Search Engine Optimisation and Keyword Targeting: Getting It Right

Search Engine Optimisation and Keyword Targeting: Getting It Right

One of the biggest misconceptions about Search Engine Optimisation is that there's some very "precise" or "exact" formula to acquiring visibility in search - there's not. Well, there probably is, but to get the answer to that question you will have to invade Google HQ and unlock the frailties in their algorithm.

However, the truth is that when it comes to keyword targeting there's very little you need to be worried about. Keyword Targeting can broadly be separated into two components: what you need to do on-page and what you need to do off-site.

The first step is producing a keyword research document. If you haven't yet become acquainted with The Google Keyword Tool then now is the time to do so - this tool will be able to provide you with search volume data for just about every conceivable term you can imagine.

The importance of the keyword research stage shouldn't be underestimated - it's very easy to identify a significant difference in search volume between the plural and singular variations of a given term (e.g. "Appliance Repair" and "Appliance Repairs") or even the inversion ("Newcastle Hotel" or "Hotel Newcastle"); you need to know what you're targeting and you need to get it straightened out right from the very outset.

The second step of keyword targeting is looking on-page and how you actually need to optimise your web copy, and the various on-page elements, to appear more relevant to your main target terms. The main points of focus here are the page title, filenames, ALT text, headers and keyword insertion in the content body. So-called factors like keyword density are complete folly, I advise against wasting your time counting keyword ratios and such. The page title is by far and away the most important on-page element, and the one element you really need to make sure is tailored across you entire website (don't duplicate page titles across web pages).

Finally, you need to look at the off-site optimisation aspect of keyword targeting and this is, by far and away, the most important aspect. You know which keywords you want to target so you need to work on integrating those keywords into the anchor text you are using when link building to your website.

Providing you have all of these factors in place, then you will be well ahead of most webmasters when it comes to keyword targeting and getting the most visibility possible for your website in search.