Try to think as a customer

Before to start keywords analysis & research process, be sure that you know how you should perform this process. Try to think about your keywords as a customer. How would you search for your product or service? Which keyword or key phrase would you use? Think about which words or phrases describe best your product or service.

Generic keywords vs. highly targeted key phrases

Surprisingly many companies still believe that increased traffic will necessary lead to increased sales. Unfortunately this is very far from truth. If traffic is not well targeted, visitors will not found what they are looking for, and they won’t order anything.

Many companies still make mistake to attempt to get ranked for generic keywords. This is often costly mistake. You will simply loose your time, money and resources to get ranked for generic keyword. Chances are that if you are in competitive industry you won’t succeed to achieve top ranking. In many cases, even if you succeed to get high ranking for generic keyword you won’t benefit much from that. Let’s elaborate this with an example.

Key phrase “shoes manufacturers” will return worldwide results, and your competition will be very strong. Even if you manage to rank high, “conversion to sales rate” will be fairly low. Some of people would actually search for “shoes manufacturers” which are located in Asia. They might enter on your site, and they will leave without to order anything. You will get more traffic, and you want increase your sales or establish new business contacts. None of your goals will be achieved.

According to a recent U.S. study, only 20% of all businesses outsource search engine optimization programs to professional SEO firms. The remaining 80% either do not conduct search engine optimization at all or they believe they have resources and skills to do it in-house. Of this 80%, it is probable that 90% of these companies can’t be found on web – they don’t exist. In order to generate any amount of significant web visibility, your website must typically rank within top-30 results.

So, question comes down to what is in your company’s best interests? Conduct your SEO program in-house or out-source it. To answer this question, let’s first take a look at knowledge, skills and resources necessary to implement and maintain a successful search engine optimization program.

SEO knowledge and skills required

1) Basic understanding of how search engines and directories work. This may seem overly obvious, but you would be amazed how many people do not understand how they actually work. This knowledge provides foundation for your SEO program.

2) Website design Although SEO is not completely a technical marketing process, it does require a fair amount of technical knowledge of what constitutes search engine-friendly web design. Certain web design elements can either help your search engine rankings or hurt them. You simply have to know which is which.

3) SEO experience This is most important and most difficult knowledge to obtain. If you have never implemented a SEO program, then you are in for a big surprise. Search engine optimization programs require a lot of research and are extremely time consuming. Most importantly, they require actual SEO experience. This means knowing what SEO strategies and tactics work and which ones don’t. In-house vs. out-sourced SEO programs

If your company is considering conducting your search engine optimization program in-house, here are some questions to consider.

• Who will be responsible for analyzing, developing, implementing and measuring success of your SEO program?