As you're starting out, don't use the most popular keywords; use ones that don't get as many searches because there won't be as much competition. You're just trying to establish a presence. A good resource to find the popularity of keywords is http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/. Type in the keywords you think people would use to find your work and this tool will show you how many people have searched for it in the previous month through Overture. Google searches are approximately 12x that number.
Scope Out Your Competition
Go to your favorite search engines and type in your chosen keywords. Now visit the top three for each set of keywords from each search engine. Try to figure out how they got such high listings.
An easy way to keep track of this reconnaissance work is to create a simple spreadsheet and use a different worksheet for each search term. You'll want to have a row for each of the following:
1. Search term
2. Search engine
3. Your ranking: a. If I?m not in the top 50, I simply write that. b. Add a date next to the ranking so you can track your movement up the listings
4. Overture traffic (number of times term was searched for last month)
5. Repeat the following 3 times, for the top 3 listings: a. Listing URL b. Title c. Description d. Keywords
When you visit each of your competitor's sites, you're going to use a wonderful tool called Source Code. Copy and paste their URL into your spreadsheet, then in your browser click on View?Source. A new window opens with their HTML. (I always feel a little dirty when I do this, like I'm a voyeur or a spy, which I guess I am. That being said, it?s completely legit.)
Now that you?re seeing all their dirty laundry, you?re going to look for their Meta Tags, which will be at the top of the code.
Meta Tags are the code in the HTML that visitors don?t see but search engines do. They used to be the main way to get listed, but search engines have gotten smarter since abusers were loading up their tags with irrelevant keywords. They aren?t nearly as important as they used to be, but the Title and Description tags are still vital. Many search engines use the title for the listing and the description for, well, the description. If your tags are relevant to your content, they don?t hurt and do help with some.
Find the tags for Title, Description, and Keywords. Simply look for ?title?, ?description? and ?keyword? at the top of the source code.
1. The title uses the main keywords potential customers use to find sites. For example, TheLocalTourist?s home page title is ?Downtown Chicago Restaurants, Bars and Nightclubs, Shopping, Events, Things To Do?. This title highlights the areas of the site where I want to receive search engine rankings based on the number of searches on those terms.
2. The description is where sites give their metaphorical ?sound-byte?. The trick is to pick keywords and write a compelling, succinct description without sounding like you?re trying to use all your keywords. Gee, it sounds so easy.
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