The Google Webmaster Central Blog recently announced new features to the ever expanding Webmaster Tools data. The new features are set to allow webmasters to track the top searched queries that drive traffic to the site along with the following data being reported on each of the searched queries:

• Impressions
• Clicks
• Click Through Rate (CTR)
• Average Position

In addition to the new data that is now available, you can “star” a query so that you will be able to track those queries over time:

Overall, these are very good additions to the data that is already available. You are able to get a better picture of how your site is performing with this new data that is now available.

You can read more about these features over at the Google Webmaster Central Blog: Top Search Queries is now Search Queries with Average Position and Stars

There are two things that always seem to get tossed around in a conversation about SEO, content and keywords. There are more than just two, but those two probably show up in most of those conversations. A lot of times there is a struggle for content and to keep the ideas fresh, especially the longer you stare at it. One way to help lift that block are stories. Brad Geddes wrote a really good post at Search Engine Land called “Strike Keyword Gold By Writing A Simple Story“. He explains his method on how to target both high-level keywords as well as the longer tail keywords that sometimes can be hard to work into a site. Brad breaks down keywords into 4 types:

Explicit keywords: Directly describe a product
Problems keywords: Describes the conditions a product solves
Symptoms keywords: Describes a problem
Product names and part numbers: An actual product name and/or part number

Here are his examples on how to apply these keywords and drill down into the longer tail phrases:

This is a really great way to produce valuable and quality content. People go to the internet to find solutions to their problems and if you can describe the problem and solution(s) in detail, you can try to get that visitor to convert or use this content to support other pages on your site. eHow.com does this really well with a step by step guide to things. Here is an example of one of their more recent How To Guides on How to Conduct a Passover Seder. On this guide, they even have the things you’ll need to perform whats on the guide as well as tips and warnings that add that extra value to the end.

Guest Blogger: Chad Henderson

With your initial keyword research complete, as discussed in the Initial Keyword Research blog entry, you can now start turning your attention to how your phrases will be optimized within individual pages. Remember, you have targeted about 20-30 core phrases, depending on the size of the site, that represent popular but not too competitive key phrases that will maximize qualified traffic.

I don’t want to oversimplify things here, but the optimization of a page generally centers on the selecting optimized keywords and phrases that will be used as the page titles on the page. Page titles, which are displayed in the blue title bar of a browser window, are a crucial component to the optimization of the page and establish the theme to the page you are optimizing. But in addition to developing a page theme, here are a couple of general guidelines when thinking about the page titles to create:

1. Keywords selected for top tier pages, like the homepage, will generally be broader than pages that are more inside. For example, an inside page may contain specific product information. While there are always exceptions, inside pages will be traditionally more specific than top level pages and therefore the selected keywords should reflect it.

2. On any site, never optimize for a single phrase more than two times. Keep track of your optimization efforts so this can be avoided.

3. Don’t use misspellings in your page titles, unless the misspelling of a company phrase is the point of the page.

4. Use the company name only on pages where branding the name is appropriate. These include pages like about us, home, and contact us.

One final thought, while I try to utilize as many core keywords within the page titles as I can, pages can include key phrases that are not on your core phrase list. But don’t forget to research and document these “non-core” phrases to ensure you are making the best choices and not duplicating your efforts anywhere within the site.

Guest Blogger: Chad Henderson
Now that you’ve completed the initial site review, you should have a pretty good picture about what challenges you are faced with. You should also come away from post # 2, Initial Website Analysis, with a good idea of what you need to work on from a usability, layout, design, and of course search engine optimization perspective.

Concentrating on the latter, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is typical to most SEO campaigns: increase natural results position and increase conversions for the site. AKA, getting qualified, interested users to where they need to be.

So, with that mission in mind, we have to start initial SEO keyword research to ensure that you are going after the correct phrases. This step is an extremely important in the overall process, so don’t be afraid to spend a little extra time on it. Here are a couple of keyword targeting guidelines that I try to follow:

1. The number of phrases you target should depend on the size of the site.  Obviously, the bigger the site the more opportunity you have to target more key phrases.
   
2. Spend some time on the site, putting yourself in the position of a potential visitor. What terms would you be using if you were looking for this information? Most of you will know your business fairly well, so it may be pretty easy for this initial run-through. Document your results in a separate document for tracking purposes.
3. Although there has been some recent debate on whether you should invest in long tail phrases, I wouldn’t be really quick to abandon the idea. For example, a client in the custom carpentry business,  may be interested in going after the term “legs” in association with a table part, but that may be just a little too general and way too competitive. While you may have the desire to go after some of these more general terms, unless your sole mission is to bring in traffic to your site with no regard for the visitors qualification to convert, it probably will not result in a ton of sales or contacts.
4. Consider the competition and popularity of sites you are trying to go after. Automated tools can help here, (including Trellian, Google AdWords tools, etc.). The goal is a popular (often searched), non-competitive phrases.
5. Target key phrases that can be currently supported on your site.
6. Document your findings, so in the future when you are adjusting your keyword strategy, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

Once you have narrowed it down, do some benchmarking so that you can compare what impact your SEO efforts has had on the rankings for your core list.  As a general SEO strategy, TKG relies heavily on our ability to compare site trends through benchmarking, including a great post on benchmarking online conversions that may give you some ideas about the strategy.

Guest Blogger: Chad Henderson
As it relates to the recent discussion about the use of the long tail theory,  I’m nowhere close to abandoning the strategy as an important component in keyword targeting.  I thought it might be helpful to spend a couple of minutes expanding on my “yes” vote for the continued use of  long tail keywords.

Web traffic is unlike typical business models where 80% of your business comes from 20% of your clients.  Most qualified web traffic is the reverse of that, where 20% of your business comes from your “top” key words, with the remaining traffic being generated from the remaining 80% of your key phrases.  What it boils down to is trying to figure out the multiple variations of key phrases, and choosing key phrases that capture the market share.

To help illustrate this marketing point, the long-tail concept is demonstrated in the following graph utilized in some recent forum and blog threads concerning long tail theory.   Here,  Seth Godin discusses three “pockets” of the long tail and highlights three areas of importance on the curve.

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Here are a couple of other examples of choosing long tail optimized keywords to give you a better idea about the concept:

• An online auto parts store choosing “ford mustang exhaust system” versus “auto parts”, or
• A dog training service choosing  “dog obedience classes” versus “dogs”

In both of these examples, the selection of the “longer” key phrases will most probably result in more targeted traffic to the site, and thus more conversions.  The moral of the story… don’t be afraid to use 2-4 word key phrases as your target key phrases, it may end helping your overall objective.