choosing keywords to optimize for

I'm a graphic designer and trying to learn more about SEO. I've read a lot
of the resources but I'm still somewhat confused. Perhaps some of you can
help. I understand that we must choose a few key phrases that we want to
optimize for and that in addition to being in the keywords they need to be
in headings, alt tags, body copy, especially near links, etc. What I'm
having a hard time with is figuring out how to guage WHICH words to use. I'm
aware of Word Tracker and also www.inventory.overture.com.

So for example... I think "emotional intelligence" might be one of the
keywords for the site I'm currently designing (www.dirigoconsulting.com). I
type that in at overture and it says in November there were 19791 hits on
it. Then it lists all these other possible phrases that contain it and tell
how many hits they got. SO...is it better to use "emotional intelligence"
because it got a lot of hits or to drill down and find the most relevant
phrases that have a lot fewer hits since then the site would be more likely
to show up in the first page. It seems like if there are nearly 20K hits on
a phrase it's unlikely we could optimize well enough to come in within the
first page. Am I missing something or making this too complicated? I really
feel overwhelmed with trying to learn SEO enough to design effective sites
for my clients!

As always, your help and patience is greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Sheila

On Fri, 9 Jan 2004 10:50:22 -0800, "Sheila Hoffman" <Sheila (AT) blarg (DOT) net>
wrote:

It seems like if there are nearly 20K hits on
a phrase it's unlikely we could optimize well enough to come in within the
first page. Am I missing something or making this too complicated? I really
feel overwhelmed with trying to learn SEO enough to design effective sites
for my clients!

That's not that many hits. Try going after those with 100K plus then
you have to work hard.

SEO for example has over 100,000 visitors a month according to
Overture and with this page-
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/ooar123.../seo-help.html
in my spare time I've got it on page 2 or page 3 (so top 15 to 25).

That's from not in the top 100 beginning of November last year to
today at number 22 today (fluctuates last few weeks between 15 and
25).

I've put some work into that page last week and on getting a few links
to it, so expect to see improvements on this and related phrases soon.

I also had a top 10 to 20 listing (varied between 6 and 17 over 6
months) for a word that is approaching 1 million hits a month on
Overture a month.

Basically unless you are going after a keyword like Google (15 million
searches) you can do well with a combination of work and time. Even
with the word google you could probably get in the top 30 if you knew
what you were doing and was prepared to throw a fair amount of money
at it. I think I could get top 30 for Google if someone gave me a big
wad of cash :-))

My advice would be to go after every relevant phrase you can, but
learn SEO first. Took me about 4 months to learn SEO, a few more to
implement it correctly on my first Lingerie site and see excellent
results.

Just over a year in to this and I'm now making money offering my SEO
abilities to others.

David replace SP@AM with @ to email me direct.
_
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/ooar123...-optimization/ Free
SEO Tips (01/01/2004)
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/ooar123.../seo-help.html
hire SEO Dave
http://www.bdsm-lingerie.com Sexy Lingerie and BDSM Products Shop

"SEO Dave" <ooar123SP (AT) AMntlworld (DOT) com> wrote

On Fri, 9 Jan 2004 10:50:22 -0800, "Sheila Hoffman" <Sheila (AT) blarg (DOT) net
wrote:

It seems like if there are nearly 20K hits on
a phrase it's unlikely we could optimize well enough to come in within
the
first page. Am I missing something or making this too complicated? I
really
feel overwhelmed with trying to learn SEO enough to design effective
sites
for my clients!

That's not that many hits. Try going after those with 100K plus then
you have to work hard.

SEO for example has over 100,000 visitors a month according to
Overture and with this page-

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/ooar123.../seo-help.html
in my spare time I've got it on page 2 or page 3 (so top 15 to 25).

That's from not in the top 100 beginning of November last year to
today at number 22 today (fluctuates last few weeks between 15 and
25).

I've put some work into that page last week and on getting a few links
to it, so expect to see improvements on this and related phrases soon.

I also had a top 10 to 20 listing (varied between 6 and 17 over 6
months) for a word that is approaching 1 million hits a month on
Overture a month.

Basically unless you are going after a keyword like Google (15 million
searches) you can do well with a combination of work and time. Even
with the word google you could probably get in the top 30 if you knew
what you were doing and was prepared to throw a fair amount of money
at it. I think I could get top 30 for Google if someone gave me a big
wad of cash :-))

My advice would be to go after every relevant phrase you can, but
learn SEO first. Took me about 4 months to learn SEO, a few more to
implement it correctly on my first Lingerie site and see excellent
results.

Just over a year in to this and I'm now making money offering my SEO
abilities to others.

David replace SP@AM with @ to email me direct.
_
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/ooar123...-optimization/ Free
SEO Tips (01/01/2004)

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/ooar123.../seo-help.html
hire SEO Dave
http://www.bdsm-lingerie.com Sexy Lingerie and BDSM Products Shop

That is actually a tremendous achievement. Nice Job Dave!



--
James Taylor
http://www.AICompany.com
http://www.SEO-highrankings.com

On Sat, 10 Jan 2004 03:10:32 GMT, "James"
<james.taylor (AT) aicNOomSPpaAMny (DOT) com> wrote:

That is actually a tremendous achievement. Nice Job Dave!

Thanks, not bad when you consider I knew hardly anything about SEO
14-15 months ago :-) I'll be really impressed with myself when I have
top 5 for all the main SEO related search phrases.

SEO research fits my background perfectly, if I wasn't doing this I'd
of been doing scientific research on genetic diseases or something
similar in a lab somewhere (couldn't continue that for medical
reasons).

More important than anything else (at least to me) I love doing SEO
research. If I didn't need to make a living I'd be content answering
SEO related queries for free most of the day.

David replace SP@AM with @ to email me direct.
_
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/ooar123...-optimization/ Free
SEO Tips (01/01/2004)
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/ooar123.../seo-help.html
hire SEO Dave
http://www.bdsm-lingerie.com Sexy Lingerie and BDSM Products Shop

"SEO Dave" <ooar123SP (AT) AMntlworld (DOT) com> wrote

On Sat, 10 Jan 2004 03:10:32 GMT, "James"
james.taylor (AT) aicNOomSPpaAMny (DOT) com> wrote:

That is actually a tremendous achievement. Nice Job Dave!

Thanks, not bad when you consider I knew hardly anything about SEO
14-15 months ago :-) I'll be really impressed with myself when I have
top 5 for all the main SEO related search phrases.

SEO research fits my background perfectly, if I wasn't doing this I'd
of been doing scientific research on genetic diseases or something
similar in a lab somewhere (couldn't continue that for medical
reasons).

More important than anything else (at least to me) I love doing SEO
research. If I didn't need to make a living I'd be content answering
SEO related queries for free most of the day.

David replace SP@AM with @ to email me direct.
_
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/ooar123...-optimization/ Free
SEO Tips (01/01/2004)

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/ooar123.../seo-help.html
hire SEO Dave
http://www.bdsm-lingerie.com Sexy Lingerie and BDSM Products Shop

Sheila

Think what your wanted customers might type into Google when you want them
to find you. Brainstorm this question amongst those that answer the phone
when customers call. Actually ask some of your customers and listen.

Looking at your site I would go for: change, management, training, change
management and change management training

go to this page
http://www.searchengineworld.com/cgi-bin/kwda.cgi
and input your url http://www.dirigoconsulting.com

You can see you are hopeless for the wanted phrases, but good for change,
consulting, dirigo, organisational, dirigo consulting, consulting group,
sustaining change - none of which are any use.

Make sure that your wanted list of words and "change management" and "change
management training" come out cleanly at the top of the lists. like change
7%, management 7%, training 7%, next word 4%, change management 15%, next
pair 7%, change management training 25%, next triple 12%.

Do the same for all incoming anchor text links to your home page, but make
them all slightly different. e.g. "change management training by dirigo"
"training for organisational change" "managing change" "staff training for
organisational change" "managing organisation change" Count every word in
all these incoming anchor text phrases. Get a few high PR incoming links
with similar assorted words but with correct totalised word statistics. Get
two incoming links (low PR fine) from highly respected staff management
training organisations who already are listed high in Google.

Rewrite your home page metas..

<META NAME="Description" CONTENT="Dirigo Consulting Group is committed to
guiding you as you create the future that you desire. We offer consulting,
coaching & training to guide organizations, teams and individuals to become
Change Able.">
<META NAME="Description" CONTENT="We offer friendly coaching and change
management training to help organizations, teams and individuals to become
Change Able - Dirigo Consulting, Townxyz, Statexyz, USA.">

<TITLE>Dirigo Consulting Group</TITLE>
<TITLE>Change Managment Training by Dirigo Consulting</TITLE>

Best regards, Eric.

Eric:

That was SO helpful. Thank you for taking time. I really appreciate the
help.

Sheila

Hi Shelia,

I'm a graphic designer and trying to learn more about SEO. I've
read a lot of the resources but I'm still somewhat confused.

We completely understand your confusion and learning SEO on your own
without a mentor or consultant is going to be very difficult, because
of all the outdated information that is still found on Websites,
forums and newsletters, the innocent misinformation that gets passed
around as if it were fact, and not to mention all the scam artists who
hype up SEO information/services and/or SEO software just to separate
you from your hard earned money without ever fulfilling what they
promise!

Perhaps some of you can help. I understand that we must choose a
few key phrases that we want to optimize for and that in addition
to being in the keywords they need to be in headings, alt tags,
body copy, especially near links, etc.

Keyword phrase selection is EXTREMELY important!

If you optimize a page(s) for the wrong keyword phrase(s) then you
will have wasted your time.

You MUST choose a keyword phrase(s) that will allow for the greatest
ROI (Return on Investment).

We see that you have now arrived at the "keyword crossroads" in your
SEO journey.

Choosing which "road" to follow at this juncture of your SEO learning
curve can be an exhilarating experience or it can be a disastrous
journey. But let us be quick to tell you that either way, you WILL
increase your SEO knowledge, because either you will learn what you
should do or you will learn what you should not do.

What I'm having a hard time with is figuring out how to gauge
WHICH words to use. I'm aware of Word Tracker and also
www.inventory.overture.com.

Okay, Shelia, the best advice we can give you now is to completely
forget about using the Overture Keyword Tool.

Just use Wordtracker and their free version is plenty good enough for
your first few campaigns, so there is no monetary expense to worry
about, so again, don't even look at the Overture Keyword Tool ever
again, as it will only serve to confuse you further.

In case you'd like some insight as to why we would advise you to only
use Wordtracker, we'll explain a real life situation for you that
involves our long time client, Adriana Copaceanu <
http://www.google.com/search?q=Adriana+Copaceanu > who owns
abcGiftsAndBaskets.com < http://www.abcgiftsandbaskets.com/ > a gift
baskets company based in New Market, Virginia.

When Adriana first became our client, she was optimizing her Home Page
for the term ...

gifts baskets

.... And we immediately advised her to change her Primary Keyword
Phrase to ...

gift baskets

.... Instead, because it was and still is searched for much more than
her keyword choice was. In fact, here are the numbers ...

gift baskets 6764 6556

.... versus ...

gifts baskets 8 8


Below are the top 15 keyword phrases associated with the term ... gift
baskets ... from 12/04/02 and 01/11/04 so that you can study and
compare the differences.


..............................
Wordtracker Daily Searches On 12/04/02
For ... gift baskets

gift baskets 6764 6556
gourmet gift baskets 1076 1043
christmas gift baskets 974 944
holiday gift baskets 466 452
wine gift baskets 410 397
cookie gift baskets 229 222
personalized gift baskets 228 221
gift baskets for women 218 211
food gift baskets 204 198
wine country gift baskets 175 170
baby gift baskets 164 159
making gift baskets 160 155
coffee gift baskets 128 124
Texas gift baskets 108 105
wholesale gift baskets 108 105
..............................


..............................
Wordtracker Daily Searches On 01/11/04
For ... gift baskets

gift baskets 6733 6878
holiday gift baskets 607 620
christmas gift baskets 459 469
wine gift baskets 391 399
gourmet gift baskets 301 307
coffee gift baskets 258 264
food gift baskets 258 264
baby gift baskets 214 219
wine country gift baskets 154 157
chocolate gift baskets 103 105
birthday gift baskets 98 100
unique gift baskets 91 93
cookie gift baskets 90 92
how to make gift baskets 89 91
wholesale gift baskets 89 91
..............................


Now, here is where your decision to use ONLY Wordtracker should become
quite obvious.

Adriana's choice for her Primary Keyword Phrase was ...

gifts baskets

.... So there are a few different keyword combinations she could have
optimized for, so we researched them all for her as we show below
along with their Wordtracker numbers ...


..............................
gifts baskets 8 8
gifts basket 0 0
gift baskets 6764 6556
gift basket 648 661


baskets gifts 0 0
basket gifts 28 28
baskets gift 0 0
basket gift 0 0
..............................


Then if you research these phrases on Overture you'll get these
(daily) numbers ...


..............................
gifts baskets 0
gifts basket 0
gift baskets 0
gift basket 14,060


baskets gifts 0
basket gifts 0
baskets gift 0
basket gift 0
..............................


Now, for the all important questions!

Shelia, if you were our client ...

1.) And we showed you the Wordtracker numbers (above), which Primary
Keyword Phrase would YOU want us to help you optimize your Home Page
for?

2.) And we showed you the Overture numbers (above), which Primary
Keyword Phrase would YOU want us to help you optimize your Home Page
for?


Obviously, Adriana took our advice to optimize for ...

gift baskets

.... And today her page is enjoying a Top 10 ranking (#9) on Google for
her Primary Keyword Phrase as you can see by following the link below
....


..............................
http://www.google.com/search?q=gift+baskets

Results 1 - 10 of about 2,600,000

::: Currently Ranked #9 :::

Gift Baskets - Toll Free: 866-740-8678 - New Market, Virginia
Gift baskets are a unique alternative to flowers, gifts that will be
remembered
for a long time. ... Gift Baskets Bring Smiles. Get One Today! Happy
New Year! ...
Description: Themed and custom-made baskets. Located in Virginia.
Category: Shopping > Gifts > Gift Baskets > A
http://www.abcgiftsandbaskets.com/ - 20k - Cached - Similar pages
..............................


By the way, the phrase currently receives around 200,000 searches per
month according to Wordtracker and zero (0) according to Overture.

SEO TIP: Don't be fooled by other keyword tools since there is
currently nothing that can touch the accuracy of Wordtracker <
http://www.wordtracker.com/ > when it comes to in-depth keyword
research and analysis.

FYI: There is another way that you can more accurately research and
analyze the best keywords based on ROI for YOUR specific pages (but it
will cost you money and it will take a few weeks to gather the data)
and that is to set up a campaign with Google's AdWords <
https://adwords.google.com/select/ >. If you have $100 to $200 to
invest in keyword research, we would HIGHLY recommend that you start
with an AdWords campaign. This way, within a few weeks you will KNOW
the exact numbers, such as click-through rates and conversion rates
for your specific keyword phrases and pages. Then once you know which
keyword phrases are producing the most ROI, optimize for them, and
forget about the ones that you lost money on. This would be the most
accurate way to start your SEO campaign, but if your budget doesn't
currently allow for such a campaign, then trial and error will have to
do.

So for example... I think "emotional intelligence" might be one
of the keywords for the site I'm currently designing
(www.dirigoconsulting.com). I type that in at Overture and it says
in November there were 19791 hits on it.

Actually Shelia, that number does NOT represent "hits" as that is
something entirely different, but that number represents the number of
queries/searches made.

And a quick look at the Wordtracker & Overture numbers for that term
and its related keyword phrases, we see this ...


..............................
Wordtracker Daily Searches On 01/11/04
For ... emotional intelligence

emotional intelligence 1406 1436
emotional intelligence test 51 52
what is emotional intelligence 35 36
free emotional intelligence test 32 33
emotional intelligence quiz 27 28
emotional intelligence tests 27 28
articles on emotional intelligence 23 23
emotional intelligence training 21 21
emotional intelligence and gender differences 16 16
business application emotional intelligence eq ei 15 15
emotional intelligence in children 15 15
emotional intelligence research 15 15
analysis of emotional intelligence in leadership 14 14
emotional intelligence quotient 13 13
multifactor emotional intelligence scale 13 13
..............................


..............................
Overture Daily Searches On 01/11/04
For ... emotional intelligence

emotional intelligence 650.7/day
emotional intelligence test 40.9/day
emotional intelligence daniel goleman 14.8/day
emotional intelligence quiz 5.9/day
emotional intelligence and leadership 5.8/day
emotional intelligence and goleman 5.7/day
emotional intelligence quotient 5.3/day
definition emotional intelligence 5.1/day
article emotional intelligence 4.9/day
child emotional intelligence 3.6/day
emotional intelligence training 3.1/day
working with emotional intelligence 2.8/day
emotional intelligence theory 2.5/day
emotional in intelligence workplace 2.3/day
education emotional intelligence 2.3/day
..............................

Then it lists all these other possible phrases that contain it
and tell how many hits they got. SO...is it better to use
"emotional intelligence" because it got a lot of hits or to drill
down and find the most relevant phrases that have a lot fewer hits
since then the site would be more likely to show up in the first
page.

Shelia, simply looking at the amount of times a keyword phrase is
searched for will not be able to let you know how competitive the term
is or how difficult (or easy) it will be to acquire a Top 10 ranking.

There are ways to analyze and measure a keyword phrase's "SEO
Difficulty Rating" but it involves much time and know-how to learn
just what formula to use.

Without explaining just what this formula is, we can let you know that
right now the keyword phrase ...

emotional intelligence

.... Has 7,750 pages competing for that term and the keyword phrase ...

emotional intelligence test

.... Has 496 competing pages.


Our quick analysis shows that 50 Backward Links will get you into the
Top 10 for ...

emotional intelligence test

.... And 500 to 700 Backward Links will get you into the Top 10 for ...

emotional intelligence

It seems like if there are nearly 20K hits on a phrase it's
unlikely we could optimize well enough to come in within the first
page. Am I missing something or making this too complicated? I
really feel overwhelmed with trying to learn SEO enough to design
effective sites for my clients!

What you are missing is the "Off The Page" optimization, such as Link
Popularity (AKA PageRank for Google) and Link Reputation to define the
relevancy for your page(s).

You see, when it comes to optimizing your pages, it matters MORE what
other people say that your page is about than what you say your page
is about, so you MUST make it OBVIOUS to others what your page is
about, if you expect them to agree with you.

Your Friends,

Sharon and Roy Montero - FREE Consultation 760-378-2539 (Pacific Time)
Want To Learn All About Search Engine Optimization? We Teach A 6 Week
Online SEO Class - Learn SEO The Write Way - There Is So Much More To
SEO Than Just Meta Tags ::: http://www.iwon.net/seo/class-description/