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January 05, 2009

Free how-to article: Write your website text to be findable by Google, Yahoo!

In my last article I suggested you spend some time looking at your web analytics data, examining how people arrived at your website and what they do.

What you probably learned is that search engines account for one third of your traffic (possibly more).  What can you do to increase that traffic, and how can you attract more of the right kind of traffic?

The best way to do that is to first establish a set of keywords that are derived from how people search for your topic.  For example, if your company does website redesigns, you might think the obvious thing is to use the phrase "web redesign" in your text a lot.  That would be a mistake. 

Using Google's free keyword tool, I learned that in December there were only 4,400 searches on "web redesign".  Some quick free research time would reveal that "website redesign" had 9,900 searches, and "web site design" had 201,000 searches.  If you want to spend all your time becoming the authority on "web redesign" you can, but you'll be king of a very small hill.

In practice, what we do with our clients, and what you should do, is become an authoritative source for a variety of terms, which should include "web site design" in order to capture the greatest slice of Google's traffic.

I've written a free how-to article where I take a very real artist studio that makes glass sculptures, and I've used free Google tools to derive the relevant keywords and show which ones get more traffic.  You can directly apply these lessons to your own work today.


Read the article "Finding and establishing keywords for your website" now.

And then, if you don't think you're up to the task of doing the work, call me at 202-256-1704 and ask me to do it for you.

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Once a week, usually on Monday morning, I write a short but informative e-mail touching on an important emerging issue in online communications.
 

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