Question How to choose keywords in relation to competition - Virtual Assistant Forums

executive_assist · #1 (**permalink**) 02-25-2010

I am diligently studying SEO, and as I am no expert at it I have a question regarding keywords. I am using a free version of Market Samarai and their program says you should use keywords that will give you the most traffic with the least competition. It says start with keywords with competition of less than 20,000 but that seems nearly impossible when using terms pertaining to real estate assistant. So my question is, should you use only the ones with the least competition as the program suggests, or use all the keywords you can think of without regard to competition?

virtual writing · #2 (**permalink**) 02-25-2010

Serita - I'm certainly no expert myself, but as I understand it, you want to choose keywords that have a good balance of low competition and high traffic. It's a complex decision, and not an exact science. You have to trial and error, right? Definitely consider how much competition there is, but you also don't want to go with keywords that no one is searching for.

The Perfect Word · #3 (**permalink**) 02-25-2010

I was just reading up on Google's Webmaster on how to get the most traffic to your website through SEO. One thing people do sometimes is stuff in keywords that have nothing to do with their site or business, trying to get noticed and picked up by search engines. That's on Google's no-no list.

Here's something that might be helpful from Google Webmaster.

Also, here's where you can submit your url to Google.

I think Yahoo has something similar for submitting your url.

I've read a few places that if allowed by the SE or Directory, you can submit your site daily for a better chance.

I have no META tag keywords on my site yet, and my entire main page is an image so I need to get busy making some changes. I just found out that text in images is not read by search engines, at least not Google.

Pam

executive_assist · #4 (**permalink**) 02-26-2010

Thanks for the feedback ladies. I'm doing a mix of both and I have tagged all the pictures on my site. I did that for 2 reasons. One is that if someone with a visual impairment is online the software will only read code if it is a picture and if it is tagged it will give the tags instead. The other reason is that from what I have read picture tags can up your rank in Google. The good news is that I did finally get some search engine traffic today to my first site. I'm beginning to think that maybe it is something that may just take time and, as you stated Mary, playing with it some to get it right. I do have words with both high and low competition. I am trying to avoid those that will generate no competition. The videos I watched on this subject were a bit unclear on the proper way to use the competition information to maximize.

JMontana · #5 (**permalink**) 07-13-2010

Its really a problem with me also if choose keywords with high searches e.g 300,000 then hardest competition arise and very hard to get on first page for that keyword. but if the keyword is not hard with low competition e.g 1200 searches , then that is use less either we got first page appearance, they never gives more then 10 searches or less a day. My experience is that chose the best keywords and do the best SEO to promote it forget about competition.

Helping Hands VA · #6 (**permalink**) 07-13-2010

I agree with JMontana. If you're using keywords that aren't getting searched, then you'll never be found. My husband is a good example of this; he has a very nice site and the top spots for a few different keywords, but no traffic from those keywords because no one is looking for them.

You can get a free trial of a program called Market Samurai that will help you generate keywords, sort through them, see competition, etc. I'm always playing around with it to find just the right mix of keywords.

lrwells · #7 (**permalink**) 07-22-2010

There are a lot of variables that go along with SEO. Your page titles, headlines, alt tags, and keywords/keyword phrases, must all be correctly optimized. You also rank higher with relevant incoming links so it's always good to have a backlink strategy. It's not enough to just have meta tags. The search engines rank each page individually not just the domain.

As for keywords, I usually focus on optimizing the key phrases of my services. For example, when I offered web design I optimized the page for "small business website design" as the competition wasn't as heavy but still a nice flow of traffic. I also optimized for "virtual assistant for coaches." I even bought that domain name and pointed it to that particular page just to get that extra edge.

Just some ideas - good luck!

Susan Parsons · #8 (**permalink**) 07-23-2010

Hi everyone,
Also don't forget about keyword density in your pages. Search engines like keywords that are also in your text so that they are truly relevant to the search, but no less than 2% and no more than 8% of the text per keyword.
I am finding it hard to insert some of these since my home page gives an outline on what exactly we VAs do but the words aren't really the best for the keyword search list. For instance how do you fit certain terms and words in without being repetitive and sounding a bit stupid? I would have to rewrite everything I've done to get some of these terms in.
This is really slowing me down and I haven't submitted to the search engines yet because of it.

DiamondVA · #9 (**permalink**) 07-24-2010

Hi all

I hope the below might be of some help. It came from the lady doing my website when I asked her if she needed a list of keywords from me.

"Meta tag keywords are no longer used by google.

This is how Google currently works:

The following Meta Tags need to match the Page Content:

Site Title - placed inside H1 tags on the Website Page
Page Title - placed inside H2 tags on the Website Page
Meta Description - First 30 words on the Page (opening paragraph).
Meta Keywords are no longer used by Google instead it looks for the most commonly used words in the Page Content and treats these as the keywords (obviously it ignores the basic words such as and, of, in, the, up, down etc etc).

Your website is configured to place the relevant information from the page content into the relevant metatags automatically for you. It optimizes itself for the search engines. Descriptive content is the key to success in Google."

I'm assuming this is correct. I can vouch that her other clients' websites are consistently on the first page of a Google search! Anyway, hope this helps.

joshchandler · #10 (**permalink**) 07-24-2010

It's all about providing the information which is in the highest demand.

The best place to start evaluating the local and global search trends is at Google:

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Here's a guide on how to use it:

https://adwords.google.com/support/a...en&answer=6763

lrwells · #11 (**permalink**) 07-24-2010

Hi Cath - your website designer/developer is correct. Whenever my clients would get *old* information about adding keywords to meta tags or other tricks to get them ahead, I would also give them that information.

It's also important to make sure that the page will validate. Go go http://validator.w3.org and it will show results of what needs fixing.

reneeshupe · #12 (**permalink**) 07-24-2010

I'd also like to add in a great report that a good friend of mine wrote, you can grab it here, it's free to download with no sign up necessary. It talks about finding the right keywords and covers much of what everyone has already spoken about, but this is something I recommend to anyone looking to get a good initial view of Keyword research...

Susan Parsons · #13 (**permalink**) 07-25-2010

Hi everyone,

I have done a lot of research on this lately and all the info I have read is very current. To learn about what is important in SEO, I have read a good cross seciton of advice from many different sources. What I have discovered is that Google no longer uses keywords or phrases but other search engines still do. Here is a quote from an interview of fellow VA, Tess Strand Alipour about SEO.

Q: There seems to be a lot of confusion about the importance of meta tags – title, description and keywords - to search engine rankings. Which ones matter and which ones don’t?
A: They all matter. Although not all of them matter to Google and this is where the confusion comes in. In an effort to please Google, people sometimes forget that there are other search engines out there; and some of those search engines do take meta tags and keywords into account. It certainly doesn’t hurt to work out these elements with SEO in mind and in any case, Google is a fickle audience, what they may have discounted this season could become important again later. If there’s an aspect to SEO that you are aware of and have the ability to implement or add to your website, do it and do it right. http://www.vbsondemand.com/pdfs/tess...-interview.pdf

Hope this is helpful.

Sue

talentgurus · #14 (**permalink**) 08-04-2010

it's nice to participate in the discussion on keyword research where some people picked out major facts about selection of keywords. In my experience the basic way of selecting keyword is with low competition high search volume. But even in some cases we need to consider high competition when keyword is more relevant to the site. In most of cases it depends on current trend search volume of keyword..Plz let me know if any suggestions..