SEO marketing made simple

The first thing you need to understand is how Google, and the other search engines, rank websites. With Google specifically, they have paid advertising on top of the page and if there is a local connection, there is a map with various businesses marked with a “pin” on the right.

The paid list is just that. People pay to be in that spot. They have a PPC, or pay per click, price where businesses can be listed. Every time someone searches and then clicks on the link, the business is charge a small fee. Those little fees can add up quickly, so the businesses have a limit as to how much they will spend each month.

On the map section, things work a little differently. Google has many criteria for ranking businesses in the map section. The ideal position, of course, is to be at the top of the list. The biggest reasons for being ranked on the map include how many times the site has been visited and the location of the business -- if you are not located within 50 miles of where the person is, you will not show up on the map. This is very important for mobile phone users. Citations are another big factor. They are basically reviews written by customers.

The bottom part of the search, called organic search, is where you hope you will be listed near the top (known as above the fold). In order to get in that first position, or at least on the first page, is to have a lot of words that people use in their search on your site. Keywords, or words people use to search, are crucial to your site popping when someone searches.

SEO (search engine optimization) marketing is writing good clean content for your site that has perfectly chosen keywords on the page. For example, if you searching for a dog trainer, you might search the words, “dog training” and your city name. Or, you might search, “train my dog.” Maybe you want a class, so you search “dog training classes.” Other terms include: housebreaking, destructive behavior, dog lessons, dog behaviorist, obedience, obedience training, etc. All of those phrases should be in the content of a dog trainer’s web page. The bots, the programs searching the internet and categorizing everything, are looking for those keyword terms. If you do not have keywords on your page, you are missing out on lots of business. Let’s change that!

On the dog trainer’s site, there should be some content that discusses how the training helps with housebreaking problems. Using that keyword about 4-5 times within that page is helpful. Using the terms naturally and without forcing them can be difficult.

One of my writing clients works in the field carpet cleaning. I had to use the term “carpet cleaning Michigan” in the body of the text I wrote for him. It had to be used a minimum of two times. While “carpet cleaning in Michigan” would have been easy, that was not the keyword phrase he wanted me to use. I ended up saying, “When carpet cleaning Michigan style, you…” Maybe that wasn’t the best way to use the phrase, but the client was happy and I got his keywords into the text. It was a challenge!

There are places where you can find lists of keywords for various topics. There is no punctuation in a keyword phrase, so in the example above, I could not have used the phrase, “If you are looking for carpet cleaning, Michigan has some great companies.” You would have to make it into a run-on sentence and not include the comma.

Adding an “s” to the word will make it into a different keyword as well. In the dog training example, you would want to both “dog trainer” and “dog trainers” in the text of the page.

I have even been asked to misspell words in SEO articles. They were words that are commonly misspelled and people search the misspelled words almost as often as they do the correctly spelled version.

Clear as mud, right? If you are having problems finding online keywords or lists of keywords, you can simply search for a known keyword. If you use Google, towards the bottom of the page, you will find a list of related terms.

I searched “obedience training” and this is what Google suggested:

Searches related to obedience training

obedience training for dogs

obedience training classes

petsmart obedience training

obedience training cost

obedience training tips

dog obedience training schools

german shepherd obedience training

obedience training for puppies

These keyword phrases are commonly used in searches. Therefore, they would be great for a dog trainer to use in his web content.

Do your homework and figure out what SEO keyword phrases work best for your business. Add lots of content to your site. The more information you give your customers, the better you look.