Keyword Selection Guidelines To Improve Website Conversion Rates

I've been under pressure lately to come up with more articles on organic search engine
optimization with regards to how an effective keyword strategy can improve website
conversion rates. Well, here is my take on it, based on the Web analytics evidence of our
own keyword strategy.

Use the correct lingo


Have you ever been in a room where people are talking but you don't understand a thing
about the topic or even understand the language? Take it from one who knows, it can be
quite frustrating. Living in Finland and speaking only a little Finnish means that every
day I'm subjected to conversations where I have very little idea about what is being said.
Being a curious (some would say nosy) soul, this infuriates me! Especially if I'm on a bus
and see old grannies cracking up with laughter at a private joke I'm too ignorant to be in
on.

It's similar online. You have to start communicating on your Website using the
terminology that your visitors use.

If you use the right terminology and phrases, not only do they find you, but to use my
analogy, you also let them in on the joke! If you're using the wrong terminology then
you're leaving your visitor a bit confused, a bit foggy and feeling a bit left out of it
all.

How to avoid this with your Website


When selecting your keywords follow three simple guidelines.

* Gauge the traffic potential of the keywords in terms of quantity.

* Gauge the visitor's intent when using those phrases in their search query.

* Measure traffic potential from those keywords in terms of conversion.

1) Traffic potential of your keywords:

Obviously you want the search engines to drive lots of traffic to your Website.
However, I would argue that quantity should never be your first objective; quality traffic
should be what you're looking for. Your goal is to optimize your pages for the keywords
that bring the highest numbers of prospects.

Find the keyword phrases related to your industry that your target market is searching
for. So first, find out the terms that are being used by the general public by using a
tool like the Overture keyword
suggestion tool. There are others available such as the one at Google; Wordtracker is
also worth the investment.

But before you rush off and start optimizing your site for the keywords you find, take
heed of the second guideline -- gauging visitor intent.

2) The visitor's intent when searching:

Test the phrase in the search engines you're going to optimize for. For instance, our
own keyword research showed that 'conversion web site' is a phrase people are using in the
search engines; however, if you search on Google using this exact phrase, you will see
that people are actually looking for money conversion, religious conversion, weights and
metric conversion, etc. -- not sites about converting site visitors to buyers. This is why
you need to look for the real reason why people are searching. In our case 'conversion web
site' might be worth testing on PPC, but it's not worth optimizing our organic pages for
that phrase.

3) Traffic potential in terms of conversion:

The next step is keyword measurement and experimentation. We decided to optimize for
'improving Website conversion' because this phrase showed that there should be reasonable
traffic levels, good intent, and a high number of conversions from this phrase. We found
that 27.8% of people using that search term end up subscribing to our newsletter. When a
person enters those keywords into a search engine, we're speaking their language because
our entire Website is a resource about what they're looking for.

To do this yourself, identify keyword phrases that you think fit well with the first
two guidelines above, and then measure the result. It's about selecting the keywords
immediately relevant to what your audience is looking for.

Summary


To improve the conversion rate of your Website, first find the keywords people are
using related to your industry, make sure that the search results from the keywords you
select are relevant to your industry, and then optimize your site for those phrases.
Finally, measure and test those phrases so that you have the best chance of converting
your search engine visitors into customers, clients, or subscribers



http://www.theinternetdigest.net/articles/keyword-selection-guidelines.html