Making
Keyphrases Work for Your Site and the Search Engines
Does your site rank highly for keyphrases that no one searches on?
If no one is searching on your keyphrases, it won't matter how
highly your site is ranked on the search engines. Here's a
technique for securing just the right keywords.
When a Web site needs to be optimized for high rankings, usually
the first step is to find the keyphrases most relevant to the
site. But what happens when the keyphrases that are most relevant
are not the ones that people are actually searching out?
Sure, you can probably get a high ranking for "Boston
business directories," but if no one is looking for that type
of site, your high rankings will not bring your site any traffic.
We recently optimized a portal site for local businesses that had
this very problem. Here's how we overcame our keyphrase dilemma.
The site was a portal for regional businesses. For the purposes of
this article, let's say it was based in the Boston area. The site
had been optimized to rank highly for phrases such as "Boston
business directory." However, a quick Word Tracker report
revealed that people weren't using that phrase when searching the
engines.
The report showed that the most searched-on phrases relating to
Boston included "Massachusetts Lottery" and "Boston
weather." It also showed that people were searching for
"Boston zoo," "Boston airport," "Boston
classifieds" and "Boston restaurants." At first, it
seemed that it would be a daunting, if not impossible, task to
optimize for keyphrases that would bring targeted traffic to this
site. However, the site owner was prepared to alter the focus of
his site in any way he could to get more traffic. Together, we
brainstormed an optimization plan. We thought long and hard about
how we could integrate some of the keyphrases mentioned above into
this business portal without tricking the engines and the
visitors. Finally, a plan began to gel.
The Transformation
First, the client found a script that showed the up-to-date local
weather report and added that to the main page of the site. He
also hired a programmer to create a script that would integrate
state lottery results into his main page. He already had a listing
of local restaurants, as well as a section for free local
classifieds. All that was left to do was create a page of links to
the most sought-after local sites, such as the zoo and the
airport.
The next step was to rewrite the main page, focusing on the fact
that this site now offered information on the Massachusetts
lottery, Boston weather, and Boston classifieds. We also heavily
emphasized the most important keyphrases on the links page. The
business directory itself was still prominently featured, however,
it didn't get the same focus on the page as it previously had.
Once everything was in place, we optimized the tags and other HTML
code accordingly, and began the submission process. Luckily this
site had not yet been submitted to the major directories such as
Yahoo! and Looksmart. Using those directories' business express
services, we were able to get the keyphrases "lottery,"
"weather forecasts," "restaurants" and
"classifieds" into the descriptions, since these were
now a major focus of the main page of the site.
Yahoo! did give us a bit of a problem at first by severely editing
the description, however, a simple e-mail appeal worked wonders.
Yahoo! added our important keyphrases back in.
Lessons Learned
It's been three to four months since submission, and the site is
doing terrifically in the rankings. The key to success with this
site was the site owner's willingness to be flexible. While not
every site will be able to alter so much of its content in
accordance with popular search phrases, it's often possible to
make a few additions that don't conflict too much with the focus
of the site.
The site owner was also willing to take some risks. He was not
making much, if any, money on his site, but he was willing to
spend some money up front. He invested in our optimization
services and in a programmer for the scripts he needed. It's still
too early in the game to know for sure how profitable this client
will be, but something tells me he will eventually realize a tidy
profit.
There are several lessons in this case study for anyone in
business on the Web:
If your most relevant keyphrases aren't going to bring you
traffic, find ones that will, and alter the focus of the site if
you can.
If you're serious about your business, you'll often have to spend
money to make money.
Now it's your job to figure out how can you put some of this
information to use for the benefit of your own site!
