One-word keyword optimization

What should I do?

[lakr]

Hi all,

I am getting a little confusion for optimizing one-word keyword:

For example: (ABC implies my country's name)

If I want to be on top for the keyword: ABC, the external anchor text should be ABC or ABC travel guide...ect?

And If I am very strong for the keyword ABC, will I have chance to be on top for the keywords: ABC travel, ABC guide...ect or not, in case all of the anchor texts pointing to my site with only keyword: ABC?

Thank you.

Lakr

[tedster]

If you ever grow into such a winning site that you can break into the top ten for a competitive single keyword search, that will be a happy day -- but it's not likely to happen soon. To do that, you need a wide range of backlinks, and not the kind that you can just create on your own power, or where you have any control whatsoever over the anchor text.

To succeed, you'll need to impress a lot of other websites with the excellence of what you offer. So to begin, I'd advise looking at the top ten for your target word and studying what the current winners are doing.

Most 1-word searches on Google today are triggering a set of 8 related search phrases. Study what those phrases are, and study the top ten results for each those searches, too. Even in the related search phrases, those are the highest traffic searches, usually quite competitive, and they are also likely to be a big challenge at the beginning of a web site's marketing path.

So I'd advise targeting 2-, 3-, 4-word phrases, and not a single keyword. This is what people call the long tail. The traffic for longer phrases is usually better focused on what a page on a site is actually offering. So first win the long tail traffic, see what that actually takes, and then decide whether you want to climb the mountain to the 2-word and 1-word search results -- or even whether you need to.