SEO Keywords Strategy: Use the right words in your page
I am sharing with you some very
good advise we got from our SEO partners, AlpahSearch.ca.
Like AXSES AlphaSearch is keen to pass on knowledge
that will help hotels and destinations market
themselves. We simple cant do all that client
want us to do at a cost that compares with what
it will cost them to do it themselves. Its our
aim as marketers to give you the tools to help
you succeed. AXSES builds the e-commerce applications
and marketing tools you need to run your business.
When we build websites we try to optimise the
pages for SEO. That is, we look at each page
and identify the top search keywords and phrase
for each page. The entire page must be consistent
with the keyword targets, and this of course
changes as users change. The website owner must
be involved in this process of targeting the
page to potential markets:
· Identify your Unique Selling
Points (USP) and express this as simple keyword
phrases. · Try to keep it to no more than five words.
· Use Google's free keywords tool to identify
the best words to use.
Google adwords select · Use Google Insights to see the long term
trends for your keywords.Google
insights · Use Google Sktool to check how well yr
page is preforming for the target.Google
sktool · Your website developer must use the target
words strategically throught the page and in
page tags. · Name your page using the target words -
i.e. don't call it index.htm, use villa-apartments.htm
etc. · Make sure you are actually targeting what
you offer. Don't stray towards a keyword
that has big search numbers unless it actually
reflects your offerings. It is a waste of time
because the phrase will be highly competitive,
and you will end up with a very poor conversion
rate. · Make sure the on-page content supports
the main keyword target phrase.
· Make sure that all images are named to reflect
the target words- use title tags in describing
the image. · Use your keyword phrase in the header of
your page and again in the foot of the page
· Support your SEO with interior links that
also use these keywords. E.g.., On a page
that talks about accommodations, include a direct
link to the Rates Page - the reservations page
and other pages relating to USP- like Romantic
caribbean Holidays.
arcRes
will publish your travel deals, specials and packages to Smartphones, Facebook,
Social Media, Google-Shopping and hundreds of travel sites. Only 25$ per month for global advertsing
Marketing
Your SEO Pages
Once your website pages are completed and Search
Engine Optimised your website must be marketed
Googles Webmaster Guidelines Says:
1) Have other relevant sites link to yours.
2) Submit your site to relevant directories
such as the Open Directory Project and Yahoo!,
as well as to other industry-specific expert
sites.
You will need to reach out to your prospective
clients in their markets and on the sites that
they use. Attend trade show - hand out business
cards and get other sites to link to you.
Most hotels will have a marketing manager that
makes sure they are listed on relevant directories
and hotel listing sites. Get your guests to
write about their stay in http://tripAdvisor.com.
In addition consider marketing on Internet Distribution
companies like Expedia and many Free advertising
sites. In Canada Kijiji.ca works well.
Do a search for "free hotels listings"
and add your site to these directories. Find
travel sites that are inexpensive and bring
in targeted traffic. Cover all regions. In the
UK a good site is http://www.ownersdirect.co.uk/.
Reach out to travel agents with Special deals
and invite them to link directly to your site
with arcres affiliate tracking. Do not use link
farms, build links that are not reciprocal (links
to you and you do not link back to them, these
get most points and increase your PR)
Use social media to leave comments and links
to your site
Join the conversation - find social site with
high page rank and add a relevant comment on
the subject - link to your website if its relevant
and to your destination - Comments relating
to the destination, a holiday experience a unique
event or activity are welcome. Dont shout and
respect the author you are commenting on, dont
steal their thunder add to it and offer an opinion.
Give an example using your own property with
a link to it. See how to use social media comment
to generate inbound links that use those words
in the inbound anchor text. See
AXSES Blog on SEO for Poinsettiaapartments.com
Useful SEO resources:
AXSES SEO Strategy
Integrate arcRes bookings and arcAds advertising
with SEO to accelerate your page rank, links
and results.
Building Social Media and a unique enterprise
web2.0 travel network for travel marketing.
See AXSESTravelBookingsPlatform.com
This section by our associate Peter Sickles
of AlphaSearch.ca
Websites cannot be optimized for an endless
list of keywords or phrases. Some years ago
it was as simple as putting keywords in the
Keywords Meta Tag. Not so today. Each page can
only handle x number of keywords effectively
(and x is a variable). The reason is this: for
every word you add to your essential Meta Tags
(especially the Page Meta Title), you are effectively
watering down the prominence of the other words.
That is, if there is only one word on the page,
Google says "hey, this page is about x!", but
if there are 50 words Google can't figure out
what the page is supposed to be about. (Of course
the x is not a predetermined number.)
One problem is that the fewer keywords you have
the more pages/sites you are competing with.
Single keywords are virtually impossible to
win. Imagine how many sites out there have the
word "Software" in them. What this whole thing
boils down to is a balancing act. You need to
figure out just what keyword phrases you have
a reasonable chance of ranking well for, that
will accurately describe what you do and that
people are actually searching.
Another important consideration concerning careful
keyword selection and how to focus your SEO
efforts is the fact that so much of your SEO
strength lies in your inbound and internal link
anchor text. It is virtually impossible to aggressively
target a large and diverse range of keyword
phrases because it would be virtually impossible
to acquire enough inbound links to each specific
page with anchor text that reflects those keyword
phrases. This is why we always recommend focusing
your SEO efforts on the top level pages in your
directory that have a strong Page rank and the
greatest chance to gain solid inbound links.
Data compiled concerning the search habits of
people using search engines show that most
people use phrases with 3 to 5 words. You
probably know this anecdotally from your own
experience. We tend to recommend this as the
optimal size phrase to shoot for.
Sometimes it is possible to optimize for a few
keyword phrases per page, but in most cases
(particularly in a competitive area) we recommend
a single main phrase. These limitations based
on site size, power and the competitive arena
it is in are why it is so important to accurately
describe what you are, do or sell and, in most
cases, where you operate. Keyword selection
is crucial to success.
It is also important to realize that in competitive
areas it is usually necessary to focus on your
core services or products. This is because the
deeper into your website that you go (in terms
of website file structure) the less powerful
those pages become (generally speaking). This
is also true in terms of peripheral products
and services. The less your site focuses on
a particular product or service, the less likely
the site will be able to rank well for those
keywords in a competitive online environment.
arcRes
will publish your travel deals, specials and packages to Smartphones, Facebook,
Social Media, Google-Shopping and hundreds of travel sites. Only 25$ per month for global advertsing
Accurate keyword selection is a crucial for SEO
Accurate
keyword selection is a crucial aspect of SEO
success. This requires considerable thought.
As an example, I will refer to a client that
was interested in going after the keyword "security".
While the company in question was in the security
business, it was a specialized form of security…
namely "building access control". Be it for
a hotel, restaurant or a non tourism business
The single keyword "security" does not accurately
describe what they do, and research showed that
the vast majority of keyword searches pertaining
to security was associated with computers and
related topics. Only a very small percentage
of the searches were related to physical building
security.
Not only were most of the searchers looking
for security related websites looking for products,
services and information other than that provided
by the client, but they were also competing
against a much larger and tougher field of competitors:
Microsoft, Norton, McAfee, Brinks, etc.
SEO
for BookingsStlucia.com - Carrot Soup or Pottage
Lets take a specific example: http://www.bookingsstlucia.com/encyc/archive/arcres/stlucia_villas.cfm
Before optimisation, this page was typical of
most of the pages on the site. It has a definite
theme for the page, which is good. However, let's
take a moment to look at how focused it actually
is. The on page content reflects "St. Lucia villas"
quite well, and it has solid supporting content
for that general phrase. On the downside, however,
the Page Meta Title is not focused.
. ...title> St Lucia Villa Vacation, Windjammer
Landing Resort Villa Labrelotte Bay Gros Islet
Villas
.../title>
The Meta Title is the component by which Google
begins its evaluation of a web page's relevance
to a search query. In essence, the most relevant
page is the one that nabs that first spot in the
search results. There are many pieces to the SEO
puzzle, but this is a very important one. By focusing
the title on only a few words you are increasing
the likelihood that Google will consider this
page to be highly relevant.
It is, of course, always highly tempting to want
to add more and more words to this title in the
hopes of ranking better for more things. Unfortunately,
unless you have a very powerful site it is likely
that the result will simply be to rank well for
none of the keywords you are targeting. Every
added word dilutes the page SEO.
Look at the Meta Title as a pot of soup.
By adding more and more things the soup becomes
less definite. It starts out as "Carrot" soup,
and then becomes "carrot and potato" soup, then
"Vegetable" soup and eventually some sort of non-descript
"Pottage". Then, when a customer asks for "Carrot"
soup, you no longer have it, though you do have
a soup with carrots in it. But you could no longer
call it carrot soup.
The Meta Title is the same… the more things
you add, the less relevant it becomes for any
given search query. The idea is to make the
page the most relevant possible for that query…
e.g.. "St. Lucia Villa Vacations".
So, the Meta Title for this page should be
the above: "St. Lucia Villa Vacations"
"St. Lucia Villa" and "St. Lucia Vacations" are
the two most searched phrases in this category.
These are quite competitive keyword phrases, so
to win them it is very important to focus on them,
and not water down the CEO by adding extra words.
In fact, the current SEO of that page is not bad
at all, and the page actually targets the afore-mentioned
"St. Lucia Villa Vacations" quite well. The
weak spot, however, is the over-long Meta Title.
By reducing it you will have a better chance to
rank for those most important keywords.
Latent Semantic Index (LSI):
Google is becoming much more sophisticated. It
is able to "understand" the language used on a
web page, much as a human would. Google understands
the relationship between words of a common topic.
As an example, it understands the topical connection
between "vacation" and "travel" or "Holiday".
So, the body copy of any well optimized page should
reflect this approach.
It is good to say "St. Lucia Villa Vacation" a
few times in the copy… in the header, once in
the first sentence, once in each paragraph perhaps…
But make sure those exact keywords are supported
by words of topical similarity. "Trip", "Holiday",
"accommodations", etc. By mixing it up a bit you
make the text more interesting to read and ultimately
a better user experience.
Google knows this and will reward websites that
try to do this effectively.
