Internet Marketing -- The Right Keywords Can Be Your Key To A Higher Ranking
General keywords are not so hot. Here's why. Let's say you use "speaker" for your keyword. Go ahead and try typing it into a search engine like Alta Vista and see what you get. http://www.av.com For the most part you get information on stereo speakers. Yes, some public speaker related stuff slips in, but using a general keyword like that gives you incredible competition fighting for the top ten results. And that competition isn't even from other public speakers. It's from stereo speaker companies. Yes, you should use the word, but it should not be number one on your list. There are much smarter words to use.
What products and services do you provide? Let's say you are a customer service speaker based in Los Angeles. A keyword phrase for you would be customer service speaker. Another would be customer service trainer, another would be customer service training.
Here's an even better one: customer service training Los Angeles. You could add the city name to any of the above keyword phrases to make it more specific. The more specific it is the better. There will be less people typing this in, but they will be highly targeted people which are better for you than general people. The only exception to this is if you use a keyword phrase so specific that no one is using it.
OK, OK I hear you all out there saying, "but Tom, we speak all around the country or the world. Using this technique will cut us out of business anywhere but Los Angeles." No it won't!
Tom’s Super Trick: You can also legitimately use the following technique to beat the competition. Here's some more keyword phrases that might make you start getting the idea. customer service speaker San Francisco, customer service speaker Seattle, customer service speaker Las Vegas, customer service speaker New York.
"WAIT A MINUTE TOM. I DON'T LIVE IN ALL THESE AREAS!"
"So what?"
When someone finds one of those pages in a search engine the top of the page reads, "Special Discount to Programs in Las Vegas Area" or something like that. You make a special deal for these people. The Las Vegas people won't know OR CARE that you make the same deal for someone in Miami, or San Antonio. REMEMBER: We're playing the search engine game here. Someone searching for customer service training in San Francisco is never going to see the page that says customer service training in Detroit. You'll at least get a shot at the business even though some of the people typing these phrases in are looking for locals so they get out of travel expenses.
Related tip: If you want the job and they don't want to pay travel expenses, you could use frequent flyer miles to get there which just might seal the deal.
Don’t ForgetRegional Keywords
People in different parts of the world use different terminology for the same product. Where I come from if you want a soft drink you might say, "I want a bottle of pop." In other areas of the country they might say soda. In some areas they actually say, "give me a cherry Coke," if they actually mean they want a cherry flavored soft drink. You can seek out and use these alternative keywords by checking with friends or colleagues that are from different parts of the country in which you live.
You can do the same for other countries. I think the folks in England use the word "bonnet" for the hood of a car. (sorry to my friends in the UK if that is wrong.) Finding all the name variations of what products and services you sell can be an easy way to get lots of traffic and qualified buyers to your web site.