Dear Kalena
I have a business here in the UK offering training in Microsoft Office products such as Word, Excel and Outlook.
I am a bit confused about the keywords I should be optimising my web site for and I was wondering if you could give me a little advice on my choices?
My first instinct is to optimise the site for the following:
1.Training
2.Excel
3.Word
4.Help with spreadsheets
5.Excel consultancy
6.Spreadsheets
7.Essex
8.Suffolk
9.Online support
10.Onsite support
11.Training
12.Excel help
thank you!
Mary
Hello Mary
The main purpose of keyword research is to get you thinking about all the possible keywords you could target, including those used by competitors or more importantly, those NOT used by competitors. So as well as coming up with your own seed list, you should be looking at your competitor’s web sites to see what keywords they are targeting and whether or not you should be using similar keywords.
However, I am a bit concerned by the keywords you’ve chosen for your own site. How many people who type the word *training* into a search engine are specifically seeking training in Microsoft products provided by a consultant in Essex, UK? People typing this search query in might be looking for football training coaches, or training shoes. Or scuba dive training in South Africa. Same goes for the word *Essex*. People typing that in are more likely to be looking for tourist information, accommodation or school project information than for MS training.
You’ll realize this as you learn more about search engine optimization, but you need to choose two, three and four word keyword phrases that are more tailored to your exact offering and therefore more likely to attract visitors to your site who are specifically seeking the services you offer. These visitors have a higher likelihood of converting to customers.
Search phrases you’ve listed like *help with spreadsheets* and *Excel help* are great, but phrases such as *MS Office training* and *how to use MS Word* would be more relevant for you than some of the other keywords you’ve listed.
Once you have a good seed list of keywords, you can run them through a keyword research tool to check how much potential traffic they will bring to your site and streamline your final choices for SEO.
Happy keyword hunting!
Kalena
More great info Kalena – once selecting the correct keywords – the keyword research tool will be your last line of defense – I use the Google Keyword Tool – they’ve improved it some what too – but its still as precise as it can be. Using these tool will avoid you wasting time on the wrong keyword optimization. You came to the right place Mary.
Excellent question, and really enjoyed reading your reply, excellent advice! LT
Hi I have been working for months now building my website in wordpress. There is some really good add ons if you build in wordpress that help you with seo one in particular is called seo click bump which has helped me heaps.There is also some add ons you can get for firefox like firebug and rank checker which are very handy to have. Its been a steep learning curve and I am constantly learning more and more every day. Goodluck with your website its alot of fun watching it move up the ranks.