If you are like most people you dread Search Engine Optimization. In fact, I bet you avoid it at all costs. What if I said you can get 80% of the work done in less than 5 minutes and greatly increase your search engine ranking?
You probably think I am lying. Well let me give you an example. I was doing some digging for a recent class on SEO basics and discovered a great keyword with over 165,000 monthly searches and little competition. I put up a post and was ranking in page 1 in under 1hr and then top of page 1 in a few weeks. Don't steal it, but the keyword was "What is Places on Facebook". Type it in to google and check it out. Using quotes I come in first. If I spent more time I could even come in first for broad search (more on that in another post).
So what did I do for these rankings?
- Search Google Keyword tool for odd spellings or phrasing variation for the keywords you wish to rank for..
- Write a Post Using Your Keyword
- Example Bullet 1
- Example Bullet 2
Blah blah blah Your keyword.
Blah blah blah a variation of your keyword.
- Post your Blog post link to Digg
In my example, the correct way to type in a search for the feature is "Facebook places". People undoubtably search for the feature based on their limited knowledge and put in "Places on Facebook" because they are unfamiliar with the feature. These are the people I want to reach and the phrasing that is commonly overlooked.
Go to the Google Keyword Tool, type in your main keywords with longer phrasing.
Look for odd spellings or conjunctions (e.g. With, for, on, in, etc). These tend to have lower competition and higher search volume.
Go to google and search for your keyword or phrase in quotes (e.g. "Your Keyword or Phrase") and see how many sites show up (shoot for 30,000 or less).
Now type your keyword or phrase with the quotes and add the text INTITLE: in front of your key phrase (e.g INTITLE:"Your keyword phrase"). Now see how many results appear.
These are the results that have your exact phrase in the title. Shoot for less than 1000 and hopefully only several hundred.
Make a list of 5 key phrases you find with the above criteria.
Now that you identified a keyword you can create a post that is optimized for it.
Keyword In Start of Title
To do so, first write the title with the Keyword exactly in the start of the Title (e.g Your Keyword or phrase: some description). You can add a new descriptive phrase after the title to make it more readable.
Keyword In Header 2
Create a H2 tag that contains the keyword and the a list of bullets below your H2 tag.
Example post:
Your Keyword or Phrase
In order to rank you will need to get indexed by google. One of the fastest ways to do this is to get your post into the digg.com website. Google crawls this hourly and follows the links.
If you follow these steps, you will appear in google fairly quickly with very little effort. The hardest part is the keyword research, but once you do it you are 90% farther than most bloggers or marketers online.
I can't guarantee results as it will depend on your keywords and competition, but you will be well in your way without spending a lot of time and money on SEO.
For more tips check out 21 Tips to Simpler and More Effective Social Media & Internet Marketing