I’m about to share a Very Important Secret:
Everyone knows that Google is probably the most important search engine to be in. You’ll want to be ranked highly on their pages, to attract lots of visitors to your website.
But, did you know that Google generally doesn’t care what keywords are in your META code?
Judging the book by its cover… and what’s inside
First, they look at the words in the title of your webpage, and then they look at the words on your webpage itself, how often they’re used, where on the page, and so on.
They also see how many high-powered websites link to you, and–if rumors are true–how good your own outgoing links are. And, how long your website has been around, as well as which other search engines include you.
(Yes, this is a bit complex… just focus on the things that you can do something about, such as keywords.)
Keyword magic
Late in 2003, I learned which keywords to use on my homepage webpage (and others), based on what people are looking for at each search engine, including Google. And, my website hits soared.
By mid-2004, www.aisling.net got over 2.5 million hits/year… and the numbers continued to grow.
(My mid-2006 website spinoff project dropped my Google ranking for awhile, but this was a necessary improvement.)
It’s easy to find out which words to use on your webpage to rank more highly at Google, Yahoo, and other search engines.
Take a look at Google’s free Keyword tool. It tells you which keywords are related to your main theme, plus how many people are searching for that exact phrase, each month.
Want to get more involved in this? Another secret is a website called Wordtracker.
Wordtracker works
I’m using Wordtracker.com to find out which words to use on my pages. They’ll give you a “test run” for free, with the focus on a lesser search engine. That will give you an idea of how it works.
If you’re serious about getting more traffic to your site, you’ll want to get more useful information from them.
Here’s how it works: You pay Wordtracker.com a fee to have access to their files for one full day (or more, if you have a lot of research to do). I can usually find out everything that I need, with just one day’s research. It costs less than $10.
I have three major websites, so I make a list of all the possible subjects that people might be interested in, when visiting my sites. I use those words as the starting point, at Wordtracker.com. And, I print out everything… even if it seems not-that-useful when I look at the list they give me. (You can also get Wordtracker to email the results to you, but the emails aren’t as easy to read as a printout from the actual search at their site.)
Wordtracker.com will tell you which words are the most popular, AND how much competition you’re facing if you focus on those keywords.
Focus and specialize
I’ll warn you right now: In the category of art, you can either be a very small fish in a massive pond, or you can narrow your focus to capture a good spot in one corner of the art scene.
It’s all about specializing… or crossing your fingers and hoping for the best. If you’re starting with “art” as your only search term, expect to be shocked by how huge the competition is, at the search engines.
I’m sharing this tip because we’re each going to have to focus on a different area–not compete with each other–if we have any hope of appearing near the top in our respective Google categories.
See my other article, Choose your niche.)
What people search for, in general
Want to know the top five words used at search engines in December 2003? Here they were, in order: Sex, Google, ebay, porn, jokes.
What about December 2004? Loans, Christmas, Dr. Phil McGraw, Paris Hilton, followed by Google.
I did another check in May 2006. The top five words were: Google, MySpace, lyrics, Yahoo, American Idol.
In March 2008, just before St. Patrick’s Day: magical lizzy, danny boy lyrics, helen keller, henry hill, times square explosion.
Think about it: eBay was the third most-popular word that people were entering at the search engines in 2003. (Why someone would enter the word “google” in a search engine… escapes me. In 2006, it was still one of the top search engine requests, and in early 2008, it’s popularity had increased among search terms.)
That meant that a whole LOT of people were interested in eBay at that time. (eBay was a very good place to be selling to Christmas shoppers!)
But, during the holiday season in 2004, loans were on web browsers’ minds instead.
Of course, these words probably didn’t help you unless you were making Christmas loans or had some connection to Dr. Phil and/or Ms. Hilton.
So, you’ll research the most popular words related to your particular site’s focus, and you’ll re-check those keywords regularly.
As you can see, they change dramatically from one year to the next, at the very least.
If all you do is change the words on your homepage to make the most of your “niche” market, you will increase how many people visit your website from search engines. I promise.
Wait three weeks
This is pretty much the tip of the iceberg, when it comes to getting the best possible placement of your website at the search engines. But, it’s a very good start.
It can take three weeks (or more) for the spiders to discover your new keyword strategies. But, in just one month I doubled the traffic to one of my lesser websites, simply using keywords better.
So, don’t pay one of those services that promises to get your site placed in the top ten at Google. You may be in the top ten… but is it a category where anyone’s looking?
Instead, for under $10 — or even for free — you can do the research yourself, fine-tune your website, and see a fabulous surge in visitors.
Really.
If you’re going to have a successful art career, you’ll need a good website.
WordPress isn’t perfect. That’s not news.