Ask the SEO Guru

Question for the Week of May 12th, 2008

Yesterday I had a question from a client asking how many keywords we will target for each project. It reminded me that out of all the questions I get that illustrate a need for better understanding of how an SEO process works, this is one of the top 5.

I think of all the things I could discuss to the benefit of my readers, answering this question will do the most good for the most people with the least words spent. So, here is the question and my response in italics.

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We would like to target at least 25 keywords for each client.  When I first spoke with you Guru, this is how I understood it and that is how we were doing it with our previous SEO company.

How many keywords can you target for each client?

It looks like I didn't do a very good job of explaining the whole, "target keywords" thing. I'll take another stab at it today to help you understand the process.

#1. We can target 25 keywords, 250 or 25,000. BUT you can't target them all at once. For best results, we should stay on theme with a small number of specific long tail terms. In other words, we can target keywords under the umbrella of say jewelry, AND necklaces AND rings, but  it is best to stay focused on one of them and expand them over time. By targeting necklaces and rings, in a way you are reducing the relevancy for one by trying to promote the other.  It is better to have solid content for the target and then try to get anchor text at about a 60/40 split to the specific content url and to the index page. This shows the engines that we are relevant to necklaces OR rings. Then we just repeat the process as we add relevant content for target terms or THEMES.

#2. We can’t choose the keywords or the time to promote them. You are in much more control over the content than we are and you just need to let us know which keywords you want when and we'll do it. To us it doesn't matter if you give us 2 targets or 200, you just need to let us know where the content is and what keywords you want to target. We can do the research for you but it is your decision. We can’t decide for you and then tell you what we want to target, we need to target what you tell us you want and when.

#3. Search engine placement is about 4 primary things. Of course there are a lot of small things you can do involving Htags, meta tags , etc, but these 4 things,(listed in order of importance), are what moves placements upwards.
Technical issues. making sure you are getting crawled and indexed properly
Relevant content. Content that is focused and provides value associated with a target term of phrase.
Relevant links. Links that show the engines that other people feel your content is relevant to a specific theme.
Trust. Doing things with the promotion of your site that makes the engines trust your content and links and NOT doing things to make them not trust you.

Any one of those things will not move a page to the top 10 for a search query without the other 3 in place, (content is kind of an exception. You actually can move a site with content alone IF the technical issues are in place, you have at least one spiderable link and there is a lack of solid relevant content  competeing for the exact term) By the same token, three of the four things in place and it will not work. The optimum solution is the right combination of all 4.

#4. Targeting keywords should not be the primary objective. Top 10 placements mean beating out at least 1 of the 10 links that are already in the top 10. It takes a lot of work, resources and focus. That stuff is not cheap so there is a definite expense associated with gaining top 10 positions. What we want is conversions. Sales! Sales is revenue and targeting keywords is an expense.

So targeting keywords should be more of a surgical maneuver than a shotgun approach. We should set an objective for what we want to SELL, then develop the appropriate content and then promote that content while maintaining the integrity of the site. That is what works, and that is what keeps your clients paying for your services.

Build the converting content based on your clients stated objective, (we can build the content for you if you need us to), tell us about the content and where to find it, we'll perform the research to provide a solid list of target terms and we'll take it from there once you approve.

It's not about how many keywords to target. We'll target UNLIMTED keywords for you. It is about setting a sales, (or desired action), objective and then using us to help you hit it.

Remember, that was in response to a question from an existing client. There is nothing that we do that you can’t do for yourself and the concepts are the same. This was an illustration to make the concept more obvious.

The point is to keep in mind the next time an SEO company is pitching you their service and they tell you they will target x number of keywords, remember targeting keywords doesn’t make you money. SALES makes you money and the only keywords you need to target are the ones that make sales, (or achieve a desired action).

If 1 keyword makes you money, then 2 is better BUT, as soon as you start devoting assets to keywords that DON’T make you money, and you just want the placement for the sake of the placement, you’re wasting your time, your money and the time of everyone that sees your placement where they searched.

Peace Y’all

G