Still with me? Great!
In the last segment you learned how to find the keywords that people actually use to find your product or service. If you missed that part you can get up to speed by reading Search Engine Placement - Learning The Basics. ( Clicking on this link will open a new window - simply close that window to return here ).
Time to introduce the Wordtracker Trial ( Once again - clicking on this link will open a new window - to make it easier for you to try it out ).
Ready? Let's find out who your competition is? Click on the "Trial" link on the black navigation bar near the top of the page.
Scroll down and enter your name and email address. Hint: Make sure your email address is correct as your trial results will be sent to this address automatically. Feel free to sign up for Wordtracker's Top 500 Keywords Report - the information is both fascinating and valuable if you're thinking about expanding your online efforts into a new market niche.
And - in case you're hesitant to give them your email address - Wordtracker is one of the few services around that truly will not bombard you with attempts to get you to buy their product.
Done - click the "Start The Trial" button to begin.
The second page simply explains the purpose of Wordtracker and offers a link to a tutorial that you may want to read. I am going to walk you through the trial so it isn't really necessary right now - but would probably be worthwhile reading whenever you have time.
Click on the Blue arrow to start the trial...
Step 1 instructs us to "enter your search term below" so we type in "soap" or if you want more specific results start with the first relevant two word term from your master list - in our example, we used "soap making" - so let's use that.
Click on the "Proceed" button.
Once the software has retrieved and compiled the data - scroll down using the scroll bar to the right of the left-hand search window.
Step 2 allows you to select each related keyword term by clicking on the appropriate results link below.
Go ahead and click on "soap making".
This will open an expanded list of terms in the right-hand window.
Scan through the new list and if all the terms are relevant to your product or service, simply click on the word "all" where it says "Click here to add all keywords to your basket".
You can also select keyword terms one by one - which is important if some of the terms are not directly related to what you are selling. That's because the trial version only allows you to have 30 terms in your basket for each run.
Sticking to relevant terms will save you time as you won't need to run as many trials to complete your research.
Here's a handy tip for you. If you look to the right of the terms listed in the new window - you'll see a little shovel...clicking on the shovel icon will expand that keyword term even further...which gives you even more phrases to check out.
To determine your competition, continue adding keywords until the basket is full ( look at the middle - bottom of the page ) the basket shows the number of terms it contains in red.
If you use all the terms on the right and still have room in your basket - simply choose another keyword phrase from the list on the left and repeat the process.
Done? Wonderful! Click on the blue arrow to go to Step 3.
In the trial version you don't actually have to do anything at this stage. The software has compiled all your terms into one list and will automatically email the results to you as soon as you Click on the blue arrow to proceed to Step 4. So let's do that...
Now it gets even more interesting! The results are listed in accordance with their specific KEI - there is a technical explanation for KEI - feel free to read it by clicking where it says "What do these headings mean? Click here" located just above the results table.
Here's the simple Non-Techy explanation to save time.
KEI shows you the terms with the highest number of daily searches and the lowest number of competing pages - does that make sense? So then, obviously you want to use the terms at the top of the list - the ones with the highest KEI will give you the best shot at top 20 search engine ranking for that term.
So now, you know more than most website owners. Use the terms with those high KEI's on your pages - no more than one or two phrases per page and sprinkle them liberally throughout the visible text on your page. You do have visible text I hope :)
Put them in your Meta Keyword and Description tags and try to fit them into your Title tag - you do have a title tag - don't you?
Obviously this is a simplified overview of how to achieve top search engine ranking...there is a lot more too it than I have room for here - but it will certainly put you head and shoulders above your competition - so what are you waiting for? Go forth and optimize!
Now that you know how to optimize your pages - you really need to learn the basics of submitting. Go here to read Search Engine Listing - What Are Your Options?
http://www.seoplus.com/search-engine-ranking.html
