On your marks, get set…

1. Find the Right Keyword (4 Minutes)

The first step is to choose what you think most of the people you want on your site would search for in Google. Remember, it’s the people you want on your site, that is those who either would actually buy your product or service, who would follow your blog, whatever the case may be. It has to be something relevant.

For professionals, there are a number of tools to determine just that. An SEO expert would be able to filter out the words that are not relevant and, more or less, find the exact words and phrases in any given subject that would give their client more hits, and more substantial hits. Luckily you can use some of their research fairly quickly—though not quite as accurate, this will definitely be helpful.

Let’s use the example “Flash Fryer”

Type “Flash Fryer” into a Google search and you should get something like this:

You’ll notice “Flash Fryer” is the one word that shows up pretty much consistently, however in this case it is rarely the first word that shows up in the titles, other than the paid ads on the right side. You’re not paying for ads though so this is something to note. What else shows up? Stainless Steel Flash Fryer is in a couple, there are some brand names as well. You can safely assume that those brand names are what is selling as far as the Flash Fry industry goes. If you sell a popular brand, use its name is what this is telling us.

Okay, we have our key word “Flash Fryer” and we know to use popular brand names where relevant and of course stainless steel if we have stainless steel fryers.

This is important to mention. Not every product will be the same, that is, don’t apply the example we’ve come up with using “Flash Fryer” to other things. Do your own search for whatever your product happens to be and see what comes up.
Pretty simple, but very effective. Okay, on to the next step.

2. Fix your title (3 Minutes)

Okay, now it is time to use our research for your title. We are basically borrowing what others have already done, apparently the right way since they are on the first page of a Google search. So your title might looks something like this.

(Popular Brand) Stainless Steel Flash Fryer for Sale – (Name of your site)

Remember to keep your title within 60 characters. If you have a long site name or brand name you might have to play with it. Every subject will be different. In some instances you might find your search pulls up results with a specific stock number, usually for technology, if so use it. Sometimes it will be very straightforward and that is okay as well.

All you are doing is taking what, presumably, others have researched and making an educated guess about what they found to be the right title for the subject matter. You do not want to copy their titles though. Make sure yours is different than any on the first pages of Google at least.

With all of that in mind, always be sure to keep your title relevant to what your site is all about. Don’t mention a brand name, or stock number, if you don’t really have that item.

3. Content Optimization (3 Minutes)

Optimizing your content can be pretty easy, but is often misunderstood. You want to use the important key terms you’ve found, but don’t over do it. If you have content in place already, simply go through and make sure that your main keyword shows up at least once, but not more than twice, in each block of content. Even more important than that though is to keep it natural. Don’t force your keyword or key phrases anywhere they do not fit.

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Jeff Gross is an SEO expert based in Long Island New York, and owner of iIntentio, a Long Island Web Design firm. If you would like to learn more about search engine optimization or web design please visit www.iIntentio.com.