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Managing
Expectations II:
Competitive Keywords
and Optimization
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John
is a professional recruiter. He's been in the business for over
10 years and has a vast array of knowledge and experience placing
people in jobs all over the world. Having worked for some of the
largest recruitment firms, he's decided to take his experiences
online with his own job board and career site. A friend of his
created an awesome Flash site with lots of great images. On the
home page, visitors can choose from two links: one for job seekers
and another for employers. Each button would take the user to
a database where they can enter their search criteria. Aside from
that, he has an "About Us" page, a "Contact Us"
page, an "FAQ" page, and a "Bio" page. John
decided that he'd like to use "jobs" and "careers"
as his two most important keywords.
So, how do you think John faired in the search engine rankings? Six months later, there was no search engine ranking to be found for his site. Think About Your Competition When you enter "jobs" or "careers" into Google or any other search engine, you will undoubtedly run into sites with major brand identity: Monster, CareerBuilder, and HotJobs all come to mind. Not only do these sites have brand identity, but they also have longevity and, more importantly, content galore. Browse through the pages of Monster under Career Advice and you will find literally hundreds of pages of content on careers and jobs. Now, how can John possibly compete using those same keywords? His site consists of five main pages and an intro page that is image heavy. Now, we all know search engine spiders don't like Flash or splash pages to begin with. Escaping the Pitfalls The careers/jobs industry is just an example. Other industries that are fighting for highly competitive keywords are: casino-related sites, web design and hosting, search engine optimization, travel and hotels, and dating sites. So, how do you escape the pitfalls? 1. Optimize your site for less competitive keywords. Use our Search Term Suggestion Tool (powered by Overture) to research your keywords. This powerful tool will direct you to the most popular keywords for your specific business based on how many times that keyword or keyword phrase is searched for each month. You can then take that information and develop your keyword strategy based on those results. To avoid highly competitive keywords, try any of the following: Regionalizing your site. Rather than using "web design," try "Milwaukee web design." Target a specific industry. Rather than using "careers," try "hospitality careers." Corner a niche market. Rather than using "jewelry," try "discount jewelry." For more information on keyword strategies as they relate to search engine optimization, read our article, "Keyword Density". 2. Maximize the content on your site. If you want to compete with any site, large or small, you're going to need lots of relevant, keyword-rich content on your site. Writing informative and useful content should be one of your main priorities when it comes to search engine optimization. And remember to continually refresh your content. Do what you can to refresh it and keep users coming back for more. For more information on content, read our articles, "Optimizing Content in Your Website" and "Analyzing Your Content for Maximum Search Engine Optimization". 3.
Strengthen your link popularity campaign. Link popularity
should be an integral component of your search engine optimization
strategy. The basic premise behind link popularity is this:
The more links pointing to your site, the more popular your
site is considered by the search engines. You will need to focus
on getting quality related links pointing to your site. For
more information on link popularity as it relates to search
engine optimization, read our 3-part article, "Building
A Successful Link Popularity Strategy".
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