This is the third in a series of posts that will explain what we do and what it all means for your small business SEO.  We’ll publish one new post per day at 9 am EST all this week.

SEO Service Explanation Posts

1. On page optimization
2. Off site link building, directories, listing services, etc.
3. Keyword research assistance with KEI values
4. Custom 404 error page directory. (Thursday Feb. 16th)
5. Internal link building. (Friday Feb. 17th)
6. Competitors Analysis + Attack. (Saturday Feb. 18th)
7. “Popularity Contest.” (Sunday Feb. 19th)
8. Monthly Plans (Monday Feb 20th)

The SEO equation

Search engine optimization is very simple.  Ranking higher on Google is only: On site SEO + Off site SEO.   So why was this series not just 2 posts?  Read on!

Keywords – Wrong and Right

I have a friend.  Let’s call him Jason … mostly because that’s his name.  Jason decided to optimize his site like every other photographer for “Greenville wedding photographer.”   Jason is also on Page 1 of Google for Clemson bridal portrait, Greenville bridal portraits and Furman (a local college) bridal portraits.   But as of October, Jason didn’t get much traction on Greenville photographer, SC wedding photographer or SC photographer. *  Most photographers, like Jason (and myself), start off targeting CITY TYPE PHOTOGRAPHER and this is almost always the incorrect way of getting the most out of your SEO.

But he’s page 1 … shouldn’t that be enough?  It really does depend what keywords you’re using to get to Page 1.  See, “greenville sc wedding photographers” has a KEI of 2.786 and “Greenville photographers” is a 34.  

So what is KEI?

KEI stands for Keyword Efficiency Index.  What that means is “how many times is this word actually searched vs. the amount of competition it has.”  It’s a way to find profitable niches for SEO companies.  For our use, it’s a way to say “is this a good or bad keyword for me?”

The formula for calculating KEI is = (volume of searches per day)^2/(total number of competitors).

So let’s put that in real numbers for Jason’s searches above.

“Greenville SC wedding photographers” has 359,000 competitors and 1000 searches per month.  This is incredibly high competition for an incredibly worthless keyword.  1000 visit per month translates to just over 30 pageviews a day.  While not insignificant for a wedding photographer, keep in mind that there are 359,000 pages vying for those 30 hits per day.  The KEI of 2.786 tells us that there is little reason to purposely optimize for this keyword phrase.

“Greenville photographers” on the other hand has 1.36M competitors and 5400 searches per month.  This is a KEI of 21.441 or nearly 10x the KEI of the other keyword.  Because it’s a two-word keyphrase and not a four-word keyphrase, it’s also easy to find these competitors on other results if you add to it. 

So, optimizing for the second keyphrase – Greenville photographers – means that you can expect a lot more actual traffic.  

Is KEI the only factor?

Many searches our clients want us to optimize for have a 0.00 KEI – many, many competitors and almost no traffic.  We started offering keyword research to assist our clients in reaching their goals – not only for “page one” but for appearing on search results that actually matter to their potential clients.   The search “South Carolina photographer” has a 14 KEI and 22,200 searches per month – almost 750 per day!  However, if a client from Charleston finds Jason in Greenville, they are less likely to hire him than if they found a photographer right in their own city.  

So what we do is separate great keywords from average or even bad keywords.  Showing up high on “cute kid photos” is great but it will almost never convert that searcher into a client of yours.  Our goal is to figure out which keywords will help you the most and spend our time doing the SEO that benefits you most.   Hopefully you see what a valuable service this is for a small fee.

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Tomorrow we will discuss 404 error pages and why High on SEO offers custom error pages for our clients.  

* Jason is currently ranked on the top 2 pages of Google for half his top six KEI keywords.