Tactical Execution

This is what everybody always asks me.  Well, it’s a process.  It’s a series of things you need to do on a regular basis and the most important part is to produce more and more relevant content on a regular basis.  That’s the first question I ask clients.  Do you have a content generation mechanism?  If you don’t, we have a problem.  If you do, the sky’s the limit.

The problem is that most people want to buy results, not a process.  They don’t want to do anything.  They just want it to happen.  I hate to say it but that just won’t work.  You see, the evolving blogosphere is full of intelligent people generating fresh new relevant unique content on a daily basis.  These blogs have hundreds or even thousands of pages, all about one particular topic.  How can a well-optimized but static website compete?  It can’t.

Having said that, let’s spend a little time talking about the primary SEO factors that do, in fact, help your cause.  Again, keep in mind that a static website with no new fresh content will almost certainly come in second place.  But the following tips will definitely put you in a better position to show up high on a Google search.  And if you do these things AND produce fresh relevant content, you’re in great shape to rise to the top for dozens or even hundreds of relevant keywords and phrases.

Keywords in Title Tags.

This is one of the most important things you can do.  Every page has a title tag and you should limit it to about 65 characters.  Make sure you put a title tag on every page and stack it full of relevant keywords.

Keywords in H1 Tags.

Your H1 tag is the title of your page.  It’s what comes up at the very top.  The search engines look at the words in your title as an indication of what your page is about.  So … get those keywords in there!

Keywords in the Text Copy

If you have a particular keyword or keyword phrase in your title tag and in your H1 tag, make sure you put it into your copy as well.  Keep in mind that Google likes sentences and paragraphs.  So write your content in that format and include the same keywords throughout your copy.

Keywords in Your URLs.

The nice thing about most modern websites is that the title of your page becomes part of the permalink for that post.  That’s good news because it puts the same keywords into the actual URL for that page.  Whenever possible, include keywords into the URL because it’ll help your cause from an SEO perspective.

Keywords in Your Domain.

Yes, it matters.  If Google finds the same string of characters in your search query and the domain for your website, it will give you some additional credit for it.  So if someone searches for “health insurance” and your domain name is health-insurance.com, you’ll benefit as a result.

Last but not least, pick a narrow topic and focus on that.  Don’t try to go too wide.  Pick 3 or 4 keyword phrases and focus your entire website around that.  It will make it easier for Google to understand what your website is all about and present it when people search for that topic.

I’ll finish with the same thing as I started with.  The most important thing is to produce new fresh content on a regular basis.  Google likes fresh content.  And – surprise, surprise – blogs are the best way to do it.  If you want to make a splash on today’s internet, I highly recommend putting a blog together and start feeding it with regular content additions.

Today, I taught another course at the Pleasant Hill Adult Education center.  I teach courses like this often and always enjoy meeting the people who register for the courses I offer.  Today’s program was entitled “Modern Marketing in Action” and we took a broad top-level look at some of the exciting marketing options in our increasingly internet-driven world.  My group was full of entrepreneurs trying to grow their respective businesses.

I always spend a good deal of time discussing the differences between yesterday’s “interruption marketing” environment (a phrase coined by Seth Godin) and today’s “permission marketing” alternative.  In particular, I always like to point out how differently the young people view the internet when compared with older people.  Their respective perspectives are near opposite.  But after that, we looked at some of the tools available on today’s internet and there was one they really got excited about.

Many of you may know about the publicly accessible Google keyword tool on the Adwords platform.  If you’re not, you need only click on Resources above and then Useful Links and Keyword Research Tools to find it (or you can just click here).  On that platform, you can enter any keyword you’re interested in and the platform will spit out a long list of related keywords along with the PPC competition and the average search volume for each keyword.  This is an incredibly powerful utility we’re all well advised to take advantage of.

Before I explain the best way to use this platform, let me first explain how it functions.  When you enter a keyword into the input field, Google looks into its database to see what other words people used when searching for the keywords you entered.  In other words, the output is entirely dynamic and determined by the millions of people who use Google every day.  The words they use in their search queries give Google a ready supply of words related to the ones you’re interested in.

Anyway, once you have the output, you can sort the results by the PPC competition or the average search volume.  If you think about it, sorting the results by the average search volume tells you precisely what Google users are looking for most often.  For example, you can put “products” in and see that after “office products”, there are 5 or 6 keyword phrases that all have to do with skin care and beauty supplies – shows you what people are looking for.  Likewise, if you put “services” in, you’ll see that a lot of the searches have to do with dating services, phone services and internet services.  Lastly, if you put “free” (one of the most heavily searched terms on the internet) in, you’ll see that the top results are for free games and free downloads.

For an entrepreneur, this is an incredibly powerful utility.  You can simply put your keywords into the Google tool and immediately find out precisely what your audience is searching for.  Then, armed with that information, you can build out your website with sections that cater specifically to that subject.  Not only will that cater to those who stumble upon your website but it will likely increase the number of people find your site through the search engines.

Never before have we had such access.  Never before have we had a platform where you can immediately see what your audience is looking for.  And if you’re looking to refine your business and grow your revenue, I highly recommend looking here first.  Let your audience tell you where to go and then build exactly what it is that they’re looking for.  It saves time.  It saves money.