29 Dec 09 5 Fast Tricks for Keywords & Traffic

It seems as though every [wo]man and his/her dog either has a website, wants a website, or is talking about websites.

One of the most frequent questions I get is, *How do I use keywords?*.

Good question.

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[I bet others of you are asking,

*What's a keyword?*. A keyword

or keyword phrase is what people

type into a search engine

to find websites.]

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But let me first ask another ... how many people in the known universe [who have a website] might use the same keywords as you?

Ten? A hundred? A thousand? More?

OK - let's assume it's a hundred other websites, all vying for the same keywords as yours. When you do a search on a search engine [for example google.com] you get *ten* results on page one.

That's right. Ten. Out of a hundred possible competitor pages.

Last time YOU did a search for anything, how many search engine Results pages did you laboriously flick through? One? Two? Five?

Yeah, that's right ... boring if the answer isn't on page one, isn't it?

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So what's my point??

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Well, instead of trying to appear in the first 10 results for one specific keyword or phrase [which is already overpopulated with competitors], why not choose another phrase?

Instead of the *exact* phrase you think is the most important, you might be surprised to discover you could choose a different phrase, which is searched just as often, but which you hadn't thought of targetting.

Think outside the box - if you're selling *monkey shoes*, and goodness knows there might be a lot of competitors for that :o>, narrow it down and add some focus. Where are your customers? Are they looking for you in your town, or State? If yes, add the name of your town or State to the keyword phrase you use in your webpages. Or is there something else *unique* about *monkey shoes*? If yes, use that in the keyword phrase.

I just searched for: monkey shoes

and discovered there are 3,300,000 results. Phew! Over 3 million!!

What would your potential customer type in that search box to narrow down *their* search? What about: monkey climbing shoes, or shoes for one-legged monkeys

That narrows it down considerably.

OK - so you're not selling *monkey shoes*, but you are trying to get people to your website. Here are a few things you can do to set up your keywords in your webpage, and to bring visitors from unexpected sources ...

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On your webpage/s

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1. Put the keyword phrase on your page four times.

You don't want to overdo it, it must read well.

2. Put the phrase in the two of the metatags.

Use the TITLE, KEYWORDS or DESCRIPTION metatags.

3. Put an image at the top of your page. In the ALT tag for your image, add the keyword phrase at the beginning, like a description. For example:

4. Use you main phrase as the first heading at the top of your page, in the H1 tag.

5. Write an article related to your *phrase* and post on at least 5 f-r-e-e article banks.

You can find a list of those here:

http://tinyurl.com/8otfd

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That's a few small steps towards optimising your pages for search engines, so do this for each of your web pages, and you're well on your way!

Writing the articles is a fantastic way to bring web traffic to your site but only write about things you know or are familiar with, otherwise the words won't flow, and it won't be enjoyable to read.

If you're lucky, your article might be picked up by more article banks and other websites, who want to have it in their own list of articles. Remember to put a Resource Box at the bottom with your contact details.

I wrote an article called *17 Tips to Plan a Website*. Within a month it had been snapped up by 800+ websites - wow! The power of the internet! This one article brings traffic to my site 24/7. Now do you feel like writing an article or two? It is certainly worth the effort - my article is proof of that!

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Enjoy your website tweaking and your article writing, I look forward to seeing you in print real soon! Let me know how much your traffic improves over the next month.

Cheers Teena!

http://www.BuildAWebsiteTonight.com

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Psst! To keep track of your websites, pop over to my website and download the f-r-e-e *Domain Tracking Register* document:

http://tinyurl.com/cogqr

About the author: * * * * * * * * * Resource Box * * * * * * *

2005 ©Teena Hughes Teena Hughes is a webpreneur who provides an online automated website builder, provides website hosting & domains, and small biz services. Author of many ebooks and articles, chat with Teena on the Forum at http://www.Buil dAWebsiteTonight.com. Get the free not-quite-monthly newsletter.