In today’s WebTrafficWire.com tip, we’re going to look at the useful tool contained within Google that can help you research your niche and discover keywords that you could use in developing your web pages.

To start, search for “keywords” on Google. First result returned is Google AdWords Keyword Tool, an external tool. Click on the link for this tool, https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal.

Example: enter “dance lessons” into the search box, opt to “Use Synonyms,” and then click to “Get Keyword Ideas.”

After a few seconds, Google returns keywords related to term(s) – sorted by relevance. They give you information on Competition, Search Volume for last Month and Average Search Volume as a general guide.

Note: keyword “dance lessons for children” has no competition. This is a perfect example of how you can find a small niche, and exploit that.

Note: keyword “dance studio” has many competitors, but “the dance studio” has hardly any.

For “Professional dance lessons,” there isn’t even any data, because nobody is competing in that particular niche. Although there was not a lot of traffic for this keyword last month, there is an average demand for it.

As you go through the list, you can see this tool will come up with literally hundreds of keyword phrases and their related information. “Dance lessons” came up with 150 results, plus 50 more below for a total of 200 keywords.

You can use the Keyword Tool to generate ideas based on descriptive words or phrases, or you can use your own website or to the right, enter the URL of a competitor’s website.

Example: enter http://www.countrymusicland.com in the webpage URL search bar, then check to “include other pages on my site linked from this URL.” Click “get keyword ideas.”

Keywords are returned, sorted by relevance and you again have advertiser, last month’s search and average search volume information. 5 results are returned for the first category, then and additional 84.

From Looking at some of these additional 84 pages throughout the CountryMusicLand.com website, several Brad Paisley keywords are returned, and Rascal Flatts and Kenny Chesney.

This is a very simple way to find keywords that you can use to grow your website. You can also use it to see exactly what keywords your competitors are using.

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In today’s WebTrafficWire.com tip, we’re going to look at a couple of tools that the major search engines have that you can use to research your website and improve its rankings.

The first thing we are going to look at is links – the backlinks that are showing up as indexed and linking back to your particular website.

Go to Google, and type in link, then a colon and your domain name.

Example

link:foxnews.com
Google comes back with 28,700 links to foxnews.com

Next, search Yahoo.com, changing the search to linkdomain:foxnews.com and see what they have. Yahoo returns 6,448, 477 backlinks to foxnews.com – a very large difference, compared to Google.

I have found that Yahoo does have a much larger inclusive mix of backlinks, and it is more representative of the links back to your website. So, when you want to look for backlinks, use the Yahoo search.

Example: you want to set up a website to do with dance lessons. One of the important decisions that you make when you set up a website is the title of the page. Go to Google and type in allintitle, then colon, then dance lessons.

allintitle: dance lessons - Google comes back with 112,000 websites that have “dance lessons” within the title of that particular webpage.

You can use this to learn exactly what your competition is, and to determine what the best keywords to use would be when developing your own website’s title.

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Today’s Traffic Tip: Naming your web pages with your keywords.

Google search: “parenting bed wetting,” a long, obscure keyword.

Look through Google’s top 10 listings:

Examples: pediatrics.about.com/od/bedwetting/Bedwetting_Guide_for_Children.htm;

childdevelopmentinfor.com/disorders.com/disorders/bedwetting.shtml;

aap.org/publiced/BR_BedWetting.htm. The keyword “bed wetting” is included in the name of the static page and the name of the file. Further down the list, in amazon.com/Parents_Guide-Bedwetting…, both keywords “parents” and “bedwetting” are used.

Other examples:

www.bedwettinghelpformom – keyword is used in the domain name; www.allaboutparenting.org/bed-wetting.htm - static page that is named that main keyword.

When you name your web pages, use keywords. For multiple word keywords, use a hyphen or an underscore to separate them instead of running the words together.

Download audio file (naming-web-pages.mp3)

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Today’s Traffic Tip: Domain name selection

Many times this is the very first thing that is done when a website is built or the whole concept is started. It is a very, very important option a person has when they first build their site.

The important thing is that you have your main keywords as part of your domain name, and ideally, you want the first word in your domain name to be a main keyword.

It’s easy to tell this by looking at what Google prefers:

Example 1, search term “sailboat”: The ideal domain name boats.com is the first one listed. If you look at any of the top listings: boattrader.com; boatsdepot.org; iboats.com; boatus.com – most of these have the keyword in their main domain name, or they have used it in a particular boat-related file, as in myspace.com/boatmusic.

Example 2, search term “sailboat”: sailboatlistings.com; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailbuyersguide.com; sailboatowners.com; sailbuyersguide.com; fxsails.com: keywords sailboat, sail, and sails are all used.

Example 3, search term “videos”: videos is used in domain names, but it’s also used within subdomain names: video.google.com; videos.myspace.com; stupidvideos.com; digg.com/videos; video.aol.com.

Obviously, Google has a very strong preference for keywords within your domain and for page names with keywords that are within your website.

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Today’s Traffic Tip: the importance of properly naming the images on your website as well as the attributes associated with those images: the alt and the title attributes tags.

Most websites have a header. Example, Country Music Land. Move the cursor over this header, and “country music videos” pops up automatically.

This is how this is done:

Within the html for this website shown, refer to the country music land header image and its source.

Tip One: Rather than calling this “header1” like on most websites, use a pair of keywords. Here country-music is used, since this site is about country music and country music videos. It’s best to use a hyphen or underscore to separate the words.

Tip Two: All images should have an alt attribute, which is a replacement for the image if it fails to load. Some browsers cannot load an image, the image may not load on a small mobile device, or for persons with disabilities, it provides them an alternative for the image they cannot see. Since this website is about country music videos, the header alt tag is “country music video.”

Tip Three: Rather than just use the alt tag, add the “title” tag to add the pop-up. The pop up works in some but not all browsers. The “alt” tag and the “title” tag do not need to be exactly the same. The alt is a replacement (country music video), where the title is more descriptive (country music videos). Note that by using “video” and “videos,” two separate keywords are included, since this is one of the first things spiders will see when spidering the site.

Both alt and title tags should be less than 50 characters long.

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If you are going to take the time to build a
website to post on the web, it makes absolutely
no sense not to utilize some very basic search
engine optimization techniques that will certainly
increase the likely hood that you will receive some
decent rankings in the search engines.

When it comes to seo or search engine optimization
there are two main factors that determine you
websites ranking. Both of these you have control
over, but one you have a greater deal of control
so this is what I want to concentrate this weeks
discussion on.

The two main factors are “on page”
that you can easily tuneup in your favor,
and “off page” factors that have to do with backlinks
and how other sites link or “point” to your website.
Whether you are building a brand new page or updating
a current website - these on page factors are simple
white hat techniques that will place your page over
95% of the websites out there. It amazes me why so
few people employ these techniques.

1-Select domain names and file names that contain
your main keywords. If you are building a brand new
site and are selecting a domain name - choose one
where your main keyword is the first word of the
domain. When buillding individual pages within your
site -name the pages with the main keyword of that
page - so a page where I will write about
artic wolves I would name articwolves.html

2-Keyword Phrases - these are the search terms that
you want your page to rank for.
a-the first place you should have the main keyword
phrase is in your meta title tags within your html.
The optimum way to write a title tag is Main Keyword
Phrase | Secondary Keyword Phrase Avoid
nothing words such as the, a, is etc.

3-This keyword phrase should be in bold or h1
tag the very first word in the visible text of
your website.

4-The meta tag description is one of the most
important sentences you will write for your web
page. Think of this sentence as your “hook”.
In most cases this is what is used as content
in the search engine listings - so write a sentence
that makes the reader want more - to go visit your
website. The main keyword phrase should be located
about about the 3rd or 4th word in this sentence.
Optimally you want to use 2 sentences with the
second one being a “take action” type of sentence.

5-The meta tag keyword - use your main keyword
phrase first, try not to repeat, and use maximum
7 keyword phrases

6-Your main keyword phrase should also be found
as one of the very last words on you webpage -
at the very bottom of your page.

7-Other than above you do not want to use your
keyword phrase to a point where it will exceed
2-5% of the total number of words on your page.

8-Do not use dynamic generated url or frames -
use constant firm urls such as .html, .php

9-Use keyword phrases within your graphics and
alts of your graphics

10-Use keyword phrases when linking to other
pages within your website.
By employing just the above ten steps your site
will be ahead of 95% of the websites out there.

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