Your website will never be successful if you are unable to drive traffic there. More and more webmasters are turning to Search Engine Optimization so that they can land at the first few pages of search engine results pages.

Put yourself in the shoes of your target consumers. More often than not, if they are searching for a keyword on the internet, they would rather click on the links on the first 2-3 pages of search engine results. If your website lands there, you might feel you got a jackpot on an Internet slot machine! Here are some tips and tools on getting savvy with Search Engine Optimization.

1. You should use free research tools online. Google’s Keyword Tool is a great resource when you are trying to find out what people are searching in the internet. This can help you understand hundreds of keywords related to the keyword you are concerned about. You can also check out Aaron Wall’s SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool. This tool also uses Yahoo! search data. If you have extra budget though and do not mind spending a bit on your online market research, try out Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery.

2. Be specific with your keywords and phrases. It would not do for you to target very general keywords such as credit cards or weight loss. What you need to do is put in geography or any other information that people would be interested to search about. Getting a thesaurus or a synonyms reference can also be very helpful.

3. Ensure that your keywords and phrases are relevant to your online business. Don’t just get keywords for the sake of getting them. Make sure that these words and phrases are related to the products or services that you are selling. This way, people won’t be disappointed if they end up viewing your site. Imagine a person seeking for weight loss pills and ended up at your site dealing with anorexia. “Bummer!” They will be annoyed and quickly leave your site.

Search engine optimization is not an easy task. It takes time and it takes skills! So if you cannot do it yourself, you better get an SEO consultant who can help do the job for you.

Tags: SEO · Web 2.0No Comments