Post details: Web Hosting Firm Explains - Keywords 2
Web Hosting Firm Explains - Keywords 2
Making the Most of Keywords Part 2
Last week, we discussed how to research and choose the best keywords for your website and then put those keywords to work. Using the right keywords well can help bring a lot of traffic to your site. However, optimizing sites for keywords is just part of search engine optimization. With fine-tuning, keywords can do even more for us.
Study the stats
Any website traffic statistics program should show you what keywords are bringing visitors, what pages at other sites visitors come from, and what pages those visitors land on at your site. Better programs can provide statistics for each page and each visitor.
Unless your website is informational only, your conversion rate, or the percentage of site visitors who become customers, is just as important as traffic numbers.
Which keywords are bringing the most visitors, and to which pages? When visitors land at your website, do they land on the right page for what they're searching for? Where do they go after that? Do they read related pages and end up making a purchase or contacting you, or do a high percentage of visitors simply leave?
Look for patterns in repeat visitors. People often visit a website several times before making a purchase.
If your visitors aren't finding what they're looking for, study the keywords that brought them to the site to look for ways to meet their needs better. Perhaps they're looking for related products. Or more information.
Look at the first page of search engine results for those keywords. Does the competition have better pricing or services? Do their websites look more professional? Look for ways to be better.
If the keywords are bringing good conversion rates but the search engine aren't bringing enough traffic with them, optimize those pages better for those keywords to improve their SERP (search engine results position).
Write good meta description tags
Meta tags appear only in the <head> section of the page source code. The description meta tag looks like this:
<meta name="description" content="Page description here.">
Most search engines no longer use meta tags to determine the relevancy of pages for keywords. Too many webmasters abused meta description and keyword tags by stuffing them with keywords that often weren't even on the page. Search engines now use more sophisticated techniques to determine which keywords to give weight to on each page, as we discussed in Making the Most of Keywords Part 1.
However, most search engines still display page meta description tag content in their search results at least sometimes. A quick check of Google, Yahoo, and MSN indicates that Google usually displays meta description tag content when pages have meta description tags, while Yahoo and MSN are less likely to use it.
Meta description tag content helps searchers decide whether to click on links in search results. Good meta description content makes them want to do so. In clear sentences, it informs searchers what they'll find on each page. It may include a call to action, such as a marketing phrase that states what the page sells. Since keywords are what searchers used to find the page, they should fit naturally in the page description.
When pages don't have meta description tags, or when search engines don't use them, the search engines display snippets of text from the page.
How long should meta description tag descriptions be? Each search engine may cut off descriptions at different points, but 20 words appears to be a safe number. If your description goes beyond that number, put your most important content in those first 20 words. A concise page description should be within 20 words or not much longer.
Add more content
Survey results indicate that up to 67 percent of people who planned to make a purchase at a website didn't do so because the site didn't have enough information. In addition to helping convert visitors into customers, having more information provides the opportunity for more keyword-rich pages.
People who arrive at websites just looking for information may become customers if they like what they see. With more information at the site, shoppers who might otherwise leave may stay and perhaps become customers too.
Do you want to improve your site's position for particular keywords? Write quality, informative articles for your site, and optimize those pages for those keywords — including in the article title. If the article is useful to other people, other webmasters will link to it on their own. You can also contact other webmasters and look for directories to list them in. With time and work, the inbound links will build up, and your site will appear higher in SERP for those keywords.
Informational pages will acquire more inbound links if they read like informational pages rather than like sales pitches. On the other hand, you want to make it easy for visitors to find information about buying your products. Be sure to have links to product sales pages in the menu or somewhere on the page.
Work on website quality
You got your website to do well in search results for your targeted keywords. You got searchers to click on the search result links and come to your site. Now you need your visitors to use the site as you intended and not hit the Back button in frustration.
A quick checklist:
- Does your website design look modern and professional?
- Does your site display properly in various browsers and at different resolutions?
- Is the navigation easy, especially between related pages?
- Is the range of what you offer (products, sizes, colors, etc.) as good as or better than what the competition offers?
- Are prices, images, and options easy to view and select?
- Is the "Add to cart" button easy to find?
- Does the checkout process work quickly and smoothly?
For more suggestions on improving your website, see these articles:
- On the Way to Checkout
- Marketing Mistakes
- Information Architecture and SEO
- Your Home Page as Your Window Display
- About the About Page
- The Website Content category of this blog
- When to Hire a Web Designer
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