The SEO Edge: choosing your keyword battles and fighting them well - page 2

by Mike Tekula, 7/21/2007

What this means for you, woeful newfound webmaster, is that there are more search phrases to target. If yours is a product or service that is more likely to be sought geographically start targeting geographic keywords with your content. If your product or service satisfies a niche need or has a unique quality or feature find out what search terms users are entering when looking for it.

In short: do your keyword research. It's the first step to any successful SEO campaign, and for new webmasters keyword research will be the cornerstone to your content creation efforts. Find out what users are searching for in your niche, run a few test searches yourself and see what kind of results show up. If it doesn't look like your competitors are targeting that particular phrase it's a likely place for you to dig in.

This is best done with a keyword research tool such as WordTracker, but there are plenty of free utilities out there to do some keyword research. Google's keyword tool, while more geared towards AdWords management, can give you a general idea of how much traffic there is for a given keyword and how many competitors are bidding on that keyword. If there aren't many advertisers bidding for a keyword there's a chance it is also under-targeted for organic SEO.

It's a brave new search world out there, true. For new webmasters it is easy to become discouraged at the level of competition - and most of them have been at it longer. Fret not - research your keywords, find out where you can take advantage of something your competition has overlooked or not-yet-discovered. Then set yourself to the task of creating as much quality content that your users will find beneficial and interesting - the kind of content they might willingly link to. Targeting the right keywords with high-quality content is still the recipe for success with organic search engine rankings - and success is still very much within reach.

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About the author

Mike Tekula handles SEO, SEM, usability and standards-compliance for NewSunGraphics, a Long Island, New York firm offering Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, W3C-Compliant web design using full CSS layouts and all things web design/development.

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