Top 3 Mistakes Businesses Make With Keyword Targeting is a post from: #1 Melbourne SEO Services Company

Learn how to do effective keyword targeting.

If you’re a small business designing a website, understanding keyword targeting is one of the fundamentals of success; but it’s amazing how many mistakes are made with it.

Most businesses don’t understand that you can actually rank for any keyword that you like, if you build enough back-links and prove to Google you deserve it; taking time to identify what it’s worth going after and then taking the steps to get there is basic to your online business.

Here are 3 of the main errors that online businesses make when it comes to this important part of your marketing strategy.

1. Not Getting Inside Their Customers’ Heads!

Another mistake online businesses often make is not understanding fully what their customers are searching for – this is key to targeting the right website keywords. In fact getting inside the minds of your customers is important to virtually every aspect of successful online marketing.

There’s no point pouring time and money into targeting keywords that nobody is searching for or that the type of customers you want to attract will not be typing into search engines.

Think about your ideal customer and what they search for just before they find you – this should enable you to put together a list of keywords you can target; cross-checking using the Google Keywords Tool will fine-tune that list.

2. Not Understanding Keyword ROI

It’s important to get ROI (Return on Investment) for what you spend on targeting keywords. This is often overlooked.

For example, if you spend a lot of money ranking well for a broad and highly competitive term like “home loans” but only have a $20 eBook on home loans to sell then it’s unlikely you’ll ever make a profit. This is poor ROI, as you don’t have the product to back up your target.

For a term like “home loans” all the big banks and financial institutions will be competing for Number 1 on Google; as a small business it’s unrealistic to compete on their grounds as it would take huge resources to do so; it’s far better to target other keywords that it’s easier to rank for, that still reflect your business and get a better ROI overall. Look for the quick, easy “wins” or the “low hanging fruit.”

3. Mistaking The Browsing Phrase For The Buying Phrase

People will visit product-based websites to browse or to buy; targeting buyers is important and it will come down to your keyword choices.

For example if you have a site that sells digital cameras you can spend ages trying to rank for “cameras”. It’s highly competitive and will take a lot of money to get it ranking at all. If you do manage it, you will get a lot of traffic, but will they necessarily be buyers? Actually many will be browsers who are not there to buy anything at all.

Traffic volume can be misleading. Sometimes it’s better to get fewer highly qualified hits than it is to get many unqualified hits.

To use the above example, if your site sells the Sony Handicam HDR-SRII it will be far easier to rank for that keyword phrase than “cameras”; you spend less time and money getting it to rank PLUS the traffic is qualified because most people clicking on your site will be interested in buying that particular model.

Understanding some basic principles and avoiding the three mistakes above with your keyword targeting will immediately give your online business a huge advantage over the others – because most businesses aren’t doing it correctly.

For other best-practices with getting your website created and ranking well check out the Competition Crusher workshop. It’s viewable for FREE right here: www.crusherworkshop.com.

3 Steps To Effective Keyword Research For Small Business is a post from: #1 Melbourne SEO Services Company

Before writing your web copy and building your site you need to drill down into the nuts and bolts of your business and do keyword research. This will identify the phrases that you will target through your web copy and on-page SEO to get your site ranking with the search engines.

Some people fall into the trap of putting keyword research into the “too hard” or “too technical” bin when, in reality, it’s not difficult at all.

Here we show you three easy steps so that you get the results you are after.

1. Identify Your Top Products And Services

The first step couldn’t be easier. What are your main products and services?

If you are a Melbourne-based printer, for example, your main products might be printing services, brochure design, flyer printing etc.

That’s really all there is to the first step – knowing what your business is. Nothing difficult about that is there?

2. Use The Google Free Keyword Tool

Secondly you use the Google Keyword Tool or the Market Samurai tools to find keywords.

With the Google tool you will be met with a text box that you need to enter your keyword phrases into, one by one. For example “printing services”, “flyer printing” etc. Enter the phrase and click SEARCH.

The results will show for that phrase and any related phrases (or by selecting the EXACT button on the left hand panel you can get results just for that exact phrase); you will receive results for global searches, searches local to your location and you will also get an idea of the competition level for those phrases.

You can sort the results by MOST SEARCHES to make it easier – work your way down the list and see if there are any there that you can target.

Ideally you want your phrase to have a lot of monthly searches and low level of competition, as that opens the door for a lot of traffic to be headed your way.

Play around with the tool and identify as many core phrases that help to describe and position your business.

3. Add Geographic Modifiers To The Keyword

You will find that “printing services” has a huge amount of searches and a high level of competition; it will take a lot of work to get ranking for that phrase; it’s usually better to add a geographic modifier to the phrase and concentrate on ranking for the local market first.

For example, “printing services Melbourne” will be less competitive and with some smart SEO you can get ranking for that; you can also go after the suburbs, like “printing service Prahran”, for example – as these phrases will be even easier to rank for.

Once you have got good ranks for these keywords you can then target the “bulkier”, more competitive keywords that get more searches and traffic, but it’s best to try to conquer the local market first.

Anybody who can use a computer can handle these three steps for how to do keyword research – and they are steps that nobody designing a small business website should miss.

For more great tips on starting your new online business, watch the Competition Crusher workshop absolutely FREE right here: www.crusherworkshop.com.

You need the right tools for your keyword research.

The Google Page Ranking Mystery is a post from: #1 Melbourne SEO Services Company

When it comes to raising your page rank on Google, there are a number of factors involved. The best thing you can do for yourself in the beginning is have a clear idea of your goals and realistic expectations about how and when you’ll get there.

The first thing you should know is that it more than likely isn’t going to happen overnight. Google and other search engines prefer traffic and links that are natural and organic, and this can take some time. Building backlinks is a good way to get this started, but you can’t just go out and have 200 of them put up in a day and expect results.

If you’ve done your homework you’ll know if you’re in a competitive market, like the example used in the video – credit cards. If you do some research, there are probably plenty of other long tail keywords and phrases that you can use and rank for much easier that can get you more traffic faster and more consistently, which in turn means more money faster and more consistently. Once you’ve got these keywords in your pocket you can focus on the more competitive areas.

Having a good URL is another component. You don’t want something that’s full of dashes and dots. Most places stopped using Morse Code a long time ago, and URLs that are long and drawn out are hard to remember and are not very user friendly. Stick to something simple, and try to keep it with one of these two options: either use your brand name (if possible) or something that’s keyword oriented. And if you’re going to use something keyword oriented, it’s not a bad idea to slip a location in there as well.

On-page optimisation is one of the most important factors in the google page ranking game. If you’re trying to rank for the term “Xbox controller” but you don’t have that term anywhere on your page you’re going to come up with nothing. You don’t want to spam the keywords in your content – there’s a fine line between making sure that your terms are naturally on the page and having them look forced.

Here at Melbourne SEO Services, we can help you with all of this and more. We specialize in making sure that the factors listed above are taken care of in a natural, organic manner. We also only work with people who we’re sure we can help, so we’re not busy wasting our time with people who aren’t clear on what they want – which frees us up to work with you.

If you’ve got all of the above figured out, or if you just have a very good start on some of it, we’d love to talk to you and see if we can provide the answers you’re looking for. Check out some of the services we offer, and let’s start working together today.

Domain Name Selection Made Easy is a post from: #1 Melbourne SEO Services Company

The right domain name can make or break your online presence, so it’s important that you make the right decisions when choosing and registering your domain name.

For SEO purposes, you need to decide if you’re going to use a branding domain name (one that includes the name or your brand or business) or a keyword-oriented name. You can also break it down even further if you want to be recognized locally.

For example, let’s use www.MelbourneSEOServices.com. Not only is this the company and branded name, it’s also SEO friendly since it deals with what we’re doing. And we’ve got the locality in there as well.

If you’re in Australia, you may have a few more choices than folks in the States or other places by using the .com.au (or .net.au or .org.au extensions) instead of simply using .com (or .net or .org). The addition of the .au at the end can open a whole new batch of domain names that can apply to your business.

It’s also not a bad idea to check the ABN registry to make sure that your domain name isn’t infringing on anyone else’s trademarks or business names. This is something to keep in mind if you’re registering a branded name, but most keyword names should be safe to use in these instances.

Keep the name relatively short and easy to remember. If you’re known as Uncle Bob and you run a carpeting service in Queensland, you don’t want to go with something like www.UncleBobsQueenslandCarpetingAndVinylFlooring.com.au – instead, you may think about something like www.BobsQueenslandCarpeting.com.au. This is shorter, and much easier to remember. Two to three words should be the general rule of thumb.

You’ll also want to avoid hyphens. For example, the stars of the US television show “Ghost Hunters” have as their domain name www.The-Atlantic-Paranormal-Society.com. This can cause all kinds of problems when you’re verbally relaying your info to someone – dashes, hyphens, dots – they can all get in the way and are easy to forget when someone is later trying to find you online.

So those are the basic rules of choosing a domain name: Brand name or keyword oriented, keep it short, and make sure that it’s unique enough to remember so you don’t get lost in the crowd. Best of luck with your online business, and if you’d like a helping hand along the way, we’d be more than happy to help you out. Check out our list of services here.

Top Strategy For Keyword Optimization is a post from: #1 Melbourne SEO Services Company

Keyword with an 's' or without an 's'?... that is the question.

A question I’m often asked is whether to optimize for the singular or plural keyword phrase. Following on from that, should we create separate pages for the singular and plural versions of a keyword phrase, or should we create just the one page and target both terms?

For example let’s say you are going after the phrase “trading system”, what’s the best way to also achieve keyword ranking for “trading systems”?

First, go after one of the variations. So take your singular keyword, create a page, optimize for that keyword and get it to position number one. Once you rank number one, then go for the plural version for the same page.

Here’s the thing, Google wants to serve up the most relevant results for the user, so often times they serve up two different pages when searching for either the singular or the plural keyword phrase. It all depends on what Google sees as more relevant.

Sometimes, though, when searching for, say “trading system/s”, they serve up the same results. How does this happen and how can you have it happen on your keywords?

Here’s how we did keyword optimization for our keyword trading systems. First, we optimized for the plural and then, as a secondary term, we chose the singular. That is we started to build inbound links back to that keyword using with the plural version. Once we achieved #1 for that term we started varying anchor text incorporating the singular term.

This is something Google likes because when building links, it’s good to have variations in your anchor text because this is what would happen naturally. That is to say, it’s not natural to have all the links point to your page with the same anchor text.

In this example, our plan was to go after one keyword and then go after the other keyword on the same page. If you’re still having trouble ranking for both terms, you can go after both variations at the same time by creating two separate pages and optimizing each page for each respective variation.

So, there you have it, two different ways you can use to handle keyword optimization for the singular and plural of keyword phrases. Of course that’s just the tip of the iceberg, if you want to find out more on this and related topics, get in touch with the Melbourne SEO team and we’ll do our best to get you off on the right foot.

Better Than Google Result Number One: Search Engine Marketing Strategies is a post from: #1 Melbourne SEO Services Company

So you’ve been working on your SEO for a while now, and you’ve finally made it to Number One on Google Congratulations! Your main keyword is up there – someone searches for the phrase “katana”, and your company’s name comes up – right at the very top!

You’re excited, I know. You stand on the mountaintop and as the lightning strikes all around you, the energy courses through your body. That feeling? That’s the Quickening. You’ve just won the prize.  As Connor MacLeod once said, “There can be only one!”

So now what?

There’s the old saying, “There’s nowhere to go but up.” But once you’re at the top, where do you go? Hopefully, you’ll stay right there. But as you go through your analytics, you’ll notice that you’re only ranking in the number one slot on one of your keywords. What about the rest?

Now is the time to focus on those other keywords; if your main keyword at the top is a great thing, what would it feel like to have all of your other keywords ranked at the top as well for various keyphrases? As you know, SEO is a game of numbers – if you have enough links, you can rank any keyphrase out there.

Don’t rest on your laurels – have a look at what you’ve done with your first, then apply that to the rest. This is where analysis comes into play – it can allow you to see what you’ve done right (and what you’ve done wrong) so you can apply those tactics to all your other phrases.

If you’d like help with finding the right keywords or the analysis of your current keywords, we here at Melbourne SEO Services can definitely help you out. Click here for a full list of services.

Selecting The Best Keywords For Your Site is a post from: #1 Melbourne SEO Services Company

The most important part of any SEO campaign is keyword selection. There are so many different options out there that sometimes it’s hard to decide which ones to use. With these tips, you should be able to narrow down the field into a list of useable keywords and phrases.

Your keywords should be separated into three lists, known as tiers. First tier keywords will be the shortest, often one or two words at most, and obviously you want to start with whatever niche you’ve selected. For the first tier keyword, you’ll want to use only one term – the search term that you really want to rank for. It’s your the keyword where, if you could wave a magic wand, you’d ask to rank #1 for this keyword.

Let’s use automobiles as an example. Assuming you had a website that sold cars. Your first tier keywords will be things like “cars sales”, “auto auctions”, “buy an automobile” or whatever term you want to use. This term will be the most relevant to your content, and again will be the one with which you’re ultimately hoping to show up in the rankings.

For your next tier, you have the ability to spread yourself out a little more. Instead of one keyword, for tier two we start out with up to about ten search terms, with each one breaking down your original keyword and niche into smaller segments – they’re like our category keywords.

Sticking with our automobile example, you could go with terms like “buying collectible autos”, “classic automobile sales” or “buy American muscle cars”. For local businesses, you can also add geographical locations to this tier of keywords: “Melbourne cars sales” or “Adelaide auto sales”.

As you’ve probably guessed by this point, the third tier will delve even deeper into the second tier. This is where you’ll add specifics, things like, “buy convertible black Ford Mustang melbourne”, “white 1969 Stingray Corvette”, etc. This tier will be relevant to your second tier, just as the second tier will be relative to your first. And just like the second tier, you have even more freedom here.

Keep in mind, this can also be an ongoing process – tracking and analyzation of your traffic and keywords can help you even further along your path to the top of the search engines.

This is a simple exercise in keyword selection that can help you narrow down the competition and ultimately rank higher in search engine traffic. For more information on keyword selection, click here to get your copy of the latest workshop DVD from Melbourne SEO Services.

How To Find Profitable Keywords – Keyword Research Tips & Techniques is a post from: #1 Melbourne SEO Services Company

Finding profitable keywords is the key to the success of your SEO and internet marketing campaigns.  Successful search engine optimisation relies in identifying what your customers are typing in the search engines. In order to attract buyers and potential customers to your site you’ll need to find your most profitable keywords.

In my previous article I discussed the difference between browsing vs buying keywords. I will now give you practical tips and techniques on how to conduct keyword research to find your best keywords.

Keyword Research Tip #1

You need not start your keyword research from scratch. Here’s a dirty little trick that you can do to find good keywords – spy on your competition. Identify your top competition and visit their website. Look at the keywords they are using in their content, categories and meta tags. This not only gives you an idea of what keywords they are utilising in their SEO campaign, it also gives you a chance to see lapses in their optimisation, giving you an opportunity to fortify your own website optimisation.

Keyword Research Tip #2

In order to find the best keywords for your business you need to think like your customer. Put yourself in the shoes of your target market.  Understand what it is they want and how they can get it.

Aside from using specific search terms, buyers generally use the word “buy”. People who use “price” and “cost” are also deeper into the buying process. When they are looking for keywords with “cost” and “price” there is a big probability that they have already chosen the product that they want to buy but they want to be sure that they are getting the best deal online.

Keyword Research Tip #3

Now that you have an idea of what keywords you want to use, utilize free keyword research tools to find how many people are searching for those keywords. Choose keywords with high search volume but with low competition. This can be a little tricky but getting the right combination can mean massive traffic, an increase in sales and ultimately a successful internet business.

I would highly recommend using the Google Keyword Suggestion tool, for three reasons – because it’s free (you really can’t beat that for value for your money), it’s easy to use, and other keyword research tools use the Google Keyword tool. In the keyword research video above, Dave gives you a tutorial on using the free Google keyword tool.

Keyword Research Tip #4

Once you have your keyword list, trim it. This is an essential step in the keyword research process. Choose only the most relevant keywords that would attract customers to your website. When doing keyword research you don’t need to have thousands of keywords in your list. It is a waste of time because it would be impossible to use all of these keywords in your campaign. It’s nice to have a long list of keywords – it gives you a feeling that you have accomplished something but in reality you would only need 20-50 of those keywords (maybe a hundred if you have a big site).  With keyword research, quality beats quantity anytime.

To be able to effectively bring targeted traffic to your website, it is of utmost importance to find the most profitable keywords to use for your SEO and website promotion. It may take some time and effort to find keywords that your customers are searching for but this is what would make or break your SEO campaign. Target the right keywords and see your traffic and conversion soar.

For advanced keyword research tips and techniques check out our SEO workshop on MelbourneSEOservices.com.

A Simple Search Engine Optimisation Technique To Target The Right Keywords is a post from: #1 Melbourne SEO Services Company

Today, let’s talk about a simple search engine optimisation technique. I’ll be discussing how to target the right keywords for your SEO campaign. In his interview with Gideon Shalwick, Dave mentions “SEO is all about making sure that you are targeting the right keywords to come up in the organic search results”.  When you target the right keywords you target the right audience.

A successful SEO campaign starts with good keyword research. People fall into the trap of looking for keywords with the highest search volume thinking that it would bring hordes of traffic to their website. What these people do not realize is that keywords with high search volume also have very high competition.  More competition means investing more time and effort to beat all the other websites competing for the same keyword only to get visitors on your site who are not interested in buying your product at all.

But how would you know if the keywords you are targeting are the keywords your potential customers are typing in the search engines?

One good search engine optimisation technique to follow is to put yourself into the shoes of the searcher. Don’t think like an SEO expert, think like a customer. If you were a person looking to buy your product how would you Google it?

Keyword Research Tips – Browsing vs Buying Keywords

To bring targeted traffic to your website you need to choose keywords that people are using to find products and services similar to yours.  Studies have shown that 40% of searches are done via local based keywords.  To put it simply, people are adding locations to their search queries.  When people add a location to their search they are actually looking for a specific product in a specific location.

For example, if I were a small business owner in Melbourne looking for SEO services for my website what keywords would I use?

a. SEO

b. SEO services

c. SEO services Melbourne

Someone searching for “SEO” can just be looking for information about search engine optimisation. They are probably conducting a research for school or doing a presentation at work about SEO. A person searching for “seo services” is deeper into the search process. They are looking for more specific information.  Now, somebody searching for “seo services Melbourne” is looking for a specific product in a specific location. These people are more likely buyers than researchers.  (And if you answered “c” you are more likely to have a more successful SEO campaign than those who answered “a”).

For more keyword research tips watch this video of our recent search engine optimisation workshop to learn more about the keyword research process. In this video, Dave talks about browsing vs buying keywords and how it would bring targeted traffic to your site.

Dominating Your Primary Keyword The Right Way is a post from: #1 Melbourne SEO Services Company

Dominating your “ego’ or “primary keyword” is a huge task depending on what the keyword is that you are focusing your efforts towards, and of course, how competitive that keyword is. You see, another question that I get asked a lot is “How can I rank #1 for my main keyword in Google”. I never answer that question. Instead, I return fire with another question. “What relevant long tail keywords are you trying to rank well for?”.

Human nature says that we want to do the best that we possibly can in the shortest time frame possible, so when someone says to me that there are more long tail keywords in existence than primary keywords, I can understand this notion and how it applies to me and my business, however, to the newbie this is not all that clear and easy to put into perspective. The money is where the broad keywords are, IF you can rank well for that keyword, so naturally when we are trying to rank our website well for our chosen dominant keyword, it is always going to be a hard task unless we learn to take our time and dominate the long tail first.

Let me be as clear as possible about this, as this is an error that I see a lot of webmasters make every single day. In competitive niches where there are plenty of broad dominant keywords, you are always going to have a hard time ranking well unless you have won in the long tail first. Not only is relevancy in the search engines going to be a difficult obstacle, other competing webmasters are going to be able to see you a mile away, and will take preventative measures to protect their websites position in the search engine rankings.

Lets use an example to explain this methodology a bit further. Lets say that I am creating a website based on electric guitars. Ranking for the keyword “electric guitars” would be very tough considering how many people are already competing within that niche. In fact, at the moment, there are over two million people competing for that keyword in Google. This doesn’t mean that I don’t want to focus on that keyword, instead, I am going to narrow down a list of longer tail keywords. For instance, Fender Guitars is a subcategory in that main keyword. Lets look at it in Google. There are now 500,000 people competing for that keyword, and is still tough to compete, but winnable if we go further down the long tail. “Fender Telecaster” is a bit deeper into that niche, but with 700,000 people competing, it is going to be hard to compete. Again, lets go deeper. “American Nashville B-Bender Telecaster” has only 16,000 people competing.

So, lets put this into perspective for a moment, to avoid losing you on a tangent here. Google bases its search queries on relevancy. This includes things such as bounce rate, time spend on a domain, and so on and so forth. If you are creating a website that is focused on a broad niche, you need to be broad and focus on as many directly relevant keywords and phrases in order to dominate the number one position. This is unavoidable if you want to win a major keyword. With the above example, I demonstrated that broad keywords are extremely hard to win unless you start working on the longer tail keywords first. In the above example, I would focus first on the guitar brand names rather than the main keyword. If you win smaller keywords such as these first, you will find that over time, your website will become extremely relevant to your main keyword that you would like to dominate, and over time, your chances of becoming an authority site within your niche increases significantly.

So, there we have it. Although, within certain extremely high competition niches, this is not going to be that easy, however, this should serve as a decent guideline for you when planning out your next website concept, and as a solid reminder of the importance of researching your keywords before you start a new project. Remember, any niche is winnable, but rarely winnable by focusing on only your ego keyword.