swine flu and natural treatments can teach you some SEO ;-)

[eoin.oleary]

This swine flu and natural treatments post is a follow on from this http://www.irishbusinesswomen.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=12297 thread.

Being first for any keyword in Google.ie is not a sign of good SEO.

Getting to number 1 in Google is partially based on how many other websites also have pages for that Keyword.

In the case of the keywords, "swine flu natural treatment", at this point in time, no other Irish web site is using the words "swine flu natural treatment" ... so if your web page is about "swine flu natural treatment" you have to show up first in Google.ie.


You can learn a little SEO from this, by understanding that in order to rank high in any search engine, you need to look at how many competitive pages are in that search engine, for the keyword you want to rank for.

If there are 200,000 competing pages, you will have a slow, difficult job ... if there are only 100, then your job is easier ... so pick your fights carefully, go for low hanging fruit first.

Eoin

P.S. I wonder if this post will rank for swine flu natural treatment now?

[eoin.oleary]

P.S. I wonder if this post will rank for swine flu natural treatment now?

Yes it did, to number 2 today.

I wrote a post in my blog that explains what I have been trying to show by this post haer http://eoinoleary.com/2009/05/05/swine-flu-and-natural-treatments-can-teach-you-seo-basics/.

Eoin

[Tracy]

Good post Eoin!

A good hint is to search for the keyword in quotes, e.g. "swine flu natural treatments" and count how much competition you have. My understanding that anything less than 5000 for the keywords in quotes is worth going for, i.e. writing a keyword-focussed page on, and aiming to rank for that.

[eoin.oleary]

Thanks Tracy, I didn't do it clear enough in here, it was Friday

My understanding that anything less than 5000 for the keywords in quotes is worth going for, i.e. writing a keyword-focussed page on, and aiming to rank for that.

Yes, I agree anything less than 5000 for the keywords in quotes is worth going for.

Personally, I will attack anything less than 100,000 for the keywords in quotes, just to see if I get lucky, (and I have on many occasions ) but anything less than 30,000 for the keywords in quotes is the criteria I use now.

This is all taking for granted that proper keyword research is done, to find if there are already people searching for the keywords you are going to work on.

It's well worth trying, because it won't take long to do and the results can be quick, as was seen in my Blog post.
Google found the the IBW thread AND ranked if for the phrase "swine flu and natural treatments" in around four days.

Eoin