Using keywords for article marketing
There are many methods to get more traffic for your website. One of the easiest ways to do this is to use keywords correctly in your text. Keywords are the words and phrases that people search for in search engines to find the information they are looking for. The better you choose the keyword phrase, the more likely your website will be at the top of the search engines. Of course, your website’s ranking will also depend on other factors, such as how much competition there is for a keyword phrase and how popular your site is in terms of link popularity.
There are several ways to find effective keywords for your website. I find that the easiest is to use a keyword suggestion tool. The two keyword tools I would recommend are the Google AdWords Keyword Tool and WordTracker. Here is a brief summary of each detailing how to use these keyword suggestion tools:
Google AdWords Keyword Tool
The Google AdWords Keyword Tool is a very useful tool that shows you the keyword phrases you are looking for with the results of the number of monthly searches. The keyword tool in Google AdWords is completely free. To use it, type in the topic you want to find keywords or keyword phrases about. When using this free keyword suggestion tool, make sure you have selected ‘Descriptive words or phrases’ under ‘How would you like to generate keyword ideas?’ This way you are looking for keywords used in search engines and not just on a specific website. You can have more than one idea for keyword searches at the same time, simply by entering different phrases on separate lines. Before you hit the ‘get keyword ideas’ button, you’ll need to enter the provided verification code to prove you’re not a ‘bot’.
Many results for the keywords will be listed below. The Google AdWords tool provides the number of monthly searches as well as ‘advertiser competition’. Remember that the more competition there is, the harder it will be to get your page to the top of search engine results. Keyword phrases that contain more than three words are usually good choices because they tend to have less competition and the search is more specific, thus more geared towards the purpose of your website.
Once you’ve chosen your keywords based on a reasonable number of monthly searches without too much competition, copy and paste them into a Word document, ready to include on your web page for maximum effect.
word tracker
WordTracker is the other keyword suggestion tool that I would recommend. This keyword suggestion tool works slightly differently than the AdWords tool in that it returns results for daily searches. Retype the keyword idea and press the ‘Hit Me’ button and the results will be displayed. There is also a dropdown menu that gives you the option to remove offending or questionable results.
With the free version of WordTracker, only the top 100 keyword results are shown, since you have to pay to see the rest. The results that WordTracker gives are searches per day, so if you are comparing the results of the two keyword suggestion tools that I have mentioned, remember to keep in mind that one shows monthly searches and the other daily. You should also take into account the fact that WordTracker is based on a different database from the AdWords tool, so the results are difficult to correlate.
Again make a note of the keywords you want to use on your web page.
How to use keywords on your website
Choose a primary keyword phrase and a secondary keyword phrase to use on your page. In some paragraphs you will want to use variations of these instead of the exact phrase.
Title
The most important place to include keywords is in the title of your page. You should put your best keyword at the beginning of the title. Let’s see an example. If you are creating a page about cake decorating, here are the keywords you might want to consider:
682 cake decorating ideas
540 cake decorating
375 cake decorating supplies
155 cake decorating techniques
106 cake decorating tips
20 cake decorating designs
8 easy to decorate cakes
(daily search results)
Typically, you would focus on a single keyword phrase in the title, so your page title could be, for example, “Cake Decorating Tips on Using Icing.”
The content of your page
When including keywords in your content, you should have at most one keyword per paragraph. If you include keywords insanely, then Google may ban your site. Including an excessive number of keywords is called “keyword stuffing.” Google has a way of locating sites that do this, and this can result in all of your web pages being banned. The paragraphs further down your page don’t need your keyword phrase at all, but it’s a good idea to include it in your last paragraph. Your secondary keyword phrase should be used even more sparingly.
When keywords are used effectively, they can be the key to getting more traffic, so give it a try the next time you write a new web page!
