The Keen Marketer

After learning all about keyword mistakes, let’s now look at how long tail keywords are taking niche marketing by storm.

Long tail keywords are providing more chance of getting top position in search results because fewer sites compete for them.

Now using long tail keyword phrases will get you more targeted traffic although not as many searches as compared to broad, general keyword phrases.

One reason people use long tail keywords is because they know what they’re looking for and if you use such phrases in your keywords, you will be able to provide a closer match and sale than using a broad match.

Recent figures from Hitwise show the number of long tail keyword searches has really increased a lot over the last year.  So much so that searches using eight or more words increased 20% in one year and one and two keyword searches decreased by 3% and 5% .

The figures below show the latest trend.

As you can see, the trend to long tail keywords is rising and it’s up to you to research your niche to find what long tail keywords will best suit so you can take advantage of these rising numbers and get more targeted traffic.

The key here is to use knowledge smartly and never stop doing keyword research as there might be a new long tail keywords for your niche that you can rank high for in the search engines.

If not you, someone else will and that someone may be getting your sale!

To close out keywords deadly mistake research, we will take a look at “doorway” pages and also what is termed as “bait & switch”.

What is a doorway page?

It is a page that has very high keyword density but little else on the page.  Search engines don’t like these as they clog up the index with junk.  These pages have no real purpose other than trying to build links and direct traffic to a single site.  As a keyword tactic, it can actually cost you visitors because the visitor has to click further to the real site.

So if you do use doorway pages, is it providing good information? If not, don’t do it.

The old “bait and switch” scenario is another keyword tactic that’s not too popular with search engines.

How does this one work?

Once a page has been indexed by search engines, one would expect to see the same thing the engines did when searching for a specific keyword.  That isn’t always the case.

There are some sites that have two versions, one made for search engines and one that’s full of fancy, off topic stuff with no relevance to the content rich site which was first advertised.

Using such a strategy can really hurt your business.

Why?

First of all your customers didn’t get what they were looking for and second, the search engines, which first indexed the page, are not too happy about misleading searchers.

If visitors start complaining, you will be de-listed and booted out of Google.  Is it worth it for the few extra visitors you would be getting?

An off shoot of this tactic are spammy redirects that send visitors to a page which they should be optimized for search engines but end up on another one instead.

Thankfully, search engines are no longer falling for this trick.

As you can see, use your keywords wisely and correctly and the search engines will love you, as will the visitors who land on your site looking for value and finding it.

Again that’s all part of attraction marketing done the right way!

So far I’ve covered keyword mistakes such as the improper use of title tags,  meta tag misuse and keyword stuffing.

This post explains how using irrelevant keywords to attract more traffic is not a good tactic.

It works this way.  Let’s say you found some really good keywords that have very low competition but show great traffic numbers although they’re not quite the right ones that fit your website.

You will not find an increase in sales doing that because once there, your visitors will see they were tricked on landing there and they will just leave. You certainly don’t want to be reported as spam site to the search engines.

Another big mistake by many marketers is useless content.

You  need a lot of great content to keep those visiting your site interested and wanting to come back for more.  There’s all kind of low- quality articles and blogs out there who do it just for no other reason than getting better rankings in search engine.

This goes completely against the attraction marketing philosophy and should not be considered.

If your reputation and credibility is important, then you will avoid these questionable tactics.

It’s all about learning from those who know how to do things right from the beginning.

Are you one to have lots of keywords spread out all over your site thinking that this strategy will better your search rankings?

Wrong move!

In the days of “old” that used to work, no longer is that a valid trick.

These days, Google has become the ultimate decipher of dead and empty content.  It has learned over the years how to distinguish between people trying to fudge the results vs real content.

What are these tricks that no longer are valid?

• ever placed loads of small, small typed your keywords at the top & bottom of your page?
• ever used a keyword density above 10% giving your text not much sense?
• ever used “invisible” keywords?  You know the ones where you write white on white.  Well this one can actually get you deleted from Google altogether!

Your only real and foolproof strategy is still to give relevant information that will help your customers solve a problem.  Why bother with anything else?

My last post covered how misusing or not using the “title tags” could affect your search engine results.

Today, you’ll learn how misusing your keywords Meta tags can do the same.

There was a time when search engines really cared about keyword meta tags and would use those to determine your site’s relevance.

This is no longer the case but it doesn’t mean that keyword meta tags are not important, as a poorly written meta tag can actually penalize your site.

What to do?

The meta keyword tag is used primarily to identify, in one line of HTML, what you are optimizing your page for by using specific “keywords”.  So just do that.

Since meta tags only appear in your HTML code and nowhere are they visible on your site, this is an easy solution to properly identifying what your site is all about.

Where are they on your HTML page?

They’re usually placed very close to the top of the page, near your title tag, and look like this:

<meta name=”Keywords” content=”Keywords and keyword phrases you’re optimizing this page for, including applicable synonyms and misspellings, and keep this tag under 170 characters”>

It’s all about learning how to do it right so as not to be penalized!

Stay tuned because I have 5 more SEO tips coming your way soon.

So you are one of the new breed of network marketers who actually use the internet to market online.

Bravo!

You have landing pages in place, you may have a blog or even a website.  But you’ve been wondering why you’re not ranking higher in the search engines.

Maybe it’s because you have been applying certain outdated techniques that are actually costing you that ranking or you are not doing things the right way.

I will start by giving you the very first tip on how to correct this problem. These are things I have had to learn.

A title tag tells the engines what your page is all about and it also appears in search results as well as in the browser space at the top.

So this is DEFINITELY where you should put your best keywords!

But we routinely see site owners making pretty basic errors with their title tags, costing them good rankings, and sometimes, even their credibility.

It is very important that you tag the title properly.

a. No tag?

Visitors will see “untitled document” in the search results, and the top of the browser, which makes you look unprofessional. No one will be looking for an untitled document.

b. Bad idea to use your URL as the title

Even if your url contains your business name, the product category and the name of the product, this won’t help your rankings.

What you have to remember is that your title tags are for Keywords.

c. Greeting the visitor instead of a keyword-rich title

Hey, don’t get me wrong.  Saying “hi” to a new visitor is great but that works only if you are actually greeting a real person.

A title tag is not the place for that.  Will someone search for a welcome message?

d. Using only single words in the title tag

Like anything, stuffing your title tag with single words will also not work. Use keywords in a phrase of about 70 characters  to describe and present your page at a glance.

Don’t know where your title tag is?

It’s easy to find and easy to change in your HTML code.  Just switch to HTML view in your webpage software, such as Microsoft Frontpage. Near the top of the page, between your “head” tags that look like this <head>, you will find the title tags:

<title>Network Marketing:-Proven Marketing Tips & Strategies</title>

In my next post, I will present the second most responsible error made my online marketers that cost them good search engine results.

Blogs are everywhere and there are many good ones but there are more bad ones.  Is your blog one with attractive content that will bring a reader back again and again?

What is attractive content?

Attractive content is value based where sharing experience and insights will help the reader be a better person, blogger, marketer.

To over-market oneself is considered very unattractive and will just make you and your blog very lonely.

However, one person’s spam could be another person’s “ah-ah” moment.

So how do you know what to do?

• First, you must achieve balance.  You get to decide which way you want to lean.  Are you going to lean toward value or toward promotional?   That also goes when you create your profile within a community.  There is nothing wrong with promoting oneself, but like everything, there is a time and a place where it is more appropriate.

There are certain factors to consider when deciding which way you will lean:

1. who are you attracting
2. put on your target audience’s shoes: what will they think of you?
3. more promotional will bring in more targeted but less leads
4. more value will you give more leads but less qualified ones

Your content needs to be well balanced.  Don’t just look at one aspect but the whole enchilada.

• your title wording will set the tone (is it a review, sharing insight or personal opinion?)
• your opening paragraph will either score high on the promotional billboard or give value
• your overall subject matter will also contribute to value based or promotional based
• how your content looks to the eye: short or long hubs, bolding words, using pictures
• using specific anchor text will indicate value or promotional content
• linking clusters can also attract or detract

These are just guidelines to consider.  But people blogging to attract leads are there to make money in the end and there is nothing wrong with that as long as its done in a respectful value-based manner.

These are the people that will succeed over those that just promote.

If you bookmark your content, then you may be using Digg as one of your tools.

Digg is a social site considered a bookmarking site.  Although there are tons of these sites, Digg is quickly gaining attention and can bring you a lot of attention if you do it right.

We know that bookmarking sites are there for you to share your favorites with a community and of course your content also makes a contribution to this.

It should be newsworthy type news and not junk, of course.

If content you share on DIgg gets “dug”, this canl give you much more traffic to your site.  But that is really not, or should not, be your goal when using Digg bookmarking.

The main goal of Digg should be to help you come up on the search engines.  You can use it to promote events, newsworthy content that you may have on Squidoo or Hugpages, NOT A LEAD Capture Page.

It has to be value oriented.

Let’s say you create an e-book called, “The No No’s of Social Bookmarking”.  Once your book is ready to promote, then a really good way to do this, is to write an article, create a Hugpage and create a Squidoo lense about it.  Linking to each other and bookmarking the article, the lense and the hub will give you instant backlinks.

Then you DIGG your article and shout it to your friends.  I have found that friends on DIgg are much more loyal and interactive than other bookmarking sites.

So don’t be shy to ask other Diggers to become friends with you.  Remember that all you have to click on the person’s picture and click on the “friend” link and then go see that person’s friends and go ahead and add some of their friends too.

The wider the friend base, the wider you can spread your knowledge and the more you will be considered as someone that gives value and not someone out just for themself.

If you really want to learn all there is to learn about social bookmarking, there is really outstanding bookmarking training available.