This counter will give you some idea if you are overusing any words or if you need to beef up the count of your chosen keywords.

The second tool I use is Keyword Frequency Counter. This tools allows you to type in the address of your post or webpage. I again used the first post in this series and found that keywords is used 15 times and the frequency is 4.17% compared to the entire post. Frequency is ideal when kept between 3 and 10%. Anything higher might flag your post as “spammy.”

I also used this tool to check the entire blog. I typed http://www.blogzenith.com and here are the results:

Keyword Count

I guess I use your and that a lot. Some of the keywords are good. Other keywords that I would have liked to appear don’t make a showing so I need to work on that a bit.

This is a good exercise for your blog and your posts. Before you commit to a post, try Word Counter to see if you are getting the frequency of keywords that you are hoping for. Periodically check your entire blog. Do your chosen keywords show up on the list? If not, try writing an article that utilize those keywords.

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Choosing Good Keywords – Part Two

February 19, 2008 by 4 Comments

Have you made a list of keywords for your blog? Good for you! Now it is time to get your hands dirty. This part of the process can be frustrating and rewarding at the same time. It will take a little bit of patience, but once you get the hang of it the rest is cake.

Keyword Tools

Your first research project is to use a few keyword tools that will help you determine how often your keywords are searched. Let’s start with an online tool by Wordtracker.

Simply type your keyword in the Keyword: box and click “Hit Me” (there is an option to remove offensive words as well).

WordTracker

I typed in the word blogging and these are the results:

WordTracker Results

Noticed that the word blogging by itself generates 490 daily searches.  That word may be a little too competitive for my small blog.  Looking at the results, I notice that blogging tips generates 88 daily searches.  This might be a better niche.  Other phrases that interest me are blogging guides (66), define blogging (50), explain blogging (38), blogging advice ( 31), tips on blogging (20), blogging for dummies (17) and blogging how to (9).

This does not end my search for the best keywords for my blog.  I have to now turn to a familiar tool – Google.  Each keyword and/or phrase must now be searched in Google to determine how many pages exist for that particular keyword or phrase.   Here are my results:

Keyword Results

Notice that the term blogging may have the most daily searches, but there is also the most competition for this keyword with over 61 million pages.  The next term – blogging tips – is also highly competitive with almost 2 million pages.  The third term – blogging guides – looks like a much better fit for me.  The term is searched 66 times a day and only 239,000 pages were found.   Some of the other phrases are also likely to be a good fit.  Stay away from tips on blogging.  With only 20 daily searches and over 31 million pages, this would not be a good phrase to choose.

My quest is not quite over yet.  I also check my results with Digital Point – Keyword Suggestion Tool. This tool will tell you the daily numbers for searched keywords from WordTracker as well as Overture.  You will notice that there are different keywords and phrases listed and that Overture has larger numbers.  The Overture data is based on more searches.

Digital Point Results

Again, look at the results, do some Google searches, and determine the best keywords and phrases for your site.

Here are the simple steps so far:

  • Write down keywords and/or phrases for your blog
  • Search those keyword and phrases in Wordtracker and Digital Point
  • List the keywords and phrases that look good to you
  • Use Google to determine which of these keywords and phrases have a lower competition rate and might be best for your blog.

Next:  How to use keywords in your blog.

Filed Under: Blogging Tips, SEO Tagged With: ,

Choosing Good Keywords – Part One

February 7, 2008 by 6 Comments

Recently, I mentioned that using the post slug feature when writing a post can result in good search engine results for your blog.  How do you find the right keywords to use for the post slug or for a title for your post?   The answer is – Research!

There is no quick scheme for finding niche keywords you must relay on using keyword suggestion tools and good old fashioned leg (or finger) work.

I find that choosing keywords for a blog differs from a website.  First of all, your blog may be about many different subjects.  You may have blogging tips, recipes, personal stories and news items spread throughout your blog.  This is very different from a website whose only goal is to sell pet supplies.   However, you should come up with at least a dozen different keywords that describe what your blog is about.   For example, I might choose words such as blogging, blogging tips, beginning blogging, etc., for my blog keywords.  I open up a text editor and type each of these terms in the editor.

In that same text editor, I also write down keywords of topics that I would like to use in future posts.  For instance, this post is about keywords.  I might write down keywords, choosing keywords, seo, search engine optimization, etc.  Since I will probably write more than one article about keywords and search engine optimization, part of my research will be done for future posts.

You should now have a good list of keywords.  Your next step will be to research the keywords that you wrote down.   Stay tuned for Part Two of this series which will cover using keyword tools and search engines to narrow your choices.

Filed Under: Blogging Tips, SEO Tagged With: ,

SEO – Blog Taglines are Important

January 10, 2008 by 3 Comments

One of the most important things that you can do for your blog is SEO.  SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization.  Applying sound SEO techniques to your blog will help your blog obtain higher search engine rankings, specifically from Google.

SEO is not something you can learn overnight.  It is not something that you can apply in one hour to your blog and be finished.  You must continually work at it.   That is why I am starting this SEO series – to give you a little help at a time. Now, I don’t claim to be an SEO expert, but I have taken a few classes and I will continue to search and read and make discoveries about SEO techniques.

Here is something you may not know, Google crawls your site starting at the top left.  It will then read the left hand column and then move to the next column and so on until it ends at the bottom right of your webpage.  And what does Google want to know?  What your blog is about.

The name of my blog and domain name do not accurately describe what my blog is about, but I really can’t do anything about that.  However, I recently changed my tag line to include the word blogging and blog.

Your tagline should describe your blog with enough good key words that the Google bot knows what your blog is about.   If your blog is about cats, don’t use a tagline that says “Meow, Meow, Meow.”  It is cute, but it does nothing to help your rankings with Google.  Instead try something like “A cat fancier who loves purebred cats and pedigree cats.”  Google won’t mistake that your blog is about cat sounds (meow), but instead will realize that your blog is about cats, purebred cats, pedigree cats, etc.

Write out a couple taglines and ask others for their opinions.  Can they understand the main purpose of your blog from your tagline?  Remember, it is a matter of trial and error.  Eventually you will find the ideal tagline for your blog!

Filed Under: SEO Tagged With: ,