Expert Search Engine Optimization

If you want to know how to rank, grow, and track your search engine optimization efforts, this article will tell you. We'll start with the basics of SEO, then dive into in-depth tactics that will help you create an SEO campaign for your website. After reading this post, you'll be equipped with solid marketing knowledge and a few tricks to get started on what could be a very lucrative side business!

In the year 2000 keyword search was born as Google introduced their universal search bar. The goal of universal search was to help people find what they were looking for more efficiently than they could by typing queries one at a time.

In order to create a page that ranked well on Google, you would need to create a keyword rich page. The phrase "keyword rich" means that you land on the page and see words in the title or the content that relate to your keywords. There are different ways of doing this, but there are 3 basic types:

1) On-page SEO -   This is simply putting relevant keywords in your title or description. If an article talks about social media, put social media in the title tag so it ranks high for people searching for "social media".

2) Sticky buttons/integration -   Adding relevant keywords to your site's social sharing buttons will also help get them ranked when someone searches for those terms.

3) Internal linking -   Internal links are all links pointing to pages on your site. To get them ranked you will need to place relevant keywords in the page titles or just make a page that is a list of everything that applies to your keyword.

These are all ways you can rank for a certain term, but they all have limitations. In order for those terms to start getting traffic, someone must be searching for them, they also all have SEO issues.

Keywords create pages with less content and ads in order to get ranked! Google's algorithm has been re-worked several times and the results we see today are a result of the changes made in 2014.

What you will learn below is how to generate traffic without relying on keywords and marketing without keywords.

What is a Keyword?

Keywords are words and phrases that people type into Google in order to find whatever they are searching for. Keywords are used to target searches on Google, which will in turn target the results you see in the search engine results page (or SERP). 

The more keywords you have, the more traffic your pages get from Google. It doesn't matter if those people search for a certain phrase or not, if it has that keyword in it it will be ranked high for that keyword!  

Google's goal is to provide results that "best match" what users are searching for. They do this by tracking over 200 factors . Most of these factors are related to what other sites are linking to a page. Google has mentioned that they use over 200 ranking factors , but the main ones are your content, links, and keyword usage.

Keywords matter more than ever, but how can you drive traffic to your site using keywords without being penalized? 

The answer is:

Long-Tail Keywords!   Long-tail keywords are very targeted (specific) keywords that have less competition.   These tend to have lower monthly searches , making them easier to rank for. By targeting more specific phrases you will be able to rank for more relevant results that have less competition.

Long-tail keywords are not always easy to come by, but there are a few you can use to get started.

Using Long-tail Keywords for AdWords

If you already know what long-tail keywords you would like to target, skip this section and go here .

Adwords is Google's paid search engine, where advertisers bid on keyword phrases in order to get traffic. You can actually bid on long-tail keywords through your AdWords account. Just keep in mind your ad will appear once the person searches for the keyword phrase. For example, if I wanted my company name (WordPress) to show up when someone searched for "wordpress themes", I could put up an ad saying "WordPress themes".

Conclusion: Long-tail keywords are those that have more specific meaning to a larger group of people. The lower the monthly searches, the easier it will be to rank for the term.

Have any questions or comments? Leave them below! Let me know if there is anything you would like covered!

The only way someone will be able to see your ad is if they type in those specific words into Google. If someone searches for "wordpress themes" or "best wordpress themes" they will not see my ad even though I bid on both phrases. They won't see the ad until they type in those exact phrases, and even then, it depends on how much other advertisers are willing to pay for that phrase.