Do-It-Yourself SEO: Effective Keyword Research Utilization

“Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.”… Ralph Waldo Emerson

So you’ve developed a great keyword list for your SEO Campaign. Congratulations! Now, I’m here to help you optimally integrate your keyword research into your Search Engine Optimization efforts. Here are several important techniques where your keyword list can effectively be used for SEO:

Doorway Page Generation: It’s a well known SEO mantra that you need to create one unique web page for each keyword you wish to rank for…after all, that’s why you purchased the doorway page software. In order to run the software successfully, you need your keyword list so the software can create these necessary pages for SEO.

Invisible Text: Once you’ve created your doorway pages, you want to maximize their utility. Now, a given doorway page might be targeting the search term “Cheap Viagra” but there isn’t any reason why that particular page shouldn’t have a chance to rank well for all of the terms in your keyword list. Therefore, you should append your keyword list at the bottom of each of your doorway pages and make the keyword text the same color as the background of the page (so the readers won’t be distracted by the list but the search engines can read them). By doing this, you might be able to rank that particular page for other related search terms (e.g. “Buy Viagra Online No Prescription UK”).

Home Page Optimization: The home page will always be the focal point of your SEO efforts. Therefore, each of your keywords should be strongly represented there. Place your entire keyword list between the body tags on the home page. Then, give your keywords plenty of emphasis by placing each of them within <h1> tags (which tells the search engines to give the keywords extra weight). By doing this, you are making a strong statement as to the “theme” of your site and the search engines will place you accordingly.

Meta Keyword Tag : The meta keyword tag is used to let the search engines know the most important keywords in your site. Therefore, it’s clearly obvious that you need to place your entire keyword list within your Meta Keywords Tag, emphasizing to the search engines their importance.

Meta Description Tag: The meta description tag will give the search engines “snippets” of content to display in the search engine results plus, if done correctly, hopefully entice searchers to click on the link to your site. Therefore, I would also place your entire keyword list within your Meta Description tag so when the searcher comes upon your results in the SERPS, they will know your site is about “Viagra, Cheap Viagra, Buy Viagra, Buy Mo Viagra, etc.” and therefore be more likely to click on it.

Search Engine Submission: Once you’ve completed the “on-page” SEO for your site, it’s time to submit your site to the search engines. Hopefully, you’ve already purchased your Search Engine Submission software for your SEO efforts (make sure your software will submit to at least 10 Million Search Engines & make sure you submit daily for best results). Place your keyword list in the “Description Field” of your software program so when each search engine receives your submission, they’ll know what your site is about and place you accordingly.

Link Development: It’s a well-known SEO fact that you need to vary your inbound link text when doing link development (for it’s a “spam signal” for a website to get back links all with the same link text). So, when you utilize your automatic Guestbook Signing software, I would continually vary the “Name” field (which is frequently the link text used from a guestbook). Start with the first term on your list and each time you rerun the software, use a different term.

Also, follow the same philosophy when you send out your reciprocal link emails to your harvested webmaster list. For each new email blast, vary the requested link text so the search engines won’t think you’re trying to “game” the system.

What if you aren’t satisfied with your search engine rankings?

Sometimes your best efforts aren’t good enough to get you the rankings you desire. Before you consider getting professional SEO help, I recommend the following:

Call the Search Engines : People think because it’s the 21st century, phone calls aren’t effective anymore. Absolutely not true. If you aren’t satisfied with your search rankings, call Google / Yahoo / MSN and ask to speak to the “Search Quality Department”. Search engineers are constantly looking for feedback on the quality of their SERPS and what better way to offer your opinion than by calling them directly. Now, more than likely, you’ll be sent to voice mail, but make sure you leave them the following information:

• Full Contact Information
• URL of Website
• Techniques Used (e.g. Doorway Page Generation, Invisible Text)
• Full Contact Information for everyone who assisted / advised you in the optimization your site.

The search quality engineers will be very interested in your voicemail and you can be assured they will take immediate action on it.

Google Webmaster Central

Formerly the domain of Vanessa Fox, Google Webmaster Central is a wonderful tool that lets webmasters know vital information about each registered site. You absolutely should register your site with Google Webmaster Central and once you’ve done that, make contact the Webmaster Central team by filling out the form and give them the same information suggested for “Calling the Search Engines”. It is possible that Webmaster Central might respond to your information more quickly than leaving a voice mail with the Search Quality Folks.

In-Person Contact

Most every relevant search engine conference will be well-attended by representatives of Google / Yahoo / MSN . If you have the time and budget to attend a search engine conference, I strongly recommend that you do so. Approach one of the search engine representatives at the conference (your best bets would be either Matt Cutts or Adam Laznik from Google, Tim Mayer from Yahoo or Nathan Buggia from MSN ). Introduce yourself and give them the important information about your site that I’ve outlined above. I can just about guarantee immediate action will be taken on your site.

You might also consider volunteering your website for a conference session dedicated to website reviews. You can tell the story of your website to the audience…some of whom will be blogging for major Search Engine websites. You’ll not only get advice from the assembled panel but you’ll get media coverage that will likely get read by somebody on the Google / Yahoo / MSN search quality team who will take appropriate action.

In Closing:

To summarize, the success or failure of your website optimization will depend on the techniques that you choose to use…choose wisely or suffer the consequences of your actions.