At last it's time to get our hands dirty! By that, I mean we now begin the process of actually doing search engine optimization. The first step to optimizing your web site for search engines is the selection of keyphrases.

What are keyphrases?

It is important to optimize your web site for key phrases, as opposed to key words. Focusing on one particular word will achieve very little success. Focusing on keyphrases, or combinations of keywords, which accurately describe your web site's content will make your search optimization effort a success. The hard part is deciding on which keyphrases to use.

Targeted keyphrases vs. broad keyphrases

The rule of thumb is to select keyphrases that are as narrow and targeted to your specific business as possible. Utilization of overly-broad keyphrases can undermine your efforts to attract the most valuable traffic and can dilute the effectiveness of your search optimization project.

As an example, let us take a look at a small business located in Barnesville, Georgia. The proprietor runs a specialty Rolex repair shop. She is an authorized Rolex technician and only services Rolex watches. The selection of keyphrases here could make or break this business. One could optimize the web site for the keyword "watches”. This however, would be disastrous. Not only would this business be competing for visibility with every other watch repair shop in the world, it would also be competing for valuable search engine real estate with businesses such as the watch manufacturers and dealers. The chances of this web site achieving a top ten ranking for the term "watches” is virtually nonexistent.

To achieve better results, we narrow the keyphrase a bit to "watch repair”. This still is overly broad, as our facility located in the small town of Barne

sville has no need or desire to compete for ranking space with the tens of thousands, if not millions, of watch repair facilities in the world. Our chances of being listed in the top ten improve, but are still immeasurably small, by narrowing it further to "Rolex repair”.

We narrow further. "Georgia Rolex repair” is getting us warmer. However, there is no point in this proprietor competing with Rolex repair shops in Atlanta and other parts of the state. In order to reap the maximum benefit, we need to be very specific.

The best keyphrase in this situation would be "Barnesville Rolex repair”. It is narrow, accurately describes the content of our web site, and targets our desired audience, namely, those living in Barnesville.

You can see, now, how narrowing the focus of your keyphrase is immensely beneficial, both in terms of accuracy and in terms of attracting the target market. By trying to find a niche market, you are effectively eliminating the competition and focusing on the most important search term for your business. The example above is intended to be illustrative of the concept of narrowing keyphrases, but does not contemplate every possible scenario.

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