We’ll be talking about SEO and Carla will be giving some of her expert advice on how to use proper SEO with your website or online store.  Also if you get a chance check out her services that she offers—I actually use Carla for my SEO for my Barefoot Bella boutique and I have had some great results due to her work –so I can wholeheartedly recommend her.  So check out our interview for some great tips from an expert on SEO!!  Search Engine Optimization By My SEO Gal.  Carla is also a contributor to the “SEO Lessons” portion of the StartAnOnlineStore.com Ecommerce Training School–so if you want to learn what she knows about SEO check out the course for some great instruction on proper SEO for your website.

Search engine optimization is probably the most important factor their is when it comes to making a website successful. Keyword research isn’t the only factor but it definately holds a lot of weight in getting targeted traffic to your website.  As we all know without targeted traffic your website won’t get too far.

So all that being said here are some of the key points to good keyword research for SEO.

• Keyword Research—Good targeted keywords are essential when starting your SEO research.  If you optimize your site for the wrong keywords you will never see the results you are looking for. I use a website called http://www.seobook.com for my keyword research.  They have a free tool you can type your keywords into to see how many people are searching for your particular keyword on a daily basis.
• Use longtail keywords when picking keywords to research and use.  Longtail means a keyword phrase instead of just one keyword.  This will help your keywords to be alot more targeted then just a general topic.  For an example–if someone wanted to learn how to bake a chocolate chip cake–they wouldn’t just type in chocolate cake for their search–they would most likely type in “how to bake a chocolate chip cake”.  So their search would be alot more targeted.
• The general rule for keyword density in your blog posts, articles,  and/or product descriptions is 3-5%.  Meaning for every 100 words of your article you should use your keyword 3 -5 times.
• Use <h1> header tags and place your keyword phrase within those tags.
• Use your main keyword in the <title> tags of the website.
• Use your keywords in your title of your blog posts and articles.
• Bold some of your keywords throughout your copy.
• Use <alt>image tags and place your keyword within the tag.
• Place your keyword once at the beginning of your copy and once at the end of the copy.

Hopefully this will get you started out right when you start your keyword research and SEO for your website.