Effective Search Engine Optimization And Research

Search engine traffic, where would our businesses be without it? In the scrap heap that's where. Without the search engines, being able to find our websites would be an almost impossible task. Today I want to talk a little about how to perform effective search engine optimization and how to properly research the keywords to use for your website.

Recently I did a study of two separate websites. The first is a business website and the second is a niche website. Keyword research and search engine optimization were done for both sites. Site number one was optimized for two keywords while site number two was optimized for one.

After both sites received a high search engine ranking I observed that the niche website received much more traffic than the business site did. The reason for this is the keywords that were used for the niche site were better than the business site. The business site had used keywords that had very low monthly searches and the niche site had relatively high monthly searches.

This just goes to show how important proper keyword research is to your business. If you are unsure what a keyword phrase is I will explain. Keywords are how people find things with the search engines. Be it Google, Yahoo or the new Bing engine, people type in a phrase and perform a search.

Google has a great tool called AdWords that allows you to search for keywords related to your business. Simply type in a phrase and a display of how many monthly searches are performed for the keywords as well as keywords that may be related are shown. Advertiser competition is also shown so you know how hard it is going to be for you to rank with your chosen phrase.

If you are new you may want to choose a phrase that has three or more words, also known as a long tailed keyword, with a relatively low competition. Once you gain some traffic from this phrase you can choose a second phrase with higher monthly searches and more competition. It may take a while to rank high for your phrases but hopefully you are in business for the long haul so you can reap the benefits of your research.

Next you must properly optimize your website for your chosen keyword phrases. If you are a new business owner and have no idea what html is or how to optimize a website you can pay somebody to do this for you. When I first started I would study website codes to see how and where people were placing their keywords.

If you want to do this just visit any website, right click somewhere on the page and select view page source. A new window should open and you can see the html code for the entire page. After I started to see how the pages looked I read some e-books on SEO to make sure I was placing my phrases in all the right places. Finally I took the plunge and optimized my first website.

Today I have given you the basics on how to do effective search engine optimization and why you should do it. Step one, choosing your keywords, is the most important step you can take for your web traffic. If you choose a keyword that has low monthly searches then your website will receive poor traffic. Take your time, research thoroughly and optimize your website accordingly. Good luck to you with all of your business ventures, Tim Stokes.

If you want to learn more about search engine optimization read this post from my blog titled, A Guide To SEO; 3 Steps To Search Engine Success And if you are ready to go into business for yourself, visit me at the Afiiliate Earning Website.