Keyword Strategies | SEO Top Keywords

More Keyword Strategies

Words, crosswords, boggle, scrabble, cryptoquotes---if it has words in it and there's a strategy involved, I'm in. As I work at an seo strategy and requirements for a new website design, I wonder how they're all related. Probably not much in the real world. But you (or I) (wait, what world are we in anyway?) could argue that it's quite possible that the above games, have something to do with understanding how others use words. Okay, maybe not for the solitaire games but for those involving opponents--what would my first question be before I play. Typically, it's "who's my opponent?" And how well do I know them? Invariably, this is going to give me a good idea of my odds of winning. Some of you SEOs who are socially aware, have a background in psychology, sociology or philosophy probably know exactly where I'm going with this.

So let's talk about technique and best practices. Meta tags yada blahblah, competitive intelligence, lonnng tails, web page load time and whatever the latest that Google deems essential to add to the algorithm (for our benefit of course). We jump, no, run through that hoop and move on to our sweet SERPS showing results.

Okay, I'm a total dork and have a wall of fame where I have pinups of my best SERPs in my office. I can't resist printing them when my company is on first page for highly competitive words, in a highly competitive industry--education. I also like to look at them because they remind me of how I got there. How the heck did I get there anyway? Oh right, all the off and on-page best practices, good copy, inbound links and the many others I can fit under my white hat.

Is that all? Where did I find these keywords? Are my competitors using them? You can bet on that! And the long tails too? Probably some iteration of the same.

But what about those gold nuggets floating out in the ozone that you can't find in spyfu or any other tool? They seem to only come from fingers.

So after I've done my due diligence, including everything above and more, I sit and stare at the google search bar for about a minute or so and think about my customers, friends and opponents. Then the drum rolls.