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If you are having a hard time figuring it out you can:
Go to your competitors web site and view their source code, and take note of their meta keyword tag.
Also, you can go to their site map and check the keywords they are plugging. Utilize Google's keyword suggestion tool, too.
Also, take all of the above gleaned information and use that as a jumping off point. I use around 150 keywords for a very highly specialized software. For another client, a local b2c operation, I use about 80 keyword phrases.
You'd be surprised...
Would they restrict themselves to simply 'business insurance' or would add a prefix or suffix such as their speciality or regionality?
Also as much as you concentrate on keyword submissions, your website plays a much more important part in the whole scheme of things.
It helps if you could be a bit more specific in what you want but I think martinibuster is right.
Try the site search function and brwose around this forum to find more ways to find keywords and how to implement them on your site.
We have searched out all of the keywords from competitors, and now have 53. Not sure how to get the keywords up in the 100 range, kinda run out of words. We used numerous variations tho', i.e., computer programmer insurance, computer programmers insurance, ips insurance, wisp insurance, computer consultant insurance, and on. Also used some mis-spelled/ mis-stated words. We submitted to google, siteadd.com, & guaranteed inclusion service for excite/dogpile and allintheweb. Tried ah-ha.com PPC, (not real happy with this, all of my clicks seem to be from e-mail harvesters) and only find ourselves way way back, OR WE DO NOT FIND OURSELVES AT ALL.
When you say "site map", are you referring to clicking on view, then source? As an insurance geek, struggling to step out of my boots/ brain. Seems like we are somewhat limited to what we have to offer, not sure.......?! Based on the PPC @ ah-ha, 95% are clicking on "business insurance" Not sure if this is a good measure.
Peewee, would you please explain "Also as much as you concentrate on keyword submissions, your website plays a much more important part in the whole scheme of things." If you could be more specific, we would very much appreciate it.
Seems like we need to implement the keywords more in our web page, thought we had done that.
IF ANYONE cares to review the site and comment, that would be cool. Thanks again everyone, I was told I would get lots of responses, I'm impressed.
IF ANYONE cares to review the site and comment
That is NOT cool.
Site reviews are against the terms of service of WebmasterWorld. Please scroll down to the bottom of the page and take a moment to read it. Much of the rules are in place in order to encourage a discussion.
My advice to you is to give yourself a couple months to research this proposition of optimizing a web site. Remember, optimization is not about "tricking" a search engine. Optimization is about clarifying the message that your web site presents to the search engines.
Trouble is, don't have "a couple of months"! Made a big mistake putting all of my eggs in THIS basket. Worked with a broker locally, and we had a good flow of requests for quotes. He is very busy with many other types of insurance, and does not devote much of his time in this area (that was my gig). Thought (like a fool I now see) I could set up my web page, and compete RIGHT AWAY. Do not have the option of working with him tho'.
There is a very real demand here, since most of the insurance compamnies will NOT insure programmers, consultants, ISPs, etc. since it is not a gas station, or book store. They have trouble understanding the internet/ computer world. (we have a special program, where this has already been arranged)
Always described insurance underwriters as tiny little men, with tiny little brains, AND HUGE PENCILS. Very difficult to think out of the box.
Anyway, just trying to survive, (a divorce) and support my children, and be a good Dad, nothing more.
Targeting different areas sounds good, we are in CA, but have seen most of the interest in the mid-west/ east coast. (with the old broker)
Also have noticed, ISPs & WISPs have a REAL tough time getting coverage. We have a great program for them, which I played a key role in developing, and have a real interest. Any ideas on how to get exposure in this area?
As stated elsewhere, NOT looking to be a pig, just survive.
Google was giving away $100 advertising coupons yesterday at the ad:tech conference in San Francisco...
COUPONS!?!? , need all the help I can. But San Francisco is about $100.00 worth of gas both ways from LA..........LOL. Can I get them from their web site?
Any ideas what I would need to budget for adwords? $100, 500, 1,000, 5,000. Realize it will/ can vary. Thank you!
Visit the webmasterworld adwords forum and read around. It's a good idea to read previous threads to avoid asking commonly asked questions.
We write in 48 states, will add the states to each. Will that create to many keywords, or is that possible?
My answer is NO. I noticed your site only has 4 or so pages indexed in google. A couple of things you want to note and I think may help. First, stop trying to target all your keywords on one page. I tend to create content based on a particular keyword and create a unique page named after the keyword, ex: new-hampshire-business-insurance.html. These pages should have a unique title and description containing your targeted keyword(S). Second, make sure these pages have a link to them so that misc. bots can locate and crawl these pages. Start here, having content unique pages will give you more visibility in the different search engines. Let me know if you have anymore questions.
PS. I understand you are trying to survive, but maybe it's time to think like a pig and take this to the next level. I only started doing well in this industry when I started getting greedy and dumped the survival mentality.
Your keywords are useful for both, but you will select them differently for website optimization than for ads.
For the ad campaigns, more keywords are better. For your website, less are better. Here's why:
With pay-per-click campaigns, there is no penalty for using as many keywords as you like. You can create and manage an ad campaign with tens or even hundreds of keywords. Each group of keywords and ads you create is considered on its own and matched with relevant searches. After testing and tweaking a couple of weeks, you can see which keyword-ad copy combinations are performing well - and put your energy there.
With web sites, there is a strong penalty for using too many keywords. The more keywords you use in a page, the less "optimized" the page is for any one keyword, and the less likely it is to rank high for a search on any of those keywords. So you must be choosy.
I like to see which keywords perform best in the ad campaigns before I optimize the site. You learn a lot during the first month of the ad-keyword tuning process.
BTW, I suggest Google to start with becuase it's easier to get rolling there - less editorial review hassle. If I max out on available clicks on Google but have budget left, I then create a similar campaign on Overture to spend the rest...
If you're in a hurry, use AdWords. Work on your site in the mean time until Google picks it up and you can see were you 'landed'. Then start tweaking. By that time you've read so much of WebmasterWorld you know what to do :)
