Choosing and Optimizing Keywords

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First off, just wanted to introduce myself. My name is Garrett, I've been kind of a lurker here on the forums for the past month or so, trying to learn as much as possible.

Anyway, on to my question... I can't seem to find anything that addresses my question specifically.

I am trying to figure out which keywords to choose and how to optimize for them properly.

Let's pretend my keyword is: blue running shoes

And that my title is: Buy Blue Running Shoes Cheap

And my anchor text would be: Buy Blue Running Shoes Cheap

Does the anchor text count as a vote only for the phrase: Buy Blue Running Shoes Cheap

OR

Does the anchor text count as a vote for each individual word in the anchor text,?

For example, does that anchor text count as a vote for the following search phrases:

Buy Running Shoes
Buy Shoes Cheap
Buy Blue Shoes Cheap
Buy Running Shoes Cheap
Buy Blue Shoes
Cheap Running Shoes
...and any other combination you could think of


Thanks for the help!
#search engine optimization #choosing #keywords #optimizing
  • It will count towards any keyword in the phrase.

    So you could use anchor text buy blue running shoes cheap, and rank for blue running shoes... or the other way around.

    You could also rank for advantages of cheap running shoes, depending on the content of the page.

    Google is funny like this, you often get more traffic from unsuspecting keywords when you first start out.

    Try to vary the anchor-text as much as possible, vary the capital letters, vary the wording, etc. Your linking campaign must look as natural as possible to gain long-term results from your keywords.

    By the way, welcome to the forum!

    -Dave
    • [1] reply
    • Thanks for the answer Dave!

      Let's assume I really was selling blue running shoes, and like I said before my page title is "Buy Blue Running Shoes Cheap".

      My interpretation of what you're saying is that by creating anchor text and doing on page SEO for 'Buy Blue Running Shoes Cheap', I could be targeting and possibly ranking on a much larger number of phrases such as:

      Buy blue shoes
      Buy running shoes
      Buy shoes
      Buy cheap shoes
      Cheap shoes
      Blue running shoes
      Cheap blue shoes
      ... and other combinations

      If this means what I think, wouldn't it be an advantage for my anchor text to contain as many relevant individual words as possible?

      i.e. 'Buy Blue Running Shoes Cheap' as my anchor text instead of 'Blue Running Shoes' which would only target the following phrases (sure, you could have 'blue shoes running' etc but that would be a nonsense phrase):

      blue running shoes
      running shoes
      blue shoes
      shoes

      -Garrett
  • Hey Garrett.

    That's correct, but you must remember that anchor text is not everything.

    It is completely likely you will show up for low competition keywords for "green sneakers in south africa" when you are only using "buy blue running shoes online". This all depends on WHERE you are getting links from and what you have on your landing page.

    Therefore your last statement is not entirely true, as you could use the anchor-text 'blue running shoes' and still rank for 'buy blue running shoes online' even though the words 'buy' and 'cheap' are not in any of your anchor-text.

    On another note, if you are actually selling something (ie; blue running shoes), it would make sense to target the phrase "buy blue running shoes cheap" because there would be less competition than "blue running shoes". This would mean more targeted customers...

    You could spend ages trying to rank for "blue running shoes" and get loads of traffic. But your traffic might want to learn about blue running shoes, they might want to see pictures of blue running shoes, etc. It's too broad.

    Go for a BUYERS term like "buy blue running shoes cheap online" for example, this would mean you are only focusing your energy on traffic that already have their credit cards in their hand and ready to buy blue running shoes online for a cheap price.

    That is a little offtopic but had to mention it
    • [1] reply
    • Thanks Dave,

      Let's say my competitions core term is 'blue running shoes'

      If my anchor text and on page optimization focuses on 'buy blue running shoes' and other more specific terms, I might be able to outrank them?

      The problem I am having is that my competition has thousands of backlinks. One competitor even has almost 27,000 backlinks according to Yahoo. In Google only 45 of the backlinks show up but from what I've read Google does not show all the backlinks it takes in to account.

      Even when I type in 'buy blue running shoes', 'buy blue running shoes online cheap', 'buy blue running shoes online cheap today' many of these competitors show up in the top 10.

      Most of my competitions backlinks are pretty spammy, they are placed on pages obviously created simply to boost their rankings.

      I am unsure how to go about a strategy so that I will at least show up in the top 10 for terms that see any real traffic since many of the same competition seems to show up no matter what I type :confused:
  • The aim for the small affiliate marketer like you is to firstly go for these long-tail keywords.

    The competition might be targeting 'blue running shoes' but he might be on page one for:

    blue running shoes
    blue sneakers
    blue running shoes online
    buy blue running shoes
    purchase blue running shoes
    buying cheap blue running shoes
    etc.

    ..even though he isn't specifically targeting any one of those longer-tail keywords.

    Your job is to optimize your page for one of these long-tail keywords and do some backlinking while focusing your anchor-text on the specific long-tail keyword (you should vary it slightly but the majority should be the exact keyword you are targeting).

    If the big site with thousands of links isn't actively targeting the long-tail keyword, it would be possible to outrank him with just a few-hundred targeted backlinks.

    It's not always about link quantity, quality is what matters and if most of the competitors links are spammy looking you would have a good chance in outranking the keyword he is going for with much less links.

    Things like domain-age, link velocity, freshness of content, age of backlinks, etc. would also effect the rankings so there is no hard and fast rule as to how many backlinks you will need.

    Just focus your anchor text on the long-tail keyword (with variations) and spend more time on getting high-quality backlinks links to your site.
    • [1] reply
    • Thanks a ton Dave!

      I think I understand now.

      If my back-links anchor text typically focuses on: 'buy blue running shoes online', I will rank much quicker and beat my competitors more easily for the phrase 'buy blue running shoes online'... but at the same time I am also building rank for the term 'blue running shoes'.

      Eventually once I have enough back-links for 'buy blue running shoes online' I could outrank my competition for that specific phrase since the competitors page is only optimized for 'blue running shoes'

      Once my PR/Age/Back-link profile grows, there is a chance that I could eventually outrank them for the core term 'blue running shoes'.

      The funny part about all this is that even though the competitors seem to have gone after tons of back-links, generally their on-page optimization is pretty bad according to Market Samurai.
  • Hey Dave,

    The landing page should be the homepage or the product page or mix with both?
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    Choosing and Optimizing Keywords

    First off, just wanted to introduce myself. My name is Garrett, I've been kind of a lurker here on the forums for the past month or so, trying to learn as much as possible. Anyway, on to my question... I can't seem to find anything that addresses my question specifically.