The Forge

Researching and choosing your site’s target keywords is the first step to SEO success.   In a sense, keywords are the DNA of your master SEO plan; keywords will be the blueprint of where your site gets indexed and what type of customers are visiting you.   It may seem fairly simple – choose the keywords that best suit your industry.  However, there are several factors that must be considered and compromises that must be taken to target the perfect keywords.  I’d like to briefly analyze what factors should be taken into account when choosing your site’s keywords.

1.  Local or Not: Is your business local or not?  If you are a Napa Valley Winery, it doesn’t make sense to target the single word ‘winery’.  Although ‘Winery’ may have more monthly search traffic than ‘Napa Valley Winery,’ the competition will be much stiffer and the ROI much smaller.  On the flip side, if your website is selling a broader online product, like ‘MMA Shorts’ than it wouldn’t make sense to include a specific location (unless you had a brick and mortar store front you were promoting).

2.  Monthly Search Traffic: You can easily find the monthly search traffic for various keywords using Google’s keyword tool.   Search traffic should be a primary factor in determining which keywords to target.  If you have a super specific product, like ‘eco-friendly puppy treats’ you will probably find out that those specific keywords get nearly zero search traffic.  This probably means you want to broaden your keyword to something that gets more searches, like ‘puppy treats’.

3.  Keyword Connotations: Even after determining the monthly search traffic of your target keywords, be sure to actually search for them on Google to see what results come up.  Certain keywords may have various connotations which you hadn’t previously thought of.   Make sure that the competitors on the 1st page of results are in your industry wheelhouse.

4. Competitors: It never hurts to check out what your competitors on the 1st page of search results for your keywords are doing.  View their website’s page source to see if there is any secret sauce of keyword variations that you haven’t thought of yet.

5.  The SEO Compromise: When all is said and done, choosing the keywords that will give your website the best traffic is all about compromise.  If you aim too high at broad keywords that are incredibly competitive, the chances are you won’t break ground on them for quite a while (if ever).  If you aim too low at super-specific keywords that have nearly no traffic, you will likely see very little return on your SEO efforts. The key is finding the compromise in keywords that will provide your business the perfect amount of traffic meshed with the ideal type of traffic.

A Zen ‘Koan’ is a short story or sentence that seems paradoxical in nature, but can also prove to enlighten a person.  One Koan states: “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”

SEO Writing  is also a bit of a paradox, due to the fact that all good online articles will inadvertently have an SEO effect, and those written purely for the ‘purpose of SEO’ will most likely fail to accomplish their goal.  In other words:  if you begin with the mindset of writing purely for the search engines, you’ve failed already.  The key to SEO writing is to forget SEO.  Kinda Zen huh?  Let me explain…

The Art of ‘No Mind‘.   Zen Masters used to profess a state of mind called ‘No Mind’.   This mindset was attained when a specific art, say archery, was perfected to such a degree that the master did not need to devote a single thought to hitting a bulls eye.  In modern athletics, this is often referred to as ‘Muscle Memory’.

I’m not saying an SEO writer needs to punch a board ten thousand times to get their article picked up, but rather an SEO writer should stop thinking about SEO.   An SEO writer should think like a REAL writer:  What sort of relevant topics are novel and interesting for my audience?  What writing style should I utilize?  What are the reoccurring themes within my article?  Do I have a beginning, middle and end?   Concentrate on writing first; forget about the keywords.

Keywords are Only as Good as What Surrounds Them.  Now that you’ve gotten all this keyword nonsense out of your head, lets talk about keywords.   Are your target keywords working for you or are you working for them?

IF you are writing SEO articles and stopping to think about throwing in your keywords, you’re working for them.   This is how SEO articles are born with titles like:  ‘5 Ways to Purchase Discount Leather Boots, Leather Gloves and Leather Belts.’   And I’ve definitely written articles just like that.  Nobody reads them, I know.

Write about something you would read.  Even if you are limited by your target keywords, like ‘Leather Boots,’ try to find an angle with some interest.  What are the recent trends with Leather Boots:  did Lindsay Lohan just puke on a pair?  Who wore the first leather boots in history?  How fast can a chimp run 200 meters wearing leather boots?  Seriously, that last one may seem a bit crazy, but wouldn’t’ you read it?

The List is a Powerful Tool…If Used Correctly. I’m sure you’ve heard the hooplah about how lists are great for SEO writing.   There is a grain of truth to this, however, just because you are using bullet points instead of paragraphs doesn’t mean your list will be a sure thing.

Good List:   Top 10 Most Ridiculous Craiglist Posts of All Time

Bad List:   Top 10 Promotional Pens and Pencils by Category – Promotional Gifts with a Difference

While the first list may not be for SEO purposes, it should be used as an example of something people might actually be interested in reading.  The second article clearly was not meant to be read by a person.

Target Keywords… Finally

So you ask, where’s all the ‘basics’ about inserting target keywords into your article?  What is the proper density of keywords to content?  How about anchor tags? And what about story titles?

I’ll answer these questions with another famous Zen Koan:

“When you can do nothing, what can you do?”