Using SEO is one of the best ways to make sure that your website turns up in search engine results because if someone's looking for a site like yours, you want to make sure they find it.
But it's no good turning up in search engine results if you're listed on the 100th page, or worse, the 500th page because no one looks at these pages.
At most, people only look at the first 2 or 3 pages.
So how can you make sure that your web pages turn up in these first few pages of results?
It would be easy to think that you need to find the most popular keywords with the highest amount of searches each month.
Wrong.
Doing that would make it almost impossible for you to succeed because there are already thousands of other marketers using them and because their web pages have been up longer than yours, they are already generating a lot of traffic and so their popularity is already m loving them up to the top results spots.
So if you want to get your web pages showing up on the first pages of search results took here is what you need to do.
Find Long-Tail Keywords. These are words that are more specific to what you're selling and it's usually a phrase of 3 or 4 words. For instance, if you're trying to sell a sofa, there'll be a lot of competition for that word. So instead you could use a more exact phrase like "Queen Ann Antique Sofa." While such exact phrasing will yield you fewer searches, they will be more target specific and tailored to people who are probably more likely to make a purchase.
Aim For Moderate to Small Competition. In addition to using long-tail keywords, also look for phrases that have little or even no competition. This will help to make sure that your web page turns up at or near the top of search engine results. For example, if there are only 8 other marketers using your exact phrase and the search engines show 10 results per page, then your page should be on the first page of results.
See What Keywords Your Competition Is Using. It's always a good idea to check out the competition to see what other keywords they're using and the content they're using to attract more customers.
To help you find keywords you can use Google's free Keyword Planner which you can find by going to Google's homepage and clicking on "Advertising." That will take you to opening an AdWords account so that you can use their keyword software.
And although you won't get many visitors to your site by using long-tail keywords, isn't it better to get on the first page in front of a few highly targeted prospects, then to end up on the 100th page of generic web surfers who will never see your website link anyway?
