Search Keywords For Business

To gain business from people who are searching the internet, you need to understand how search engines work so you can begin appearing on search result pages . A search engine is like an index in a library, it offers a way to find specific information from the thousands of books held in the collection. A library index is searchable by author, title and subject. The library index will not show a book that is not part of the collection.

Imagine that the websites and pages on the internet are a collection of published documents. If you know a website's URL such as http://www.wikipedia.com then you can go directly to that site. Once there, like a book, the site itself will have a separate searchable index to find information within the site, just like Wikipedia's online encyclopedia has.

If you are searching for information from a variety of sites you will use a search engine. Google is the most powerful search engine online and it is estimated that around 70% of people use Google to find information. The remaining 30% is divided between Yahoo, MSN and then several hundred smaller search engines. Each search engine creates it's own index of sites.

If your site is not indexed by a search engine, it will never appear on search result pages for a search done by people using that search engine. Just as the library index will not show a book that is not part of the collection, a search engine WILL NOT SHOW A SITE IT HAS NOT INDEXED.

Getting Indexed By A Search Engine

Therefore the first step for any site is to make sure it gets into a search engine index. The best way to do this is to have a sitemap for your website and to submit this to the most powerful search engines.

There are millions of pages of information online. They are all indexed by keywords. Even when you are indexed by a search engine such as Google, the index for one keyword or for a keyword phrase could consist of thousands of pages. The first page that comes up for a search has ten results on it. Your site index result could be on page 40 or 400. To be honest there is little difference between the two because few searchers will ever reach either of these pages. If your indexed page is not appearing on page one of a search result page you will gain little traffic to it from a search engine.

Search Engine Optimise Your Pages

Search engines use a complicated and secret algorithm to rank pages in their index. For highly competitive keywords such as single words or two word phrases, only the most authoritative sites will appear on the first search engine results page (SERP). To rank well enough to appear on a first SERP for a three or four word phrase you need to optimize the page so the search engine algorithm recognises that this is a page that will offer good information to a searcher. This process is called search engine optimization (SEO).

From the other side of the picture, the search engine takes into account the terms that people type into the search engines box when they are looking for information. It collates this information and does its best to present relevant results for these searchers. Appearing on search result pages is a presentation of relevant "optimized for specific keywords" information to people searching using some of those same specific keywords.

SEO specialists can access some search engines information and analyse it. They will research and recommend key phrases that a specific site can use to write articles on that will target the people who are looking for what their business has to offer. They will analyse competing sites and pick phrases for your site with a high search volume that have a lower competition for SERPs than those dominated by authority sites.

Geotargeting For Local Business

The Internet is a global arena and you have to pick your battles. The more specific and local your business is THE BETTER OFF YOU ARE are, because the search engines work hard to present geo targeted results. So long as you target a niche topic or a local area in your optimisation for your site you have a chance to rank for terms you want. The hardest site to bring to a first SERP is a competitive general term that aims to serve anyone and everyone.

A bookshop with a general mix of titles happy to service the world will need to become an "Amazon" to compete. However a bookshop specializing in Romance fiction happy at first to service one town or city will have a much easier job optimising their site and may discover over time that the country or even the global market becomes available to them if they want it and work hard for it.

Discovering the search keywords for your business is not something you can easily guess at. Market research is an important part of promoting a website you want to appear to people using search engines. Having discovered these key phrases you then need to know how to place them on the page to optimise the site for them, both within the site, and by gaining useful links from other sites.

There is nothing accidental about appearing on the first page of a SERP. It may appear to be complicated at first but much of the process, although time consuming, is a simple strategy and implementation of a keyword phrase you wish to appear for. As much of the indexing process is automated you are helping both yourself and the search engines by giving them this relevant information.

The increase of visits to your page or site once you start appearing on search result pages is well worth the time you spend setting it up using SEO.