Keyword Query

[AJ113]

My main SEO keyword is 'lose inches'. Would any of you most learned people be so kind as to give me your opinion as to why http://www.squid-cache.org/mail-arch...9912/0005.html is number 2 on Google for this search term?

Thank you

[Bethers]

Re: Keyword Query

Keyword digger tells you what words you have used ON YOUR PAGE - and how often. It cannot tell you if those are words that people are searching for (you need to research that) or if those are the words that SHOULD be on the page - it simply is taking what you already wrote. It's YOUR responsibility to do the research first - and to put the right words on the page. And it can't tell you how to write your meta or description.

As to the site you asked about - look at the page. The title - starts "Lose 5-15 inches" - the headline on the page starts "Lose 5-15 Inches" - The text on the page says "Lose Inches" "inches loss" numerous times -

For your information - it is a good niche term to work for - but is not one that is widely searched. So, yes, it will give you some traffic - but don't expect a lot from it. While there are over 21,000 searches a day for lose weight (would be very hard to move up with very quickly) there are less than 20 searches for lose inches. So, while I agree with it as a great keyword to work towards - you need to research and have more of these niche keywords.

I think you can quickly move up for this keyword - but you need to do things - like rewrite your page - take the hyphen out of your name in her header - give yourself a headline, etc etc - (yes, the hyphen is part of your name in your url - your url is your address on the net - not how you need your name to appear in a header.

I suggest you read the short ebook in my signature - it's a pdf file and free.

[AJ113]

Re: Keyword Query

Keyword digger tells you what words you have used ON YOUR PAGE - and how often. It cannot tell you if those are words that people are searching for (you need to research that) or if those are the words that SHOULD be on the page - it simply is taking what you already wrote. It's YOUR responsibility to do the research first - and to put the right words on the page. And it can't tell you how to write your meta or description.

Ok thank you Bethers. I didn't know that is how it works. I thought the tool was connecting up to the web and checking for typical searches. I was simply following the directions in the tutorial, I didn't know that the search engines would regard what I did as spam. I'm a total newb at this.

As to the site you asked about - look at the page. The title - starts "Lose 5-15 inches" - the headline on the page starts "Lose 5-15 Inches" - The text on the page says "Lose Inches" "inches loss" numerous times -

Thank you, as far as I am aware I have all these boxes ticked on my main page too - in your opinion have I got that right?

For your information - it is a good niche term to work for - but is not one that is widely searched. So, yes, it will give you some traffic - but don't expect a lot from it. While there are over 21,000 searches a day for lose weight (would be very hard to move up with very quickly) there are less than 20 searches for lose inches. So, while I agree with it as a great keyword to work towards - you need to research and have more of these niche keywords.

I went for other terms such as 'lose 5 inches' and 'lose inches fast' etc. Does the fact that I have angled towards 'lose inches' cover such search terms as 'lose 5 inches' and other terms which include the words 'lose' and 'inches'? - Or have I got that wrong?

I think you can quickly move up for this keyword - but you need to do things - like rewrite your page - take the hyphen out of your name in her header - give yourself a headline, etc etc - (yes, the hyphen is part of your name in your url - your url is your address on the net - not how you need your name to appear in a header.

Right, now I'm really confused. As far as I'm aware my page does have a header. I put it in HTML tags <h1>lose-inches.info</h1>, have I done it incorrectly?

I suggest you read the short ebook in my signature - it's a pdf file and free.

Heh, thank you Bethers. I downloaded and read your book yesterday!

[AJ113]

Re: Keyword Query

Yes.. I have an opinion. The page you referred to didnt spam the keywords, didnt mispell words, and didnt use words that he didnt refer to in his post on that board.

You on the other hand spammed STUFFED your keywords in your meta tags, didnt watch your spelling, didnt correct your grammar. If you have a menu on your about us page it was lost in the rest of the ads and text, so if it didnt catch my eye, its pretty much wasted and im gone off the site.

Thank you Karen, I've changed my meta tags now. As explained in the post to Bethers I had no idea that I was spamming.

I'm a bit disappointed that you've discovered spelling and grammar errors, as it's an area where I consider myself to be strong. Could you highlight any errors that stand out strongly to you please?

When I said run with the big dogs, that means your site has alot of work to do to become professional and out do the other 5 million miracle diet pill sites that are out there. I was trying to be nice.

Yep, that's how I understood it. You were being nice, and I was trying to reciprocate! I must have been careless with the phrasing in my post.

[Bethers]

Re: Keyword Query

OK - I don't call what you have a header - a header is usually a picture - take a look at my sites in my signature - then you have a headline (different thing) that you put at the top in h1 tags. And your name with the - and . after it in h1 tags won't do you any good. I bet there is NO ONE searching for that in that manner.

Now, you say you are also going for lose 5 inches. I said you have to RESEARCH the keywords - if less than 20 people a day are searching for lose inches - what do you want to bet there is no one searching for lose 5 inches? You MUST RESEARCH and find what people really ARE using to search - and THOSE become the phrases for you to target.

Now, you said you "have all these boxes ticked on my main page too" - but no you do NOT. Your title is lose-inches.info - again - not the same as lose inches - both the - and the .info hurt you. You do not have lose inches in your h1 - you have lose-inches.info - which is NOT what people are searching for. (The search engines will not separate out those words - lose-inches.info is all one word unlike lose inches which is two wrods. Again, just because you have the - in your url - it IS NOT how people are searching - and will not work in your title or h1. And a header and a headline are different.

[AJ113]

Re: Keyword Query

OK - I don't call what you have a header - a header is usually a picture - take a look at my sites in my signature - then you have a headline (different thing) that you put at the top in h1 tags. And your name with the - and . after it in h1 tags won't do you any good. I bet there is NO ONE searching for that in that manner.

Now, you said you "have all these boxes ticked on my main page too" - but no you do NOT. Your title is lose-inches.info - again - not the same as lose inches - both the - and the .info hurt you. You do not have lose inches in your h1 - you have lose-inches.info - which is NOT what people are searching for. (The search engines will not separate out those words - lose-inches.info is all one word unlike lose inches which is two wrods. Again, just because you have the - in your url - it IS NOT how people are searching - and will not work in your title or h1. And a header and a headline are different.

Thank you Beth, check all that, relevant changes made. Would you please have a quick look and let me know if I'm on the right track?

For clarification: As a header is usually a picture, SE's presumably cannot read them. So the only factor that denotes that the picture is a header is the fact that it is at the top of the page. Are there special HTML tags that show it is a header? Does the fact that it is at the top of the page mean that Google spiders are more likely to read the alt text and place more importance on it?

Now, you say you are also going for lose 5 inches. I said you have to RESEARCH the keywords - if less than 20 people a day are searching for lose inches - what do you want to bet there is no one searching for lose 5 inches? You MUST RESEARCH and find what people really ARE using to search - and THOSE become the phrases for you to target.

Well actually Beth I have done a fair amount of research on keywords. I signed up for Google Adwords about five weeks ago, and I used the Google keyword suggestion tool to create a large list of keywords, based on relevance, popularity and competition (or rather lack of it). I am monitoring the impressions ongoing. Do you think this is a good way of researching?

Thank you for your help.

[Bethers]

Re: Keyword Query

Google Adwords is not where you research for your keywords that you want to have happen in organic search. They are giving you lesser used keywords that you can afford (therefore usually the lack of competition and also often very few people searching for it). Now, they pick relevance based on WHAT YOU HAVE ALREADY ON YOUR SITE. So they are assuming YOU already did the research to find the correct words.

Now, you've done a good job with your h1 - much better for visitors and for se's. Yes, the header, if a picture, isn't read by the search engines - but you put an alt tag on it that is - which can simply be your same words you have on it. What you've done by adding the header and using the correct h1 headline - is given your site the professionalism you want and need to get sales.

One place you could do research without cost is http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/ - you do not have to put the code they have on the website - just use the tool to find the keywords to use on the website.

Also - if you're using PPC - make sure you're using it very carefully if you're new to this. Make sure from the beginning that it's generating more income than you're spending on the words. You can quickly go broke with PPC if not done correctly - even on those fringe words. Your ROI has to be worthwhile.

And use the tool I just gave you to see what kind of people are searching for the phrases you got from Google. Remember - they simply took the phrases from YOUR pages to get relevant phrases.

[AJ113]

Re: Keyword Query

Thank you Beth. The keywords I am using in Adwords are not generated by my site content - that's an option when to generate keywords, I didn't opt for it. - My keywords are generated from my own original input. You're right, I'm losing money on it, but it's only coppers, and I thought it was worth the loss to get the research answers.

I will use the tool in the link you gave and report back!

[AJ113]

Re: Keyword Query

I appear to have fallen at the first hurdle. Top ranking result for 'lose inches' is 'diet fast inch lose loser no'. Surely that can't be right? Am I doing something wrong?

[Bethers]

Re: Keyword Query

I don't know what happened - but that is O*****re - unfortunately, it didn't give results for the other company - which I prefer. Here's another one to use:
www.keyworddiscovery.com - it has a free version - and I like www.wordtracker.com also - but you need to pay for their results now - you can purchase a days worth of time - and just go crazy. Keyword discovery has a paid version that can give very neat things also - but just try it's free version for now - as it is giving good results.

[AJ113]

Re: Keyword Query

Thank you Bethers.
The keyworddiscovery.com keyword tool is giving results that I get from most other keyword tools: if I ask it to search for 'lose weight' using the US database, every term in its results has 'weight LOSS' - none of them have 'lose' in the term. Why is that? Is it something I'm doing wrong?

[AJ113]

Re: Keyword Query

Wordtracker.
This is the first tool I've used that appears to be doing what I want it to do. It makes keyword suggestions based on real historic searches, you then choose the keywords that you deem to be most appropriate to your site, and then it gives your chosen keywords a rating, based on the number of searches for that keyword in the last 90 days, against the number of pages competing for the word.

The better the rating, the better the keyword - unless of course the number of searches is so low that it wouldn't have any effct on your site's traffic.

Thank you Beth!

[Bethers]

Re: Keyword Query

You're welcome - these tools are only as good as those of us using them - and finding the right one for what we need. I believe Wordtracker is one of the very good ones. I don't always tell people to use it- because most people on these forums are trying to find what they can do for free. As you see - paying can have it's benefits.

[AJ113]

Re: Keyword Query

..........erm, it is free! There is a super-dooper version that you pay for, but the free version is more than adequate for me.

[AJ113]

Re: Keyword Query

Just checked Wordtracker, you can get the sooper-dooper version for a week's unbridled abuse at a cost of $28/£14, which is very tempting. I shall report back!