So you’ve created your website and you are happy with the content and graphics but how do you market this wonderful piece of creation?

The obvious answer lies within your search engine optimization and most people tend to pick obvious keywords when trying to market their website. This seems logical but it puts a website at risk of standing in the sidelines for months or even years before it ever shows any signs of reaching the first page of search results. At best, you could expect to be loitering around on page two or three and statistically, you may as well be hovering around in space for all the good it will do as surfers very rarely skip past the first page.

Try combining a string of competitive key words with those that are less competitive as this will have a twofold effect. The first being that the less competitive keywords will have more chance of ranking higher due to there being less competition and the second because the blending of more common keywords will create a string of permutations to raise your ranking, rather like choosing winning number combinations for the lottery or football pools.

Long tail keywords are phrases usually with four or more keywords in them and are often location specific e.g. Wedding reception venues in Blackpool
Short tail keywords are very widely used and are very competitive. An example of a short term keyword could be ‘wedding venues’ and by using this you will be competing with hundreds or thousands of other similar websites.

Long tail keywords combine a chain or keywords which include an even balance of popular and not so popular keywords. You can make long tail keywords by making your website more specific by perhaps including the brand name of your product or a local area or specific feature.

The short term keyword ‘new houses’ for example, could be extended to ‘new Bristol Wimpy houses’. The figures speak for themselves. For example, the short tail keyword phrase ‘new houses’ will lie amongst millions of competitors but the more detailed long tail keyword filters down the competition to just two or three thousand.

The advantages of short tail keywords are that they attract a wider audience but a long tail keyword will bring surfers to you who are specifically interested in the unique product/service that you are offering. These people are more likely to buy from you rather than just browse so it is vital that your keywords relate very closely to what you have to offer.

Finally, make sure that your website has some great content. Look at the text of your competitor’s websites and make it your target to produce better content full of useful information for your users. Add to this some great links and you are on your way to becoming a prominent feature on many of the major search engines.

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