Article printed from SiteProNews: http://www.sitepronews.com
  HTML version available at: http://www.sitepronews.com/archives.html

Buzzwords vs Effective SEO Keywords
by Daria Goetsch ©Copyright 2004

Ever see a website that seems to speak a foreign language...in 
English? We encounter many SEO client websites that rely on 
buzzwords in the page copy to get the word out about their 
product. The problem lies with visitors who may not be familiar 
with those terms. This means optimizing with buzzwords may not 
be the best way to gain traffic. If your prospective visitors 
are not searching for those terms, how do they find your website?

Start With The Obvious

You really need to know your industry. Study your prospective 
visitors--who your target audience is. If your prospective 
visitors are highly technical and work and talk in "buzzword 
speak", no problem. But if you also want to attract prospective 
visitors who may not be immersed in the terminology used in your 
business, you must compensate by optimizing with a wider array 
of targeted keywords.

How Do I Find All Those Keywords?

Start researching. Yes, it's going to take a little work on your 
part to analyze what keywords you may be missing out on. Monitor 
website visitors who may use other terms to find your website. 
Track the keywords used by visitors through your log reports. 
Most log statistics programs have a report showing the keywords 
used by searchers to find your website. Using your server logs 
or log statistics program for keyword information is a good way 
to get a better picture of how visitors are finding your website. 
Use Overture's keyword tool 
(http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/) or 
Wordtracker (http://www.wordtracker.com) and note the words used 
on your competitors' websites. Using these, or similar tools, 
type in your buzzwords and see what variations come up. 
Competitor websites may use slightly different wording than 
you when writing copy for their pages. Visit their websites and 
learn all you can about how many ways your business can get its 
message across. Read online articles; visit business newsgroups 
and forums. Find research information through industry websites 
and companies that specialize in producing reports about your 
industry.

Help Search Engine Robots Do Their Job

Search engine robots are just automated programs. Their concept 
and execution is relatively simple: search engine robots "read" 
the text on your pages by going through the source code of your 
web pages. If the majority of the words in your source code text 
are buzzwords, this is the information that will be taken back 
to the search engine database.

It's Obvious (the "DUH" factor)

Ok, so it's obvious to you what your industry buzzwords are. But 
don't discount the simpler versions of those catchy words. Focus 
also on some lesser used terms and make a list of additional 
keywords you might be able to add. Clear, precise copy that 
catches the visitor's attention and tells your story is generally 
more effective in the long run.

Compromise - Mix SEO Keywords and Buzzwords

You don't want to change the copy on your webpages? This is 
often a problem with business websites. Once you have your
keyword list of other-than-obvious words, work at fitting
them into the page text carefully. You want them to make
sense with the context of the web page. Use these new
keywords as many times as "makes sense" so they do not sound
spammy. Read your copy out loud or have a colleague read
your copy to get a sense of how it might sound to a website
visitor.

The Bottom Line

It should be easy enough to see how those extra keywords are
producing for you. Keep track of your log reports and see if
those new terms start showing up in your reports. Test a variety 
of keywords, then test again to see if visitors are staying on 
your website, moving through your individual web pages, or 
clicking away. Create specific pages using those keywords as a 
test scenario. The information you need should be available to 
you in your log statistics reports for visited web pages.

Don't let business jargon get in the way of getting your message 
across to your audience. Yes, buzzwords may sound cutting edge, 
but the bottom line is, traffic and sales are what you really 
want to show for your hard work.

Copyright © 2003, 2004 Search Innovation Marketing. All Rights Reserved.

================================================================
Daria Goetsch is the founder and Search Engine Marketing 
Consultant for Search Innovation Marketing
(http://www.searchinnovation.com), a Search Engine Promotion
company serving small businesses. She has specialized in search 
engine optimization since 1998, including three years as the 
Search Engine Specialist for O'Reilly & Associates, a technical 
book publishing company.
================================================================

Copyright © 2004 Jayde Online, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.

SiteProNews is a registered service mark of Jayde Online, Inc.