Tim AKA @sogeshirts is one of the nicest, most supportive people I have met on Twitter. He retweets just about every tweet I post about a new piece I have on Letters For Lucas and owns a clothing shop called Soge Shirts. He is responsible for this awesome tank top I wore during BlogHer ’11:
When Tim asked if he could guest post on my blog on the topic of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), I was all for it for a couple of reasons: 1). I get very twitchy when it comes to SEO because I don’t really know the first thing about SEO and should and 2). Tim really knows his stuff.
Read and learn, friends….and please ask any questions you may have in the comments section. Tim can surely answer them!
Why going after keywords with low competition can lead to big traffic
Search Engine Optimization is a very competitive industry. If you are lacking traffic to your blog or Website you may be making the mistake of trying to rank for overly competitive keywords which people are paying big money to keep their rankings. Instead it may be better to go after smaller less competitive keywords or phrases that you can rank for fast. If you can rank for many small keywords or phrases with low competition that relate to your blog or Website you can start getting some big traffic. All those small keywords and phrases can add up to even more organic traffic from Google and Bing than the one big keyword you were targeting and not getting results for.
The key to trying the strategy of going after phrases and keywords that have low competition and a decent number of searches is good quality research. Use the Google Adwords keyword tool to do your research. If you have a Google Adwords account you can get 800 related keyword ideas for any term you enter in. You will also be able to check the number of exact monthly searches for the term and the competition for each by hitting the exact checkmark on the left side instead of broad.
Once you find some keywords or phrases that relate to your blog and have decent monthly searches and low to medium competition you can start ranking for those keywords. I advise picking 50 or so keywords or phrases to start targeting so that you get a good idea of how ranking for 50 different keywords can add up to good traffic while at the same time not have to do research for awhile.
One thing to note is that you won’t be able to rank for all these keywords overnight. It will take time. Also I’m not saying to not go after the big keywords with high competition either. I just think it’s best to start getting some organic traffic before going for the big time words that take quite a long time to rank for.
To rank for your small keywords or phrases you can use those keywords and phrases in the titles of your blog post or start building anchor text links for the terms you want on guest posts on other blogs. If you do blog commenting you may notice that some blogs offer keyword love in which you can put the term you want to rank for in the name box while linking back to your site. This will definitely help you move up the rankings for those small keywords or phrases and quite possibly on the front page of Google or Bing. Can you imagine eventually having 50 keywords all delivering 5 to 10 hits a day to your Website or possibly more? That traffic can really add up.
In addition to Soge Shirts, Tim is a social media consultant for Interactive Music Teacher. You can follow him on Twitter at: @sogeshirts
