SEM Strategy – in a nutshell

1. Identification of Keyword/key phrases

 

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Your SEM strategy

Demand analysis Search volume Competition Estimated Google Adwords daily clicks Potential SEO volume. Average PageRank for the keyword Performance analysis Average position Click volume referred from search Click quality Outcomes (sales, registrations or leads)

Demand analysis  Use SEO to target the key phrases with high search volume and popularity. For best impact, select words that are popular enough and have average competition rate Average Position 1 ad slot for Google receives approx. 5% clickthrough rate, so this can give an idea of the total expected SEO volume. If the average PageRank for the given keyword is much above the site PageRank, then it is unlikely to be able to compete using this particular keyword. Hence the keyword should be discarded. Use PPC to target the niche and rare keywords as it is often impractical to use SEO for the full range of niche phrases Performance analysis Create benchmark for the agency - Current Rank across Search engines - Actual monthly SEO volume   - Relevance  - Conversion (contact us, subscription form, downloads)

 

 2. Internal ranking factors 

Recommendations for  Amount of text on a page Number of keywords on a page Location of keywords Text format – Title tag; alt tag etc Directory structure Navigation menu format # keywords/keyword phrase per page

Keep page size between 500-3000 words Keywords density should be between 5-7% Keyword location – closer a keyword to the beginning of a document, more significant it becomes for the search engine.  Search engines pay special attention to page text that is highlighted or given special formatting. Hence Use keywords in headings. Highlight keywords with bold fonts. Title tag – 50-80 characters from the TITLE tag are displayed in search results and so limit the size of the title to this length. Avoid subdirectories Avoid javascript/flash/image menu. If that is mandatory, create a sitemap with html links to the pages. Try to follow the rule – One page – one keyword phrase Internal linking – not more than 50 links on one page.

 

 3. External ranking factors 

Index coverage Link building strategy Submission to general purpose directories DMOZ directories PR and Blog strategy

Link-building – Quality is determined by context, relevance, and popularity of the linking page, as well as the link text. Focus on Natural link-building using quality content Ensure Inbound links are from relevant sites that have high PageRank.