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Thursday, September 15, 2011

Optimization Employing Keyword Phrases Instead of Keywords

Everyone engaged in the online industry, small and huge companies alike, knows that the success of a website in terms of ranking high in search engine results pages (SERPs) depends on having a solid and efficient keyword research. Of course, it is not the sole factor that will get a website on the first page of search engines, but it will definitely affect the page position of a website in the SERPs. Those who are employing search engine optimization on their website and Ad campaigns know the importance of keyword research as it can either make, when properly done, or break, if done carelessly, their campaign or website.

However, although keyword research has been recognized as such and is being employed by everyone in the online industry, most companies, most often than not, still overlook one of the most important part of keyword research, which is keyword selection and evaluation. 

But before going deeper into that, let us first focus on the main issue of this article which is the advantage of using key phrases or keyword phrases over keywords when it comes to getting more traffic and converted sales on your website.

Keywords vs. Key Phrases

Keyword pertains to a single word such as 'shoes' or 'accessories', whereas key phrase refers to multi-word search term such as 'ballerina shoes for women' or 'elegant car accessories'.

Why Use Key Phrases Instead of Keywords?

Both keywords and keyword phrases are good sources of traffic, however, with the current trend in the online industry, keywords are already considered as vague, thus, by using them, it will be extremely difficult for your website to rank on search engines or much worst, it won’t help you rank at all. Aside from this, when you use keywords instead of key phrases, you may get traffic on your site but these won’t be the targeted traffic that you were aiming for in the first place. That being said, why waste your time and effort optimizing your website using keywords that won’t even get you on the first page of the SERPs? Consider using key phrases instead of keywords on your website to get more favorable results in terms of page ranking and targeted traffic which will eventually convert into sales. Majority of Search Engine Optimizers already shifted to the use of key phrases on web sites and campaigns for two reasons:

Less Competition = Greater Chance of Ranking in the SERPs.  Not everyone in the industry has discovered yet the benefits of using key phrases instead of keywords on their website, thus there is an assurance on your part that the key phrases that you will use will have few competition in the market, thus giving it a higher chance to rank in the SERPs. 

Getting Qualified Traffic. You have to accept the fact that not everyone who searches for a keyword which pulls up your website would be interested in it. Let’s take the keyword ‘shoes’ as example. If you are engaged in selling women’s shoes in Baltimore, Maryland, and you are only using the keyword ‘shoes’ as the targeted keyword on your website; then whenever the keyword ‘shoes’ is being searched for on search engines, your website may come up, however, not everyone who clicks on it would be interested as they may be looking for children’s shoes or shoes located in Australia, thus those are considered as loss on your part especially if you are using PPC in your campaigns because they won’t be converted into sales. So it is best if you try to target key phrases instead of keywords; you may target the key phrase ‘women’s shoes for sale in Baltimore, Maryland’ or ‘selling women’s shoes in Baltimore, Maryland’; although there will be less traffic coming in to your website, you are guaranteed that those traffic will be converted into sales.

Finding the Best Key Phrases through Proper Keyword Research

As we have pointed out earlier, with the help of proper keyword research, you will be able to identify the best key phrases that you can target for your website. Always remember that when chosen correctly, your key phrases will give you the traffic and profit that you are aiming for, and it will metamorphose your website from a passive one to one that constantly gets qualified and targeted traffic that converts into sales.

Proper keyword research requires a good keyword research tool that will not only give you information such as search volume for a particular keyword phrase and its CPC; you need one that will also give you idea on possible key phrases that you may use, which is related to your targeted key phrase, and this is what KeywordSpy offers. By doing a keyword search on KeywordSpy, you will be able to see the PPC Ads, Related Keywords and Misspelled Keywords connected to your searched term or key phrase; not only this, it will also give you a peek on your competitors (PPC and Organic) that are utilizing the specific key phrase in their PPC advertising and Organic data.

Tips in Choosing Keyword Phrases

Studies show that not all users go beyond the second or third page of a search engine result page, so from here we can conclude that the best key phrases are those that will increase the chance of your article landing on the first page. So here are some tips to help you in identifying the best key phrases for your site or campaign:

Put yourself into a searcher’s position, your target audience, if you were to search for key phrases connected to your website, what would they be? You may also ask friends and family members for ideas as they can give you a picture of what your customers may be looking for. 
After you have come up with a list of three or four key phrases, search for them using a keyword research tool like KeywordSpy. 
Sort and refine your search by looking for the best key phrases that would fit best in your site. Choose key phrases that have high number of searches but at the same time have less competing sites as this will likely generate sales. 
After you have chosen the best key phrases, choose one that will become your primary keyword phrase. Your primary keyword phrase should be one, which you think; users will tend to look for in your article. 
Also choose two to three additional phrases which you can use to attract searchers who use variations of your primary keyword phrase as their search queries.

By using the aforementioned knowledge and information on key phrases, you may now put this into action and use key phrases, if you’re not yet employing it on your website or campaign, to get on top of the search engine rankings and drive only targeted traffic on your website. So start thinking key phrases not keywords. 

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