Why are keywords important?

Well, without them your targeted audience can not find the products, services or information that is key about your business.

How do I select keywords?

Well, you know your business better than anyone, so shouldn’t you be the all encompasssing authority on your key search terms? That would be the most logical choice and if you are shaking your head in agreement, you are dead wrong.

This is what gets many of talented business owners and marketing folks into problems. Your personal knowledge of your business and appropriate words are only truly valuable for the very start of a campaign.

The real valuable keywords come from your customers and potential clients, and watching the ongoing movement in the marketplace. So how do I find out what they want and or what they type into search engines?

Glad you asked, and the answer is research & test, test, test. The whiz bang, mysterious dark art to white hat Search Marketing is that there are no secrets, its all research, analysis, strong strategies and repeated testing.

Leverage the data that is provided in initial campaigns to formulate stronger and stronger campaigns over time to deliver exceptional results.

Tip: Start with the tools.seobook.com research toolset - and you will be ahead of the competition.

Every week I am reminded of a common problem many businesses don’t even realize they have.  What is that problem? It is the ever present form over function problem.  Many companies approach the web with the eyes of the consumer only. Unfortunately your customers have very little impact on how you rank within the search engines. 

“Businesses tend to spend it all to look cool online and not a dime on how the site can be found,” laments Gartner Research Vice President Gene Alvarez. “At least one-third of the design budget should be allocated to site discovery on things like keywords, reviewing pages for Web-crawler-friendly attributes, and the development of a site map.”

When making the decision to launch a new site or embark on a re-design answer these three questions and you will be on your way to better findability. 

• What is your objective for the newly designed site?
• What critical business information do want the search engines to find?
• Have you established a budget for Search Marketing?

Spending money on a new site to only have it invisible to you future customers is wasted investment.  

As most of you know he has been busy making movies, speaking around the world and mysteriously not losing any weight even under the current heightened state of global temperatures.  

Al Gore’s latest target may be his most difficult to date.  How does one manage  or even measure the carbon footprint of a Google Adword?  How can the purchaser of such words even know that their Adword is cash guzzling polluter.  

Gore’s method to date seems to be quite basic, a simple ROI analysis should reveal some clues to the economy of an Adword.  But an even more advanced technique employed by Gore is comparison of longer tail keywords for traffic generation efficiency in comparison to the often bloated head keywords. These techniques alone don’t seem to be enough to firmly document conclusive proof of each Adwords threat, but it is a good start. Gore continues to impress the world with his amazing contribution to society.  

First the internet, now he laces up the gloves to battle Google.   Thanks Al!! 

It seems customer after customer has worked with a previous vendor that when asked about their services simply hands the customer a “chinese menu” pricelist and lets them order a solution ala carte.  

How can this method work?  

How can you be sure of successful results when you are buying the same size solution offering as every other company in any industry is buying? If you sell products are your needs the same as someone that provides service?   Are you a B2C player, or a B2B? Every company has different goals, objectives and needs.  

Every company is at a different maturation phase of Search Marketing.  

Do yourself a favor, pass on the two egg rolls and chicken friend rice and partner with a firm that is interested in your business, the direction you are heading as an organization and is willing to taylor a solution specifically for you. Make them demonstrate they know you, your competition and your marketplace before beginning an engagement.   

Well they aren’t, so why not combine the concept here and stop the confusion, lets call them Gidgets?  Now that we have cleared up that formality how can Gidgets help with your Viral Marketing campaigns?   

Were you listening at this years Web 2.0 conference when Jeff Huber, VP of Engineering,  during the Google presentation explained, “Gidgets are being created using rss, html, flash, and css and that gadgets are open, easy, mashable, packable, portable, and embeddable”. And, “what rss did for content, gidgets are doing for apps”.  

Ok, he didnt say Gidget, or Widget, but we have covered that already.

Why is this important?  Well now we know the re-usable pieces, parts and mash-ups are easier to wire together in usable ways.   An example of this is the “mortgage calculator” example.  When branded correctly, and created with new twists, turns, humor, and  or Value - your site visitors may use it (first) and may find it useful or entertaining enough to embark on the journey we know as Viral Marketing and email it to somebody (second), who in turn keeps the fire going and sends it to their friends and hence the virus is off and running driving traffic like mad.

If set up correctly, with backlinks and not too “pitchy”, it can be a very worthwhile exercise. While many say formulas exist for viral marketing using widgets and gadgets, I say it’s all about “strategy” and “testing”. Google is a master at creating gadgets, and many other companies are creating Mash-ups to intermix technology, widgets and gadgets for useful applications.  Check outNing.com as a platform to build your own.

To that question I am often reminded of the phrase “How long is a piece of string?

The real question is how long does marketing take?  When does your company decide you have marketed enough, you have enough customers and growing any further really isn’t necessary.  

I think you get my point, SEO, like marketing really never ends.  There are always new goals and competitive pressures to address in an ongoing basis.

For SEO to work properly it should be viewed as a long-term strategy that needs to be a permanent part of how you operate on the web.

Patience is required when embarking on the journey known as SEO.  Things take time, even the best executed strategies take time to work, we don’t own the search engines or the competition.  

Gaining a first page ranking is huge for business but to get there, customers must realize that persistence and testing are keys to the strategy.  Best practices must be leveraged over and over all the while testing and tuning to gain the best results for your business.

Ultimately you will be rewarded for executing your strategy properly and being committed to your goals.  Select a vendor that will take the time to understand your business and will commit to being a partner for the long haul.

What direction is the company going in?

Then we point our tools at the competition, how are they positioned, what tactics are they leveraging to get there? This is a valuable part of forming a counter strategy to attain the goals our clients have set for themselves. Interestingly there is some amazing information in this research.

Many things can be discovered by looking under the hood of a competitors website, such as: What key words do they win with? On many occasions we get an idea of what new marketplaces, products or strategies the competition is focusing in long before these tactics are completely introduced to the market place.

If you are in a competitive battle, and who isn’t anymore - think of your SEO vendor in a new way. Ask you vendor to help with your strategic planning, see what they can learn about the competition that you might not already know.

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See statistics for US Search Engines as of September 2007 in the HitWise Intelligence Report.