Relevancy

Using SEO to make meaningful connections
September 28th, 2009

How to Select the Right Keywords for SEO

If you know anything about CSG Interactive, you understand how much we value keyword research and content.  We believe the best campaigns have insights from actual user queries and in-depth content analysis. Very often we uncover scores of keywords that are not top of mind. These new keywords can overwhelm a client.  Fortunately, we have some helpful tools and tactics to make the selection process less taxing.

First, I like to look at the competitiveness of the search engine space. Even though a client’s website is a dead-on match for a keyword phrase, he or she can be going up against high-ranking giants. A little research can show:

  • Number of search results
  • High volume periods
  • Competing websites
  • Competitiveness scoring

Data can help us see what is highly competitive as well as some gems that have promise.

The other exercise I like to run through with a client is a semantic drill. We critique different keyword meanings and audiences. For example, a client that sells industrial riveting equipment may see “riveting” as natural keyword choice; however, after a semantic breakdown, we see other applications of the term and a lot of noise on search engines. (We could be attracting a lot of the wrong people with the right keyword.)

I also like to move up and down a ladder of key terms, going from general to specific. This exercise is done with both the competitiveness scoring and the semantic drills. We end up answering questions like:

  • Is this keyword used by real people on, say, Google?
  • Is the keyword too general? Too vague?
  • Can we realistically compete for this keyword? Any goliaths?
  • Is this keyword phrase a good fit for us? Is it relevant?
  • What are the other connotations for this keyword? Is the keyword search space noisy?

All of this effort helps sharpen assumptions, but ultimately SEO takes patience and practice—tracking, reporting, and evaluating. The fun never stops.

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July 28th, 2009

SEO Copywriting Is Not for the Faint of Heart

SEO Copywriting is challenging. Website owners get glassy-eyed quickly when they take on this task without the help of an SEO content professional. Balancing search engine demands and user readability is a delicate art.

To start, search engines read. It’s that simple. If there’s more content, they are more likely to understand what your site is about. If content is organized and thematic, they are even more inclined to understand your site and know it’s relevancy to their searchers.

So, the challenge is two-fold:

  1. How do I edit and write with good keywords?
  2. How do I organize existing and new content to support good keywords?

So, SEO copywriting requires a person who can appreciate the architecture of a website and organization of content just as well as the on-page edits needed for optimization.

Let’s look at the second challenge first. What I like to do is categorize keywords so I can manage my copy optimization process more efficiently. So, with a running list of keywords, I group them into categories that map to user search needs. For example, look at this breakdown:

  • Brand / Company Name – “Furniture Store Extraordinaire”
  • Business Type – “furniture store Pittsburgh”
  • Products / Services – “eclectic dining room set”
  • Best Practices – “choosing a good dining room set”
  • Related topics – “throwing wild dinner parties”

I find clients receive more qualified referrals from search engines when we prioritize with keywords from the top categories. And this reality usually dictates copy optimization priorities. If the prior SEO assessment work reveals that the search engines favor competing sites with a lot of additional supporting content, we then can build out new content with the lower categories and keywords.

Back to the first challenge… there are some general formulas for how to edit and write optimized copy for pages. In general, I like to have a minimum of a couple of paragraphs on a page with a tight keyword focus.  The title, heading, body copy, and hyperlinks all dance with targeted keyword phrases.

The real art of my craft is blending in keywords without sounding too artificial. I am a writer by nature, so I favor good content that is user-focused. My tip here is to write for the target audience but for two different views – search results and the actual web page. I anticipate her search, her click, and her arrival. If I can keep this top of mind, I find that the search engines see the relevancy and reward my clients with higher listings.

One more tip… Content needs to be compelling and useful.  With Web 2.0, users are likely to link to good content with social media tools, providing much-needed inbound links. Link building (and baiting) is important for any SEO campaign.

I’ll touch on linking techniques and Web 2.0 strategies in another post.  Stay tuned!

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