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Proper Planning for Search Engine Optimization

by: KenKnorr
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When launching an Internet Search Engine Optimization campaign its very tempting to jump in tuning meta tags and altering text. But first you need to come up with an effective marketing strategy identifying the target audience and the ways to reach them. Just like a conventional advertising campaign involves careful survey of the demographic target group, Internet Search Engine Optimization efforts are impossible without correct selection of keywords and search terms.

Start Right - Have Success

Far too often people fail because they fail to plan ahead. Go in the wrong direction at the start by targeting keywords that have no search value or Return on your investment, and your project may result in top placements for valueless rankings for phrases that aren't searched by anyone. SEO Best Practices used for ensuring campaign success start with performing the initial keyword analysis. Jump ahead and you wish you hadn't after you discover the time you have wasted.

When starting a company, owners typically take the time to test their market and do some research to determine demand. Why should your efforts with SEO be any different. You need to carefully consider all possible search phrases that are likely to be used by your potential clients. Further you should look at your competition to learn what key words they rank for. The next part is important, Compile a SHORT list of search terms related to your products and services that would represent your company best.

You've got the Short list of Keywords Now what?

Once youve compiled your initial list of keywords you can start to intelligently expand it. At this stage you need to find out which of the keywords you have identified are most often used by the searchers. There are a number of useful tools and professional service providers that you can select from for instance the Google AdWords Keyword Tool can be a simple solution. However for more complex situation professional assistance with this step is always an option. For the free tools all youve got to do is type the search phrases into the suggestion box and you will have them rated according to their popularity. While Google won't give you numeric values for their search phrase counts, they will give you visual indicators of the search phrases and you can even use their tool to estimate the number of clicks per day you might receive if using their pay per click advertising (this should be about 30% of the organic volume potential)

Research the competition!

For the next step of your Internet Search Engine Optimization (SEO) campaign you should research the level of competition for your keywords in order to determine just how hard (or easy) it will be to win top rankings for them. Although it can be very attractive to target only the most popular search terms, the reality is that your initial success with the top search terms may be very limited. So you need to establish incremental goals. The competitiveness for the most desirable keywords can be overwhelming that targeting them may be unrealistic. Competitive intelligence reports from professional providers can often take the guess work out of this type of research.

After youve investigate, and thoroughly researched your potential keywords, it will be much simpler to reduce the list to the core search phrases that your SEO Campaign will target. A successful Internet Search Engine Optimization campaign should always begin with research not just optimization. Bear in mind that you shouldnt attempt to target every phrase on the home page of your website. While the main page has the biggest potential of winning top positions it should be used for the most competitive phrases. Select no more than 5 - 6 of your most important search phrases for use on the home page.

Plan your Attack and then Attack your Plan

Now that your prepared for an Internet Search Engine Optimization campaign your project is much more likely to have success saving you a lot of time, money, and aggravation.

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About the Author

Ken Knorr, is the President of Buildtelligence Web Solutions which provides SEO Services and SEO Campaign Management. He is an author, blogger, and speaker on the subjects of Search Engine Optimization.  

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