You have a website and analytic software installed. I use Google Analytics but it’s up to you what solution to use. It really doesn’t matter because every analytic software should provide some basic reports. What I’m going to talk about in this article is how to use your top landing pages to improve your website functionality.

First thing that I consider important is this: any analytic software is meant to suggest some actions. Don’t just read your website reports: you have the answer to some of your problems right in front of you. Take action and then go back and measure it.

Top Landing Pages is a feature that shows you what pages, from your website, are used as entry gates. The tip that I have for you is to use these top landing pages to direct users deeper in your website.

There are two major cases of top landing pages:

1. The main page of your website
2. Particular pages/articles from your website

In the first case you have a lot more choices to direct people to other pages but when it comes to a particular page you have to be careful and direct readers to relevant content. When you want to improve the functionality of a particular page don’t place links to general pages (I mean don’t try to divert readers to your main page, for example).

The reason is that those people arrived on that page because they’re interested in that subject. A logical thing to do would be to direct them to more related subjects and from those subjects to other pages and so on.

So, your top landing pages could be the engine of your website if you know how to proper link it to the rest of your website.

What do you think of all this? Share your ideas and experience and if you find this article useful please consider subscribing to my blog.

Your presence on the Internet is a collection of bases and outposts: your business blog or business website is your home base, your Facebook page is an outpost, your YouTube channel is an outpost, your Twitter account is an outpost. All your actions in all your outposts are meant to direct readers to your home base, to the place where you can fully show them what you can do for their businesses.

Tracking how effective your actions are on these outposts require different approaches, depending on the social network. In this article I’ll present a quick and easy way to track your impact on YouTube. As you probably know by now, your own video channel on YouTube can be a powerful marketing tool and a great way to drive traffic to your website.

In this article I’ll concentrate on how you can measure the impact of your videos over your website. The most important thing you have to keep in mind is that you need a strategic approach. The requirement for tracking your results is to have some kind of analytic software installed on your website. I personally use Google Analytics.

The simplest thing you can do is to look at your referral traffic and check for YouTube. In order to get some results you’ll have to edit your video description on YouTube and place a link to your website. People will click it and they’ll show up in your Google Analytics reports.

The big disadvantage of this method is that you can’t measure how effective each video is. I think is very important to know how many of your viewers for a particular video clicked the link in the description and not the overall performance of the video channel.

The solution is a small strategic decision. Instead of creating content that you’ll place as standalone videos on YouTube you’ll create video content that will supplement your articles. Each video will be designed for a specific article. And when you’ll edit the description of the video, the first thing to do will be to place a link to that specific article.

You’ll not have all your videos pointing to your home page but each video points to a specific page, where you’ll probably also embed the video. By making this small adjustment you’ll be able to track the impact of each video. You’ll know what videos work and what not and you may also find out that high number of views does not necessary means lots of clicks.

With this setup you’ll be able to go to your Google Analytics account, go to Content > Content by Title, locate a page that has a YouTube video on it, select it and as a second view option you can check for Source. Now you’ll be able to see how people reached that page. Search for YouTube and see how many visits you receive, what was the bounce rate or how much time they stayed on that page.

You can now compare the number of views with the number of visits and you can make decisions on what types of videos to create in the future so that you’ll increase the click rate.

What do you think of all this? How do you track your impact on YouTube? If you find this article useful please consider subscribing to my blog.

I wrote a recent article about what the long tail keywords are, their advantages and disadvantages, but now I would like to explain a little bit the process I use to find long tail keywords worth targeting. You’ll develop content that targets main keywords but the base of every website should be an enormous number of long tail keywords.

The Process of Finding Long Tail Keywords

Just like in the case of main keywords, long tail keywords have to offer a decent search volume/month and also be relevant. Once you decided that a main keyword is relevant to your website then almost all the long tail keywords that are derived from it should be relevant to your website.

Before I tell you the process of how to research for long tail keywords, here are the tools I’m using: Google Keyword External Tool (because it has information on any language or country), Google Sktool and two features from Google Search: Wonder Wheel and Related Searches.

And now, here are the 5 steps that I take in order to find long tail keywords:

1. I start with Google Keyword External. The first search is just using single words. For example for my market I start with words like: seo, keyword, keywords, content and so on. Is very important to let the tool suggest related terms that people are searching. These terms are really the starting point of my search. The same method can be applied using Google Sktool.  I choose one main keyword and then go to step 2.
2. I perform a search on Google for that main keyword. The things that I pay attention are the general competition and title competition. These numbers play an important role in deciding if a keyword is worth targeting or not. So write this down: you’ll have to compare it with the data for the long tail keywords.
3. I use the Wonder Wheel to see what other keywords people searched after the main keyword. Watch the competition and when you find something under 1 million or maximum 2 million you can go for it. Write it down.
4. I also use Related Searches to see what the search engine says that are the related keywords other people searched (these searches are not necessarily performed after searching for your keyword). Again look at the competition and make your own decision: is this keyword relevant and also have a decent competition.
5. I return to Google Keyword External Tool with the long tail keywords that I found. Keep in mind that these keywords were definitely searched by someone but this is not enough. So, you’re checking to see if the tool says it has Not Enough Data or shows you a number. Depending on your market you choose to target a long tail keyword or not. Sometimes a search volume of 100/month can be enough, other times you’ll need a few thousands. It’s relative and depends on the overall search volume trends from your market.

What Do You Think Of This?

Let me know if this info was useful to you and if you have questions. Or maybe you could share your experience. Also, please consider subscribing to this blog and receive my articles directly in your e-mail.

Developing keyword orientated content for your website means to have a vision of the whole. It’s a matter of knowing the main keywords you want to target, the derived long tail keywords for each main keyword, how to use it in articles and how to link articles to get the results you want. Don’t make the mistake of paying too much attention to only one article and not realizing the importance of the whole.

The First Connection

This is basic knowledge for keyword targeting. Choose the keyword you want to target in an article and then make sure you use it in title, first paragraph, anchor text and the content of the page. This is the first connection: having the keyword present in all those places.

When you’ll use the keyword for that page in anchor text link only internally: you don’t want to help other websites outrank you, do you? It’s very important to use the keyword in the first paragraph and also in the rest of the content.

My advice is to use it naturally, as you would do it a real conversation with someone: don’t force it and don’t try to do keyword stuffing or achieve a certain keyword density. Although you follow some technical rules for search engines, in the end you write for people (those that will link back to you if they like your content – so keep this in mind).

Don’t limit the use in content to only the exact keyword: experiment with singular and plural form, synonyms or related words. This way you escape the danger of repeating the keyword too many times.

The Second Set of Actions

You can also use keywords in other places as well, to enforce the relevancy of the page to that specific keyword:

-          Description metatag: although using the keyword here will not improve your rankings it will help in attracting the eye on your link since this piece of information is displayed by search engines right bellow the title of the page and with the keywords in bold

-          URL – using the keyword in the actual URL of the page can have a positive impact on your rankings but it’s not a decisive factor

-          File names, especially images and the ALT property of the images can help with image search or different other file types search

-          Bold and italic text suggest some sort of importance of that text so use it wise

-          Subheading like h1, h2 and h3 can help especially when someone reads your page: it will be easier to follow the main ideas

The Third Factor – Internal Linking

It’s common knowledge that two is greater than one. More pages from your website linked in a logical hierarchy can greatly improve the relevancy of a page to a certain keyword. There are some rules that you need to follow in order to avoid penalties from search engines and to get the results you want:

-          Don’t link with the same anchor text

-          Concentrate on groups of articles: one main keyword and few long tail derived keywords

-          If you link to a page multiple times from the same article search engines will count the link once but you could get some improvement in functionality

-          Use relevant keywords as anchor text

-          Expect benefits from internal linking only when you link between related pages

What do you think about all this? Share your experience and questions in comments bellow.

I’ll show you how to plan your keywords in a practical way and also a short presentation of how to use your keywords. Basically you need to complete two tasks when it comes to keywords. You have to think very carefully at how to choose your keywords and to develop a plan or a strategy on how to use them.

My idea on how to use keywords is based on few easy steps:

1. Choose a main keyword. Main keywords are keywords with high competition, high number of monthly searches and made out of two or more words. Although ranking for main keywords is extremely difficult you should not overlook using it in your content.
2. Develop a list of long tail keywords for you main keyword. Long tail keywords are keywords with low competition, easy to rank for, usually with high conversion rate and made out of 3, 4, 5 or more words. This will be your primary concern: ranking for long tail keywords. Long tail keywords are derived from the main keyword or related to it.
3. Plan an article for each long tail keyword.
4. Plan logical links between articles that will help the reader and the search engine find more on your subject and also evaluate the relevancy of your pages for the subject.
5. Think it like a pyramid, where on top you have the article targeting the main keyword and on the lower floors you target the long tail keywords. And just like a brick and mortar structure plan links between floors and the elements of the same floor.

Now let’s get practical and think a little bit about “photography”. This market is huge, with lots of competitors and high number of searches each month. Aiming for a good ranking on the competitive terms will not be an easy task and you should expect some hard work.

When a market is that big a good thing would be to focus on a niche. Let’s say that your niche is “black and white photography”. This can easily be your main keyword because it has a huge competition of 161 million pages and a high number of monthly searches (246,000 only in US). Now, let’s start and see what other keywords we can derive from that:

-          “Black and white digital photography” with 41,900,000 competition and 2,400 searches/month in US

-          “Black and white portrait photography” with 14,200,000 competition and 1,900 searches/month in US

-          “Black and white nature photography” with 30,700,000 competition and 3,600 searches/month in US

-          “Black and white landscape photography” with 8,370,000 competition and 2,400 searches/month in US

The long tail keywords from above could also be main keyword because of the high competition but the number of searches per month doesn’t recommend it like this. So will consider these to be the first long tail keywords derived from our main one.

A thing about photography is that people are always looking for “tips”, “principles”, “fundamentals”, “techniques”, “lessons”, “free lessons”, “lighting”, “composition” and “composition techniques”. So, these are modifiers that you can add to the long tail keywords from above to go even more specific on the subject.

Remember that each time you add a modifier you should also be able to produce an article on the subject. So modifiers that mean the same thing should be used together (combine it).

You can get more ideas for keywords not only by using modifiers but also by thinking about related searches. You can think about it yourself or you can use the Wonder Wheel from Google Searches. NOTE: you can ignore words like “and”, “the”, “a”, “an” and so on, when searching for keywords. BUT be careful at singular and plural searches: it can make a big difference not only on the number of monthly searches but also on the competition.

Here are some ideas related to “black and white landscape photography”:

-          “black and white wildlife photography”

-          “black and white photography filters”

-          “black and white seascapes”

-          “black and white underwater photography”

Each of the long tail keywords from above can be used in articles together with the modifiers presented a few paragraphs before.

If you want to explore some more:

-          “black and white portrait photography”

• “black and white portrait lighting”
• “taking black white portraits”
• “black and white family portraits”
• “black and white baby portraits”
• “black and white photography kids”

-          “black and white wedding photography”

• “black white wedding theme photos”
• “black white wedding photos styles”
• “black white wedding photos invitations”

Your turn

What you think of all this? How useful do you find this kind of information? I was thinking that besides my usual articles to also write some practical ones in which to explore different markets and to show people how to apply some SEO principles. If you liked this article please consider subscribing and receive my blog in your e-mail.

These are my thoughts on the relation between the winter holydays and business. I’m not talking about the thing that this is a period of time when you should sell a lot: this is not about that relation. It’s about using Christmas as a moment when you take a deep breath and you think about what you did and what you’ll do.

Without thinking about what you did and what you have to do in order to further develop your business I think you’ll not go to far in terms of business. So, use Christmas as a moment to think:

1. Are you happy with your financial results?
2. What do you think was the most important thing you’ve done this year for your business?
3. What methods you used to market your business on the web?
4. Are you using any social network to help spread your message?
5. How many of your goals did you achieved, this year?
6. How many people did you helped?

Evaluate you and your business and also think about the future:

1. Establish goals for the next year and think about the ways of achieving it
2. Plan your SEO
3. Think about your social media activity
4. Think about the kind of content you’re going to produce
5. Think about how you’re going to help people
6. Don’t set goals that are directly connected to money; things like: increase sells. Consider additional things that in time might get more indirect value/money back; things like increasing the number of subscribers

My 10 ideas for 2010:

1. By the end of January I want to launch my Compete Guide to Keywords (for only $10)
2. Increase the number of my subscribers
3. Increase the number of Fans on my Facebook page
4. Continue helping people with problems related to SEO and Blogging, on my Facebook page
5. Produce new content every day
6. Increase the number of requests for my services and also the number of closed deals
7. Increase the conversion of my Work With Me page from my blog
8. Create a small free guide on general SEO issues that will be offered for free to anyone that subscribes to my newsletter
9. Maintain and develop my current relations on Twitter
10. Stay focused and work hard

What is your take on all this? How do you plan your next moves for the next year? Share your ideas, opinions, experience and don’t forget to subscribe to my blog and you’ll receive my daily articles in your e-mail.

I want to try a more engaging article related to SEO. The idea is to get you, the reader, involved. And here is what I was thinking about.

You leave me a comment, where you say what your website is and a maximum of 5 keywords you say you target in your website and I’ll take a look and see if you really target those keywords. I’ll perform a quick analysis of your website to see how you use those keywords. Then I’ll post a comment and tell you the result.

There is only one rule and one limitation:

1. The Rule: The comment must be posted on my blog, in the comment section of this article
2. The Limitation: I’ll do my best to answer as many comments as possible. And I will do this only for the comments posted on 20 December 2009 and 21 December 2009.

Depending on the success of this experiment I’ll think about similar articles in the near future. Hope to see your comments on my blog. Also, if you find this article useful you may also want to subscribe to my blog and receive my daily articles in your e-mail.

Do you know about this tool from Google? The Google search-based keyword tool can help you in more than one way. It’s good to get suggestions on what keywords to target but it also tells you what keywords would “attract” high paid Google Adsense ads.

So, these are the two main directions to use this tool:

1. Enter a keyword or a domain and see related searched keywords
2. Use it to plan your keywords for your adwords

Here is how it works

1. You can enter a domain (yours or the competition) and the tool will generate a list of keywords that are related to the content from that domain. You can specify a country and a language and the list will contain monthly searches, competition and the suggested bid. The really great thing about this tool is the ability to check your competition. You’ll know exactly what they’re doing because this tool is going to show related keywords to the keywords they already use. And this is what Google sees on their websites.
2. Or you can enter a basic keyword and you’ll receive suggestions related to that keyword.
3. Or you can just browse top keywords from different categories and subcategories such as: Beauty & Personal Care, Computers, Finance, Food, Health, Home & Garden, Sport & Fitness, Travel & Tourism and many more.

I tried to keep the description as short as possible and offer you only the basic information about this tool. Now, tell me if you used it and how. Share your experience in comments bellow.

And if you find this information useful you may also want to subscribe to my blog and receive my daily articles in your e-mail.

Why you think you need SEO? Why do you pay for SEO services? Why do you want to improve your rankings? Because you want to be found by people searching for keywords related to your business. You don’t want people to go on Google, type a search term that is related to your business and not come to your website. That is why you need SEO.

In this moment I would say you need three basic things:

1. A constant attention to keywords and rising trends
2. A good knowledge of how to use those keywords in your favor
3. A close eye on what the competition is doing

As you can see without analyzing the competition why are you paying for SEO? It’s like saying I have the most beautiful car from an empty parking lot. It’s like worrying about the quality of the water but using a glass you found on the street to drink it. Why do you think there are spies? Because what the competition does matters.

And it matters more then you may think. When you manage to get to page 2 or 3 of Google for some keyword you have to take a good look at what the competition is doing and find the answer to “why they are 5 places in front of me?”.

Here are my questions to you. Do you analyze your competition? Do you know who your competition is? Do you monitor rising trends – what people are looking for lately, related to your business? Share your answers, ideas, questions, opinions.

If you find this article useful and want to get more, don’t forget to subscribe and receive my daily articles in your e-mail.

First, let’s talk about what is the bounce rate and how Google Analytics calculates it. Bounce rate for a certain page is calculated only when readers land on that page. This metric is telling you if people clicked and navigated deeper in your website or just left.

The thing is that the bounce rate is not taking into account readers that come from other pages of your website. So, a high bounce rate means that people that landed on a page didn’t clicked any link to navigate further.

Analyzing bounce rates

Not all the times a high bounce rate means a bad thing. I see many people saying that a high bounce rate indicates that your content needs improvement because it’s not providing the information users look for. But you can’t say this until you look at the analytics.

If you want to analyze your high bounce rate page go to your Google Analytics accounts, select Content -> Content by Title and sort the results to see the highest bounce rates. Now click one of the pages with high bounce rate and let’s see what you need to look for

1. NOTE: if a page has bounce rate of 80% means that 80% of the readers that landed on that page decided to leave your website. The other 20% stayed on your website and performed at least one more click
2. The first thing to look for is the average time readers spend on your page. The thing is that if you have a decent average time (more than 1 minute or more than 3,5 minutes) a high bounce rate is not necessary something bad. A high bounce rate together with decent average time on that page means that the readers found the content interesting but they didn’t received a good reason to click some more links and read some more. If the average time for that page is just few seconds then you need to understand why. Why people close the page so quickly. Now it’s the time to move further with the analysis
3. You need to know how people get to your page: keywords or other sources – and compare the two overall bounce rates. You need to see what kind of source generates the high bounce rate: basically what needs improvement.
4. Check the Keywords that send you traffic and ask yourself two questions (for each keyword that has a high bounce rate attached to it):
   1. How much relevance does this keyword has to this page? If I would have to describe the page by using a keyword, is this what I would use?
   2. If the keyword has relevancy to the page, do I provide complete information?
5. Check the Source and see from where the users come. It’s possible that this page to be marketed on the wrong channels. Look at the websites that send traffic to that page and see exactly from where because if the link to your page is placed in a content with no relation to the content you’re offering then a high bounce rate is normal.

Improving the bounce rate

Depending on what the analytics offered you here are some things to do, in order to improve the bounce rate:

1. If the average time is high enough for you then you need to decide if you want to determine people to also visit other pages of your website. Maybe your ordering page has a high bounce rate but decent average time and you don’t want people to navigate further. But if you do, think about some links that you could place in your content and that point to other articles on your blog that are related.
2. If the average time is low and the high bounce rate is generated by keywords here are some things to do:
   1. If you can incorporate new information in the article that is relevant to a keyword is ok
   2. If you consider that you already have decent information then check how is presented. Try making the words bold, or italic, or change the colors. If the article is more than 500 words use subtitles to break the content and let people know what each section talks about. The idea is that if someone is interested only in some of your information then he should be able to easily find it, without having to read the entire article
   3. If you can’t incorporate new information, consider writing some new content and place links to the additional articles
3. If the average time is low and the high bounce rate is generated by the source then you may consider other channels for marketing your content

What do you think?

Let me know what you think of this article and how did you improve your high bounce rate. Share your ideas and opinions in comments.