Its 2AM, do you know where your website is?

You've selected the perfect website template. You’re finally ready to show the world your professional website...but will anyone be able to find it?

When I began my career as a webmaster 5 years ago, I assumed that if I had a great looking website it would naturally bring visitors. I found a great looking professional website template for the small business I worked for, customized it...and waited. To my surprise, no visitors appeared. I kept wondering what I had done wrong? I used PPC ads and trusted feeds to bring the traffic to my website but it seemed very expensive and didn’t yield the results I expected. I didn't quite understand why how those other non-paid listings (for the same products I sold) were listed ahead of me. My desire for an improved search engine ranking(or any search engine ranking) drove me to find a solution.

I visited webmaster forums, read many newsletters and websites and discovered a great little tool called Wordtracker. I learned that if I had only used keywords that people "really" searched for, I could build my whole website around them and the visitors would come! I used Wordtracker, Overture, and Alta Vista to come up with some suggestions. To my surprise some of the words I thought people were searching for, they weren't searching for at all. I quickly learned that it wasn't realistic to target one word phrases like "baby" or "toys" because they were way too broad and competitive. I also found that people were searching for specific products I sold. I quickly realized that the more words I used that were specific to my business, the better chance I had of conversions (sales).

Once I was able to step outside the box and look at the real data that was in front of me, I decided to revamp my professional website template, include realistic, targeted keywords, develop original content based on these keywords and re-release my website to the world. About 2 months after I did, I finally saw results. It worked! Search engine directory submissions and solid link campaign were next. I was so happy with the results that I decided to form my own website to teach people just like me how they too can improve search engine rankings with the right keyword search strategy. I never realized how much a keyword search strategy could benefit a website until I saw it for myself. Now, my professional website template brings targeted traffic with conversions!

About the Author

Cindy Kelly is the developer of TheWebDecorators.com, a website design company that offers affordable website design services to small businesses.

Get this free KEYWORD RESEARCH GUIDE from Wordtracker - Free PDF Download