5 replies to this topic

[ronfrank]

Hi all,

I am fairly new to this and am wondering how important it is to to use keywords for the buttons of your sites primary catagories. I have tried to use SBI to build a site a couple times and keep getting stuck finding the keywords that communicate what I want along with fitting the SBI guidelines. I have given up before but want to try again.

I have been reading at this forum and just read a recent post where it was said that keywords in your domain name are not important. Well, SBI drives it home that it is very important and that your 2nd tier words should be related kewords to your domaine name that become the bottons for primary site navigation.

Everytime I try this I get really hung up. I am not techically minded at all but do understand the marketing concept. I find it very difficult to find words that provide an outline that seems logical and professional. Sometimes, the words that seem right for describing catagories either have too little demand or too much supply - and the words that I come up with in keyword research don't fit the structure I want. Is it just as effective to use the keywords people are looking for in the text while using something else for your domaine name and navigation buttons?

For example, I am a builder and want to develop a website to provide resources for people that want to build or remodel their own home. I was considering putting owner builder or home building in the domaine name. Owner builder has a small amount of demand while home building has quite a bit - does it matter what I use? Also, fo primary categories, project planning has no demand but describes an important area of the process - can I use that for a button and use keywords to describe aspects of the planning process, and then develop it further in subcategories. Another primary category would be construction loans - in contrast to planning this has a large demand. According to SBI, it probably could be a website topic itself but it is only a piece of what I offer. Can I use a keyword with high demand as a button and then try to narrow the focus as I write content for that subject?

I sure will appreciate any input - I am about to embark on this website stuff again and don't want to get stuck in the same place.

Ron

[Jill]

Hi Ron,

I think you're getting a bit hung up on the whole process and are overthinking things. The stuff you're learning is just guidelines. There are absolutely no hard and fast rules with SEO at all. Basically, don't worry about it.

Use the knowledge you're learning to give you a basic start, but then use your common sense and what you know to be true and good to guide you the rest of the way.

Always remember what search engines are looking for...the best, most useful sites for their users -- the searchers. Create that and don't get bogged down with the details, just keep them in mind and use them where and when you can.

Hope this helps!

Jill

[ronfrank]

Thanks for the quick reply - You are sure right about getting hung up. My computor skills are totally intuitive and I have a sense about what you are saying and the confirmation is helpful. Could you (or others) give me some specific input to my example - I think that would help me see if I am on the right track.

[BizWoman]

Hi Ron:
As more of a Learner here (sounds better than "lurker") than a frequent poster, I will jump in to help you, as I was an SBI website owner for 2 years (one site 2 yrs, another site hosted for 1 year--moved them off SBI for various reasons), and struggled with almost exactly what you've discussed when I was setting up my first website.

I had NO internet marketing experience, and for some reason the concept of keywords, how to use them/integrate them into your domain name, content, etc etc etc ... well it was making my head spin.

Let me tell you what worked for me with my first site (which obviously was the learning curve for me internet marketing-wise) and you take from it what you wish

OK, that first site was (and it still is) a DIY hobbyist-related themed website. I struggled with the domain name (yes...SBI tells you you had better place your "main" keyword phrase in it) and spent a lot of time just going through seach engine results, looking at top ranking sites and what their domain names were in relation to what their website was about ... and I got even more confused!

And then (thankfully) I read a post in the SBI forums by a long term moderator that said, in essence "don't stress too much over the issue of HAVING to choose a domain name what can utilize your main keyword phrase." Because think of this Ron ... some websites may want to brand themselves ... you know, for instance like "IBM.com" or say "Yahoo.com". Think about it ... those two domain names certainly do NOT have any keyword phrase to tip off the search engine spiders about what the website theme is really about, do they?

So...I finally chose a domain name that incorporated a keyword that was related to my niche in the very broadest sense, but a domain name that to me, did indeed "say" what my website theme was about.

Have I been "punished" ranking wise?? Nope! I hold many top ranking positions for many keyword phrases that are truly being searched for by people ... so what am I saying here? Choose a domain name that sits well with you ... and if you like the ring of it ... then go fo it! My domain name just "felt right" to me so I took a deep breath, bought it and am glad I choose the one I did.

About "buttons" ... I have used common sense when deciding how to label each navigation button. Think about your visitor trying to navigate around your website once they have landed there. With the limited space you have with SBI SiteBuilder generated navigation buttons...what word(s) will get the general idea of what the information pertains to if your visitor clicks on that button. Follow me here?

If your button says "Construction Loans" ... then if I click on it, I'd want to land on page(s) of content that are related to this information.

I think you are somewhat confused about the role the actual labeling of a navigation button plays in SEO. None--it's the quality of your keyword focused content, and all the other on-page & off-page factors that you need to "worry" about.

Bottom line, if you can incorporate your keyword(s) into each navagation button, fine. If not, again, I have no knowledge that I have suffered ranking-wise by not utlizing the exact keyword phrase on my navigation buttons.

If I can kind of paraphrase what Jill has said, the quality of your CONTENT is what will be one of the most important factors in dictating the success of your website on-up-the-road. Not your domain name nor what you may choose to label your navigation buttons with.

Again, (relating to what I went through with my first site) in many respects like you, segments of information that I wanted to integrate into my site where in outrageously competitive keyword phrases. So I just decided to (as Jill said) use COMMON SENSE and provide information that I felt was pertinent and necessary to my website visitors.

Low-demand, or high-demand ... I finally stopped worrying too muuch about the "demand vs. supply numbers" and wrote articles if I felt it was important to my visitor. And guess what? I am ranking highly for many of those competitive and truly searched for terms that I NEVER thought I'd ever stand a chance at being found for! (Yes .. have faith ... lol)

I did my darndest to "satsify" the SBI SiteBuidler's Analyzer tool for every page I wrote, yet did not stress too much if I didn't quite "pass" the keyword saturation portion.

As SBI teaches ... quality keyword-focused content is king. And if you do well there, and follow the most basic of proven SEO guidelines, as taught by SBI and also very freely offered via Jill's free SEO articles on her HighRankings.com site, and of course the wealth of information you can learn from here on her forum, well you ought to do just fine.

This is a bit long, but I feel for you, because it was quite overwhelming for me in the beginning, too.

Hope this helped you. Good luck!

[ACpeter]

Hi ronfrank
I agree with the info already supplied here, but you may want to try this. As you will commonly see, a lot of websites have additional navigation (text links) along the bottom of the site. You could set up your categories to work with the limitations of SBI, and then at the bottom of the page, add links (in small text) to each of the categories. As an example....

Category One | Category Two | Category Three | Category Four

In those links, because they are just regular text links, you can put exactly what you wanted to put in the button. We have used this concept on several sites. As far as I know, there is no penalty for linking more than once to the same page of a site. Plus you get the advantage of the spiders picking up those text links that have a better description of the page.

It's worked well for all of our sites. Thought it may be of help to you! Good luck!

[ronfrank]

Thanks BizWoman - I am slowly getting more comfortable with this. I was involved with building a website several years ago with a friend and (mostly) we used common sense learning the seo stuff and the site did pretty good. I went with [removed] this time to try to learn more myself (my friend did the seo stuff last time) but have been overwhelmed - kind of feeling constrained by the system. Your answer makes much sense and relieves some anxiety

AC - I like your idea. Would that work the same as putting a few category buttons at the bottom of the header and then running a list of buttons on the side? Can you post a link to your site for an example?



Ron