Cattle Ramp SEO Resources

You may have heard about site maps. They generally are HTML pages that are linked from the home page and that contain some sort of link arrangement of all the pages of a web site.

What you may not have heard is that there are 2 types of site maps:

1. site maps to help your visitors find what they are looking for at your site, and
2. site maps to help search engines spider your site.

Sometimes, people use one site map for both their visitors and search engines.

I want to consider for a moment site maps that are for the benefit of search engines. If your site is really complex, then building a good site map for search engines can be a challenge.

I just read that Google, Yahoo and MSN have agreed on a set of protocols for a search engine oriented site map: protocols. They do not use HTML but XML files and if you want to build your own site map by hand then, go to protocols to get all the details.

If, on the other hand, you want an easy way of generating a great search engine site map, then head over to RORWeb. And more specifically, head over to their site map generation tool.

I have not checked that RORWeb follows the protocols specified by Google, Yahoo and MSN, but I have used their generated site map and can say that it has worked well for me with one of my new sites (with Google and Yahoo). Being a new site, it lacks quality backlinks and so I don't expect it to rank high for a while.

Cheers

Serge

I think that we all know now how important backlinks are for the search engine ranking success of our web site. I also think that we all know now that one way to get these backlinks is by doing link exchanges with other sites. (For the uninitiated, backlinks are links on other web sites that point to ours.)

But do we know that there are various things we need to check before agreeing to exchanging links with another web site? After all, the whole point of exchanging links with others is to benefit from the ranking of their web sites. It is therefore imperative that we investigate ahead of time as to whether exchanging links with another site is to our advantage or not.


I have thought about this whole idea of link exchange preparation and came up with a 3-step process that involves an analysis of 3 pages of the web site we want to exchange links with. The 3 pages are:

- the home page where we will need to check 7 things about that page,

- the directory page: this is the page that contains a list of categories that the site has put together in a bid to organize its link exchanges. We need to check 7 things here,

- the backlink page: this is the page that will contain our backlink. We also need to check 7 things here.

Note that in some cases, the 'target' web site will not have a directory page. In that case, our analysis will be a 2-step one rather than a 3-step one.


In this first article, of may be 2 or 3, we shall look at the 7 things (organized in 2 groups) we should check about the home page of the target web site.

1. We need to check what Google thinks of the site. This is done by looking at some things that Google is happy to report about a site. The idea here is to see if there are any problems with the site, from Google's point of view, that would cause us to decide not to exchange links with them.

I suggest that we look at:

a) how many pages does the site have indexed? This can be done by using 'site:www.site.com' in the Google search box,

b) how many backlinks does Google report for the site? This can be done by using 'links:www.site.com' in the Google search box,

c) is the site listed in Google's index? This can be done by using 'http://www.site.com' in the Google search box,

d) what is the Page Rank of the site/home page? There are several ways of doing this. One way is to get the Google toolbar and visit the web site to see its PR. Another way is to use one of the many web sites on the Internet that enables us to find the PR of any web site. And still another way is to look for software that will tell you the PR of any web sites.

Although we will generally need to look at these 4 things together in a sort of table in order to decide whether the target site passes the first step or not, there are definite results that would cause me to decide straight away not to exchange links with a site:

- if the PR of the site is zero,

- if the site is not listed in the Google index,

- if the site does not have any pages indexed by Google.

You will note here that I am using Google as the first step in the preparation. In fact, we can use any search engine if we want to but given that Google is more fussy than others when it comes to backlinks, I would suggest using Google in the above first step.

2. I would then suggest that we look at 3 tags of the home page of the target site, in a bid to determine if the site has a theme compatible with ours:

a) its title tag,

b) its description tag,

c) its keywords tag.

There are several ways of checking the contents of a web page's tags. If your browser, such as MSIE, allows you to view the contents of a web page, then you will need to visit the home page and click on the right menu command to view the contents of the page. Then you will need to scroll to the top of the page to view the contents of its tags. The alternative is to look for web sites on the Internet that enable you to view the contents of the tags of any web pages. There are many such web sites on the net.

The reason for this step is that Google takes into account the theme of web sites when looking at backlinks. This means that backlinks from a site that has a theme compatible with ours will be of higher value than one that comes from a site that has nothing to do with what our site is about.

As mentioned above, this preparation is on the home page of the target web site and is only the first step. There are 2 more steps: one on the directory page and one on the backlink page.

It is only when the target web site passes the 3 steps that we should feel confident about exchanging links with them in that the link exchange will be to our advantage. Needless to say that the target web site will also need to conduct a similar 3-step analysis of our site prior to wanting to exchange links with us.

Serge M Botans

==============================
Serge M Botans is the CEO of
www.seo-analysis.com/online-tools
where you will find 2 free custom SEO tools.
One of these tools will enable you to
conduct the link exchange preparation
mentioned in this article.
==============================


You may reproduce this article as long as you reproduce it exactly as it is and that you include the sig box at the end of the article just like it is above.

Keyword spelling is an aspect of keyword research you don't seem to read much about. I have been involved in SEO for a couple of years now and there is some emphasis on targeting misspelt keywords, but not on keyword spelling. Why is that?

Given the fact that we have different spellings for some words, surely, when you want to decide on keywords for your site, the spelling issue should come up. The issue applies also to the spelling of words to use on the web site, and not just to keywords.

For example,

• if you have a graphics site, should you use 'colour' or 'color'?
  
  
• if you have a plane site, should you use 'aeroplane' or 'airplane'?
  
  
• and so on . . .
  

Have a look at http://www3.telus.net/linguisticsissues/BritishCanadianAmerican.htm for more examples of different spellings between the US, the UK and Canada.

There are some many words that have alternate spelling that some thought needs to go into which spelling to use/target at a site. I would therefore recommend the following:

1. use the spelling that is correct for the market you want to attract. For example, if you have a graphics site and you want to target the US market, then use 'color'. If on the other hand, you want to target the UK, then use 'colour'. A similar idea can be used for targeting other English speaking countries such as Canada and Australia,
   
   
2. if you are not wanting to target a specific country but are targeting the English speaking world, then I would recommend using the spelling that is correct for your country and making it clear on your home page what country you are living in (this can easily be done by adding the flag of your country at the bottom on your page).
   

Given the importance of keywords, spelling is something that one should seriously think about when adding content to our web site and when deciding on what keywords to target.

Serge

I am pleased to announce that I have added a new FREE tool at my SEO Analysis web site.

You will find this new tool at SEO Report. It's a fantastic tool that will enable you to analyze any of your web pages from an SEO point of view + relevant comments about any errors it finds.

This tool is a cut down version of the service I offer at SEO Analysis BUT don't be fooled by the fact that it is a cut down version. It analyzes some 20+ on-page factors of any web pages, and it will display a red cross for any on-page factors that needs fixing. A green tick will be displayed for any factors that are ok.

This is a great tool to get a quick idea of whether any of your web pages are properly SEO optimized or not. And you can use it to analyze your competitors' web pages.

Check it out!

Serge

When desiging a web site, there are 2 objectives you need to keep in mind for 2 different reasons:

1. you need to properly SEO optimize your web site in order to please the search engines, and
   
2. you need to make your web site attractive and easy to use in order to please your visitors.

A well designed web site is one that both search engines and visitors will love. Today, we shall focus on one aspect of pleasing your visitors.

When a visitor comes to your web site, there are many factors that will 'colour' what they think of your web site. Some of these things are:

• the type of browser they use,
• the operating system they use,
• the number of colours their monitor is using ie. colour depth,
  
• the size they have set their monitor to using ie. display resolution,
• whether they have JavaScript enabled or disabled,
• and so on ...

The reason why these things will 'colour' what they think of your web site is that these are the factors that will determine how your web site will be displayed on their monitor. And, typically, if a web site looks bad on their monitor, folks will blame the web site rather than their browser, or monitor or operating system, . . .

For example, there are only a very small number of fonts that are installed on all Windows based computers (eg. Arial, Verdana, Times, Courier and Trebuchet). This means that if you use a font that is on your computer but which is not on your visitors' computer then the text and layout of your site may not look 'right' on your visitors' monitor.

Consequently, when designing a web site for visitors, you need to know certain things about your visitors. For example,

• how many use the new MSIE 7?
• how many use the old MSIE 6?
• how many use the older versions of MSIE?
• how many use Firefox?
• how many use Opera?
• how many use Windows?
• how many use Mac's?
• how many use Linux?
• how many use screen resolutions of 1024x768?
• how many use screen resolutions of 800x600?
• how many have JavaScript enabled in their browsers?
• and so on . . .
  

Knowing these things will influence the design of your site in order to please your visitors.

Fortunately, there is an excellent site that will give you the numbers on who is using what, Browser Statistics. At the time of the writing of this post, this is what they concluded based on the current stats:

"What you can read from the statistics below is that Internet Explorer 6 is the dominating browser, XP is the most popular operating system, and most users are using a display with 1024x768 pixels or more, with a color depth of at least 65K colors."

This means that, if you want to design a web site aimed at the majority of web surfers, then you should design it for MSIE6, for a screen resolution of 1024x768 and with colour graphics that contain at least 65K colours.

BUT, you must make sure also not to ignore your other visitors. You hence need to know, for example, how many use screen resolutions of 800x600? The answer is 20%, so you need to keep them in mind when designing your site.

It is safe today to ignore screen resolutions of 640x480 as the stats show that 0% use that screen resolution.

The stats also point out that 90% of browsers have JavaScript enabled, which means that you can safely use it BUT be aware that some of your visitors (1 in 10) will be affected by the JavaScript code of your web site.

If you want to see what your web site looks like in different browsers, then you could install the different browsers of interest on your computer or you could use the services of BrowserShots. Be careful though, the image they showed of what my site looks like in FireFox did not match what my site actually looks like in FireFox.

While on the topic of browsers, you may find it interesting to visit evolt.org to see just how many different browsers there are. You may be surprised by the list they have . . .



Serge

One of the worst things, I think, about search engine optimization is having to/trying to keep up with the changes that search engines make to the way they index/rank a web site.

You can understand that search engines will regularly want to make changes to their indexing algorithm as, for one thing, there are people on the Internet who will seek to exploit any SEO technique available to try to artificially boost their ranking.

Another reason for an algorithm update is to offer better results to search queries. If a search engine does not list sites that are highly relevant to a search querry, then that search engine will not be around for very long. It is therefore always important for a search engine to tweak its algorithm to try and improve its search results.

Google has recently gone through an algorithm update dubbed 'big daddy' in an attempt to provide us with better results. Rather than reproduce here what the big daddy update is about, I will point you to 2 sites that will provide you the relevant information:

1. http://www.seoelite.com/Lessons/GoogleBigdaddyUpdate.htm
   
2. http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/indexing-timeline/
   

If you are not interested in knowing about this latest Google algorithm update, then don't read the content of these 2 links. But if you want to keep informed with a view to making sure that your site still meets the SEO requirements of Google, then I suggest strongly that you read them.

Serge

If you are in doubt about whether there is a SEO difference between singular and plural keywords, check this out.

I recently was looking for PHP scripts that I could use for SEO, and entered 2 phrases into Google.

• Using 'seo script', Google reported 655 results,
• Using 'seo scripts', Google reported 240,000 results.
  

As you can see, singular and plurals keywords do make a difference!

"But", I hear you ask, "what of the results that Google returned?" That is a good question and I can say that the first page of results returned for each search keyword was different.

Proof that there is a difference, at least with Google, between singular and plural keywords.

This means that, when you do your keyword research to decide on what keywords to target, you should keep in mind whether people are more likely to use the singular or the plural version of a keyword.

For example, if you have a site that offers guitar lessons, then you need to decide whether you should target 'guitar lesson', 'guitar lessons' or both. What would someone wanting to learn to play the guitar type in a search engine: 'guitar lesson' or 'guitar lessons'?

Serge

If you have optimized your web site for specific keywords, then you need to monitor how well your web site is ranking for those keywords with search engines. This is called 'monitoring your keyword ranking' and needs to be done for all the keywords you are targeting at the search engines you are concerned with.

Currently, the 3 most important search engines are: Google, MSN and Yahoo. This means that, unless you are concerned with other search engines, then you need to know where your web site is listed in the results page for your target keywords.

The target that most people aim for, and rightly so, is in the top 10-20. It has been found that most people only look at the first 2 pages of results when conducting a search (each page displaying 10 results). This means that if your site is not in the top 10-20 results, then chances are no one will come to your site from that search engine.

In order to monitor your keyword ranking, you could go to Google, type in one of your target keywords and then go through the pages of results until you find your site listed. Then do the same with your other keywords. And then do the same thing all over again at MSN and Yahoo.

This is a long and laborious process.

Fortunately, there are many online services, mostly free, that allow you to do the same thing quicker.

One such service we have recently come across is Trace Search. There are several things we like about this service:

• you can monitor as many keywords as you like,
• you can monitor the keywords of as many web sites as you have,
• you can monitor your keyword rankings daily, weekly or monthly,
• you can monitor your keywords at the big 3 search engines: Google, MSN and Yahoo,
  
• it will send you the results by email according to the schedule you have set (ie. daily, weeky or monthly).

We have conducted a trial run and so far so good. We have not tested the results to see how accurate they are. This we will need to do ... perhaps you can beat us to it and post your findings as a comment to this post.

So, if you are interested in monitoring your keyword ranking at the big 3 search engines, then give Trace Search a try. It's totally FREE!

Serge

If you are involved in trying to get traffic from search engines, one of the things you need to do is monitor your progress with them to see how you are progressing.

There are many things you need to monitor with search engines:

• your Google Page Rank,
• your keyword ranking ie. where in the search engine results your site is listed for your targeted keyword,
• your backlinks: how many sites backlink to you, what is the page rank of the sites and pages that contain your backlink, what is the text displayed in your backlinks, are any of the sites that backlink to you banned by Google, and so on...
• which pages of your site have been spidered,
• when was the last time that the search engines spidered your site,
• and so on...

Google offers an excellent free service to help you monitor certain aspects of your site with them. This service is called Google Alert and you can find out more at its FAQ page.

We have been using this service for a few months now and are very happy with it. What it does, in simple terms, is this: you enter a phrase that you want Google Alert to monitor and whenever Google finds new information on your phrase, it will send you an email with the info + links.

We are currently using it to monitor just a few things:

• our web site addresses: www.meta-keyword-advice.com, www.cattle-ramp-seo.com and www.seo-analysis.com and whenever Google finds our URL's displayed in a new site or page, then we receive an email with the URL of these new sites and pages. This way we can monitor how many web sites are adding our link to their sites,
  
• the titles of 2 articles we wrote and whenever Google finds our title displayed in a new site or page, then again it sends us an email to let us know. We have found this service invaluable to see how many web sites are reproducing either of our 2 articles (which means that our number of backlinks is increasing because our articles contain our link in its sig).

The use of Google Alert is limited only by your imagination. We are using it to only monitor references to our sites + the articles we wrote.

If you likewise want Google to let you know when it finds new information relating to anything about your site, then give Google Alert a try - it's free!

Serge

PS. We would not recommend using this service to monitor your keywords. The reason for this is that you will get lots of links reported to you by Google that have nothing to do with your web site.

I have just come across the following 3 articles and thought that you might like to know about them:

• SEO for Google
  
• SEO for MSN
  
• SEO for Yahoo

I suggest that you read these 3 articles carefully as they will show you how search engines look at different things when spidering a site.

Also, once you know what each search engine looks for, you will then be able to edit your site to meet the right requirements so as to rank high with them.

Serge

Article Keywords: keyword research, overture keyword, overture keyword tool,meta keywords advice

In my previous article, I raised the issue that proper keyword research must take into account countries. The reason for that was that the demand for keywords can vary between countries. I gave examples of that fact using the Overture keyword tool.

To support my argument (that we need to be aware of countries when doing keyword research), I gave 2 reasons:

1. it will help us determine which countr(y/ies) to target, and

2. it will help us know what countr(y/ies) our visitors are most likely to come from.

I would like, in this article, to expand on these 2 reasons. I would also like to add further reasons why any keyword research must be country based.

1. When doing keyword research, we need to understand the limitations of our research. This is necessary in order to remove any assumptions we make about our findings. For example, if you find that the demand for a keyword is very high in the US, you cannot assume that the demand for that same keyword will also be vey high in other countries. You will only know for sure how much demand there is worldwide by doing country specific keyword research. Such research can be done using a tool such as the Overture keyword tool,

2. It will tell you where your visitors are most likely to come from. This in turn will tell you what features you need to add to your web site. For example, if you are targeting a keyword that is in demand in the US only, then obviously most of your visitors will come from the US. This then means that you need to design your web site primarily for US visitors. You will hence need to:

- use US spelling such as "color" and not "colour",

- if you sell products, then list your prices in US$,

- if you live in the US, then add a fax number so your visitors can place orders by fax,

- if you live in the US, you could organise a US free call number for your visitors to ring you should they need to,

- if you live in the US and you ship your orders, then you could include shipping costs. You could also include how long it will take for them to receive their order,

- if you don't live in the US, then you will need to make it possible for your visitors to pay you in US$,

- if you don't live in the US and you ship your orders, then you could include shipping costs. And you could include how long it will take for them to receive their order,

- and so on . . .

If on the other hand, you are wanting to target several non-English speaking countries, then:

- you may need to add a translation service to your site so that your visitors can read your site in their language,

- you may need to add a currency exchange service so that your visitors can convert your prices into their currency,

- you may need to make it possible for your visitors to pay you in their own currency,

- you may need to add other ways for your visitors to pay you apart from credit cards. You could offer international cheques/checks, money orders, direct bank transfers, . . . I once had a customer who wanted to pay me in Euros from Italy and needed my address to do so. The easier you make it for people to place an order, the greater the chances someone will place an order!

- if you ship your orders, then you could add the shipping costs to each of the countries you are targeting. And include how long it will take for them to receive their order,

- and so on . . . May be you can think of other things you will need to add to your site to accommodate your international visitors.

3. It will help you target the right keywords for the country you want to target. For example, if you want to target Canada, then you will need to use keywords that are in high demand in Canada only. There is absolutely no point doing keyword research in the UK if you are wanting to target Canada as the keyword demand between the 2 countries may vary greatly.

4. It will help you develop a keyword strategy so that you can target several countries at the same time. This can be achieved in several ways depending on the keywords' demand and supply.

- you could use keywords that are in common demand in the several countries. For example, if you sell "widgets" with your site and you find that there is a healthy demand for "black widgets" in the US, the UK, Canada and Australia. Then you could target that keyword with your site as that keyword will help you target 4 countries in one go,

- you could use keywords in demand in each country, as long as they complement each other and are highly relevant for your site. For example, using the widget idea, if you found that "colored widgets" are in demand in the US, "white widgets" are in demand in the UK, "black widgets" in Canada, and "coloured widgets" in Australia. Then, you would just target all these keywords with your site which would not be hard to do as all these keywords can easily be targeted together.

Given the right circumstances, you could even use both strategies at the same time.

As I mentioned in my first article, the Overture keyword tool enables you to research the demand for keywords in some 19 countries around the world. To see the countries that Overture supports, go to www.overture.com and have a look at the top right corner of the page. By clicking on any one of the countries listed, you will have access to the Overture keyword tool for the country you selected, and this will enable you to research the keyword demand in that country.

As you may know, keyword demand is only one half of the equation. Keyword demand needs to be looked at together with its supply numbers. One of the ways of determining keyword supply is to use Google. This means that to you need to know how to use Google to research the supply of keywords in your country of interest. This is a bit harder to explain and beyond the scope of this article.

I hope that this second article has convinced you about the need to be country aware when doing your keyword research. The success of your web site may depend on it.

Serge M Botans

=========================================
Serge M Botans is the CEO of Meta Keywords Advice,
a web site that provides advice on keywords. Free
evaluation available. He is also the inventor of CID,
which is an altenative to KEI.
=========================================

As you may already know, keywords are an essential part of search engine optimization (SEO). And the usual approach recommended to finding the right keywords to target with one's site involves the ideas of demand, supply and KEI (and/or CID). I would like to propose that one thing is missing in this research approach.

What is missing is a consequence of one of the major advantages of the Internet. Let me explain . . . When I use the Internet to look for information, or software, . . . I don't care about what country is hosting the site, nor do I care about the nationality of the owner of the site. I am only concerned about finding what I am after. So, for me, when I use the Internet, the fact that the world is made up of countries is not something I think about, nor is it an issue because the Internet has in some ways effectively removed the existence of country borders.

Yet, it is this very positive aspect of the Internet that, I believe, leads us to perform incomplete keywords research when we look for keywords to target with our site.

You see, while the Internet has helped us forget about the existence of countries, when it comes to keywords, we must not forget that the world is made up of countries. The reason for this is that the demand for keywords can be country specific. This means that a keyword in high demand in one country, may not be in the same demand in another country. And in some cases, a keyword in demand in one country will not be in demand anywhere else.

To illustrate this idea, consider the following demand numbers for the stated keywords, as reported by Overture (the research being done in June 2005).

Using the keyword "keyword",

- Australia: 669

- Canada: 17

- United Kingdom: 10,770

- USA: 125,177

Another example, looking at the keyword "meta tag",

- Australia: 127

- Canada: 15

- United Kingdom: 2,653

- USA: 10,851

And still another example, looking at the keyword "meta keyword",

- Australia: 10

- Canada: 0

- United Kingdom: 57

- USA: 552

If you had a web site that dealt with SEO and you were looking for keywords to target, then surely the above results would prove interesting. For example, you could see which of the 4 countries above had an interest in what your web site is about. This in turn would tell you which countries you should target, and which you could safely ignore.

In case you are wondering how we obtained the above results . . . We did some basic research at the Overture site and found that it wasn't all that difficult to do. We also found that Overture provides the demand data in 19 countries around the world, covering Europe, Asia, North America, South America and Australasia. We need to point out that some areas were better represented than others. South America, for example, is represented by 1 country only, while Europe is covered by 11.

By going to the Overture site, anyone can likewise discover how to use Overture to research the demand for keywords in any of the 19 countries it supports.

To go back to the title of this article . . . I feel, and I hope that you will now agree with me, that any research on keywords that does not take into account countries is not complete. For one thing, don't you want to know where your visitors are most likely to come from?

In case you are not convinced about the point I am trying to make, I will try to explain in my next article other reasons why I think that proper keyword research should take into account countries.

Serge M Botans

=========================================

Serge M Botans is the CEO of Meta Keywords Advice,
a web site that provides advice on keywords. Free
evaluation available. He is also the inventor of CID,
which is an altenative to KEI.
=========================================

PS You may reproduce this article in your newsletter or ezine, or even on your web site as long as: you reproduce the whole article as is, you make no changes to it, and you make sure that all the links currently displayed are displayed as links.

Cattle Ramp SEO Resource is pleased to announce that we are now offering a new Meta Keywords Advice service.

Through this service, you will be able to discover exactly what keywords you should target with your web site. As you know, keywords are the way that search engines work and hence by targeting the right keywords, you will be able to get the right traffic from them.

Through our service, you will be able to:

- discover the best keywords you should use to target 3 market areas of your choice. You may not know this but, keywords can be country specific in the sense that a keyword in demand in one country may not be in demand in another country. Consequently, we offer to find for you the best keywords for your web site in 3 countries you want to target,

- get keywords that meet the keyword selection criteria you want. The usual criteria that is used to select keywords is called KEI. We have invented an alternative called CID that suggests keywords that are less competitive. And less competitive keywords are better keywords to target as they give you a better chance of cornering that section of the market. The keywords we will suggest will depend on whether you want us to use KEI or CID,

- get as big a variety of keywords as we can give you. This will enable you to choose your one main keyword that you feel is the very best keyword for your site. And don't worry about getting lots of keywords as we will only suggest keywords that are highly and appropriately relevant to your site,

- get as big a variety of keywords as we can give you to help you target what we call your secondary market. This secondary market is one that you will target using your non-main keywords. In some cases, there is a huge secondary market you can target through your secondary keywords. Our report to you will also include exact details on how you can set up your web site to target this secondary market. It is easier than you might think!

So, if you are in need of professional help with your keywords, then please get in touch with us through Meta Keywords Advice.

=============================
Serge M Botans
CEO of Cattle Ramp SEO Resource
and Meta Keywords Advice
author@cattle-ramp-seo.com
=============================

PS If you are wondering whether you need our help with your keywords, we offer a free, and obligation free, evaluation of the keywords you are currently using on your site. Further information is available from Free Keyword Evaluation

I have re-written my initial post and am posting here the new version. The reason for the re-write was that I was not happy with my initial post in that it did not logically convey the message of why I came up with CID, nor did it cover adequately the issues involved. It was also too long and too confusing to read. I hope that this post is easier to read and follow.
=================================================================

KEI Concerns and CID Alternative

Like many folks, I have been using KEI for some time now to determine what keywords I should target with my web site. And this has led me to becoming concerned with the results KEI provides and the keywords it suggests. I need to say here that my concern is very subjective as many folks are happily using KEI and don't seem to have a problem with it.

My main concern with KEI is that, by the way it works, it strongly favours demand numbers without, I feel, sufficiently taking into account the corresponding supply numbers.

I need to say here that I interpret supply numbers as a representation of how competitive a keyword is. For example, if keyword 1 has a supply of 200,000 while keyword 2 has a supply of 5,000,000, then I would consider keyword 2 as being more competitive than keyword 1.

And all things being equal, I would prefer to target a keyword that is less competitive and with less demand, rather than a highly competitive keyword that has a higher demand. The reason for this is that I feel that I have a better chance of cornering a section of a less competitive market than I do that of a highly competitive one.

Based on my concern with KEI, I have decided to create an alternative. I have called this alternative "Competition Indexed Demand" (CID). Now, CID works out the marketing potential of keywords in a similar way to KEI but it uses a different formula, one that takes more into account the supply numbers of keywords (or their competitiveness).

For example, using "ranking" as the starting keyword with Overture, KEI suggests the following top 3 keywords,

Keyword.............................Demand.........Supply............KEI
nfl quarterback ranking.............43,474.........75,800..........24,934
nfl power ranking...................43,171........122,000..........15,277
college basketball ranking..........71,149........541,000...........9,357

while CID suggests the following top 3 keywords,

Keyword.................................Demand..........Supply........CID
dick vitale college basketball ranking..16,983..........33,400........640
nfl quaterback ranking..................43,474..........75,800........427
vote nba power ranking...................3,129..........30,200........394

Comparing the 2 sets of results, you can see how CID favours lower competition compared to KEI. I have now used CID for quite a number of keyword research projects and have found that not only it favours lower competition, but it also suggests keywords that, I feel, have a better demand-supply balance.

Given that CID is an alternative to KEI, you now have to make a decision when doing your keyword research in order to determine the marketing potential of the best keywords to use. The decision is: shall I use KEI or CID? The answer to this question is straightforward: if you want to focus on high demand then use KEI, and if you want to focus on lower competition, then use CID.

Furthermore, based on my obervations of KEI and CID results, I have felt the need to come up with 2 rules to avoid both KEI and CID generating what I feel are inappropriately high numbers. My observation has been that these high numbers are generally generated because the demand and/or supply numbers are too high.

These 2 rules are:

- "the 100 thousand demand rule" which states that "any keywords whose demand numbers are above 100 thousands should be ignored",

- "the 10 million supply rule" which states that "any keywords whose supply numbers are above 10 million should be ignored".

Applying these 2 rules to KEI and/or CID will help you determine more realistically the marketing potential of keywords.

In conclusion, CID should be seen as an alternative to KEI and not as replacement for KEI. The reason for this is that CID focusses on the competitiveness of keywords while KEI focusses on the demand.

PS. I have not currently released the CID formula. However, you can download my program Keywords Analysis to work out both the KEI and CID of keywords as you do your own keywords research KeywordsAnalysis.zip

I would be interested to read your thoughts on this matter.

Enjoy!

=====================================
Serge M Botans is the CEO of the
self-help search engine optimisation
web site www.cattle-ramp-seo.com
email: author@cattle-ramp-seo.com
=====================================
Copyright © Serge M Botans, Melbourne, Australia, February 2005

=================================================================

PS. Feel free to reproduce this post if you feel that it might be a good discussion starter as long as you reproduce it in its entirety, that you don't edit any of it.

Introduction
Given that most people who look for something on the Internet use search engines,

- is your web site currently listed with search engines? If your web site is not listed with search engines, then you will not get any traffic from them. And not getting any traffic from them is a serious waste of a precious source of free targeted traffic,

- do you currently get targeted traffic to your web site from search engines? When we say "targeted traffic", we mean visitors who are interested in your web site even before they get there.

The Reality
Both these things, amazingly, can be acheived by doing just the one thing: optimising your web site for search engines. The reason for this is that:

- optimising your web site for search engines will improve your ranking with them,

- a better ranking with search engines mean a better listing in search engine results,

- a better listing in search engine results means that your web site will be more visible to more people,

- and your web site being more visible to more people means more traffic to your web site,

- and the traffic that will come to your web site will be from people who already have an interest in what your site is about because they will have seen your site after doing a search for a keyword that you will have targeted.

Our Service
At Cattle Ramp SEO Resource, we have all the information and tools you need to optimise your web site for search engines. We cover the issues of meta tags, keywords, page rank, link popularity, and much much more . . .

It is only by having a properly optimised web site, targeting just the right keywords, that you will be able to get more and better traffic to your web site from search engines.

Find out more about optimising your web site at Cattle Ramp SEO Resource

Serge M Botans

support@cattle-ramp-seo.com
Phone: 61-03-94787088
Mobile: 61-0415-642424

I have settled on the final formula for CID and I have implemented it into my program Keywords Analysis which is available from http://www.cattle-ramp-seo.com/KeywordsAnalysisCID.zip

As I mentioned in an earlier post, CID should be seen as an alternative to KEI (and certainly not a replacement of KEI). CID works the same way as KEI but it takes more into account the competition (or supply numbers) of keywords. My understanding of KEI is that it favours high demand numbers. CID in contrast favours lower competition and so will generally suggest different keywords.

For example, CID will consider a keyword with demand of 270 and supply of 84,000 as "better" than a keyword with demand of 690 and supply of 420,000 simply because it has less competition than the second keyword. And less competition implies a greater chance of cornering that section of the market.

Whether you should use KEI or CID will depend on how you choose to determine the marketing potential of keywords: high demand or lower competition.

I have found through trials that in some cases, CID and KEI will suggest almost the same keywords to target. While in other cases, CID will suggest totally different keywords to what KEI does.

My program Keywords Analysis will determine both the KEI and CID of keywords at the same time. So you will be able to compare the keywords suggested by KEI and by CID numbers yourself and decide which one you want to use. You might even decide to use KEI in some cases, and CID in other cases.

I would love to read your thoughts and comments on CID as an alternative to KEI.

Enjoy!

Following the suggestion of a user of Keyword Page Generator, I have added the option for the keyword pages to be saved either as HTM files or as HTML pages.

Enjoy!

It appears that there was a problem with the December release of Keywords Analysis whereby clicking on the DEMAND button would cause an error.

This has now been fixed and should work properly.

Enjoy!

Like many folks, I too have needed to conduct my own keyword research for my web sites and have found the available online services and software somewhat annoying. Unless I was prepared to pay for better services and/or software.

The problem I had was that while I could use the Overture tool to get a list of searched keywords + their demand numbers, there was no easy way for me to readily get the demand numbers from Google. I effectively had to do it by hand and then use a spreadsheet to enter all the information and data, enter the formula to work out the KEI and then save my results.

What a time consuming exercise and a huge waste of time!

I then decided that I would write my own Windows program that would automate the whole process for me. Keywords Analysis is the program I end up with.

So now,

• I type into Keywords Analysis the keyword I want to use as a basis for my research,
  
• Keywords Analysis then displays the suggested searched keywords as provided by Overture together with their demand numbers,
• I then click on a button and it automatically gets the Google supply numbers, and
• once it has the numbers from Google, it works out the KEI for me automatically.
  

And I could be doing something else while Keywords Analysis does all this!

Additionally, I have made sure that:

• I can copy the list of keywords to the clipboard in case I want to paste it somewhere else,
• it includes a progress bar and an estimated time of completion to keep me informed of its progress,
• I can delete keywords from the list of keywords there and then so I can end up with just the keywords I want to focus on or keep
• all the columns that display the results are sortable so I can easily see which keywords are the best to use.

I have also added the option to do an "exact search" for the Google supply numbers or "not an exact search" (more information on this is available in the read_me file that comes with the program as it takes a while to explain).

This program is now available to you and it is totally and unconditionally free.

You can find out more about it at http://www.cattle-ramp-seo.com/keywords-analysis.htm
Enjoy!

Like many people, I have experienced the frustration of trying to optimise my web site for a list of keywords. I then came across an article on how to use gateway or keyword pages to expand the number of keywords one can target at their web site. And this led to my development of the Windows program: Keyword Page Generator.

In short, once you have set up a Master Keyword Page with appropriate content to satisfy your visitors, and optimised for search engines, you can use Keyword Page Generator to generate as many keyword pages as you have keywords you want to target.

I have used it at one of my web site, as an experiment, for one of my programs >Budget Manager, and I am getting four times as many registration applications for it as I was prior to setting up keyword pages for that program.

I used to get 2-3 registration applications every second day. Now I get around 4-5 per day. An obvious increase solely due to the keyword pages I have created as I changed nothing else at my web site.

You can download Keyword Page Generator from http://www.cattle-ramp-seo.com/keyword-page-generator.htm

The program is totally and unconditionally free for you to use.

Enjoy!