Using Keywords as Part of Your Internet Marketing Strategy

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Whether your internet marketing strategy utilizes websites, blogs, article marketing or press releases correctly using keywords is an absolute must.
Anyone involved in an online business will tell you their marketing efforts are dramatically reduced if they haven't optimized their published content correctly with the right keywords.

Keyword optimization is a very integral component of an effective online marketing strategy.

The proper keyword optimization of content helps anyone searching for information like yours to easily find it. Done correctly and you'll be rewarded with a higher ranking in the search results. The manner in which you use keywords within your content will make or break you in the search engine rankings. A low search engine ranking will make you virtually invisible to anyone searching for content like yours.

Search engines rely heavily on keywords to accurately identify and rank sites found on the internet for people searching for the content that these sites contain. Under or over utilizing keywords will only hurt the ranking of the site giving it a very weak showing in any search results.

There are 3 areas of focus you'll need to be concerned with to correctly utilize keywords within your content. By doing so you'll gain the favor of the search engines and also quite a bit more traffic to your site.

Let's discuss these 3 important areas of keyword optimization below:


ACCURACY

Any keywords you select to use should be relevant to the content itself. Search engines are very strict about this and will bury you in the search results if they feel your keyword selection doesn't reflect the content. When people search keywords on the internet they're expecting to find information directly related to the words they are searching on. Search engines for their part want to insure that people using their search engine find what it is they're looking for.


POSITIONING

Another factor to be considered when using keywords is the placement of these words within the content itself. For instance it is recommended to use keywords in the title of your content when you can. Even within the title it is better to place the selected word or phrase at the title beginning if at all possible. Again you must remember that these keywords must accurately describe, reflect, or relate to the content within.

Another consideration is to place your primary keyword at the beginning and the end of the body of content you're performing the keyword optimization on. Additional theme keywords should be used conservatively thru out the content when their use makes grammatical sense.


FREQUENCY

Here's an area where some people may have a tendency to get carried away. In an attempt to gain the attention of search engines some may overuse their selected keywords throughout the content. Keyword 'stuffing' as this is known is frowned upon by search engines as a deliberate attempt to gain higher search rankings. Search engines discourage this by penalizing you with a lower search engine ranking.

Opinions vary on what is the right percentage of keywords to use within the content that will maximize your optimization efforts while avoiding penalties. Generally any keyword usage between 2 and 5 percent of the total body of content is considered safe. A free keyword density tool you can use online to check your content can be found at live-keyword-analysis.

Always remember to use your selected words in a natural way within the body of your content since you're writing for the reader and not the search engine. So before you hit the 'submit' bottom proof-read your work to ensure it reads like a human wrote it and not some cyborg.

Proper keyword placement and utilization is almost always at the core of any successful internet marketing strategy. Thru the correct implementation of this online marketing technique you will increase your search rankings thereby boosting the awareness of your online presence. Whatever your reasons for being online may be, if you're looking to boost your traffic this is one of the most effective and fundamental ways to achieve that!

Identifying Target Markets For Your Brand

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Identifying target markets for your brand is critical because your customers are the future success and growth of your business. But who are your customers and how can you find more like them?

In their book on leveraging creativity, Juicing the Orange, Pat Fallon and Fred Senn discuss the strategy of one of their clients, United Airlines, as it struggled to find a way to differentiate itself among the other legacy air carriers and the start-up, no-frills airlines that were chipping away at its market share. They decided to focus on the core market of frequent business travelers. These folks made up only 9 percent of United's travelers, but they represented 46 percent of United's revenue.

Their thought was that if they could appeal to the frequent business travelers, leisure travelers would follow. ("If these seasoned road warriors know which airline to fly, surely I can do no worse than flying with the same carrier.") This philosophy is similar to the secret of finding the best roadside diner: go where the truckers eat.

So focusing on your target audience may not be about finding the biggest group of people who can and will patronize your business, rather, it's about finding the best group of people. For United, focusing on the core market of frequent business travelers was their chosen strategy.

Finding Your Core Market

Your target audience is made up of the people who love of your business and what it offers. They are not everyone who will come in contact with your business.

In order to find your target market, start by refining your target audiences.

Just take a look at the customers you have now.

- Who are your best customers?

- Which target segment makes up the bulk of your customers, supporters, or members?

- What do all these segments or individuals have in common?

- Can you find others like them?

Recognizing what your customers have in common can help you craft a marketing strategy to draw in more of the same people, thus building your target audience into a successful business.

How much do you know about your best customers or supporters?

- What is their typical age?

- Are they primarily male or female?

- What level of education have they received?

- Do they have any special interests or hobbies?

- How much is their household income?

By combining demographic and psychographic information (see exercise, below), you can begin building a mental profile of your core market. One business may find that men over 55 living in the Pacific Northwest and are interested in pro sports are their best prospects. Another business might discover that highly educated, empty nester women with lots of disposable income are their most valuable targets.

The only way to develop marketing communications that resonate with your target audience is to become knowledgeable about their wants, needs, and motivations. So ask them. Set up a continuous feedback and communication loops between your customers and the company. Make two-way communications a part of your corporate culture. You might also consider designing a short survey and sending it to your current and prospective customers and see what kinds of offerings, messages, and services your business should be providing.

While most businesses have multiple target audiences, they should only have one core market in order to provide as much focus as possible.

Sometimes, discovering your core market is about deciding whom it is that you're NOT going to serve. Take Voce, for example, a premium wireless provider that isn't looking to sell mobile phones to the whole world (like AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and the rest). Voce targets only upscale users with the finest-quality handsets, a simple, albeit pricy, flat-rate plan, and an exclusive concierge service--24 /7 live customer support. Every call to Voce is answered by a real, live human being--with no annoying phone trees.

Because of their conscious decision of who not to target, Voce is able to align its offerings (high-end handsets), its service (Voce Personal Assistance) and its retail locations (boutiques in Beverly Hills, California, and at Neiman Marcus) with its preferred audience. You will not find Voce phones or plans at WalMart or even Target.

This targeting is what keeps Voce from simply becoming another wireless face in the crowd and from wasting marketing dollars on reaching people who can't and won't become customers.