Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your website

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contains information that is closely tied to the search term. And don’t make the rookie

mistake of only thinking about your home page:

Let’s say you work for a toy store. For the search term “godzilla action figures,”

a good landing page is the page that contains the description of the Godzilla action fig-

ures you’re selling and a link to purchase them. For the more generic term “action

figures,” a good landing page might contain a menu of all the action figures you’re sell-

ing with links to learn more about each one. By the way, the landing pages you select

today do not need to currently have your keyword of choice on it; they just need to be

relevant to the keyword. We’ll help you add keywords later, in Your SEO Plan.

If you can’t think of an existing page that is a good match for one of your key-

words, you have two choices: plan to build a new landing page, or drop the keyword

out of your short list.

Finalize Your Short List

You’ve researched, you’ve analyzed, you’ve combined, and you’ve assigned. Now, it’s

time to drop those last few not-ready-for-prime-time terms!

We’re going to ask you to trim your flagged list to your top 10 or so. You prob-

ably already have a good idea of which ones are your favorites, but in case you’re still

on the fence, here are some ways to frame your thought process:

Am I being inclusive?

While you were assigning landing pages, did you discover that

you have flagged too many terms for one audience or that you left a conversion out in

the cold? You didn’t fill out your Goals Worksheet in Chapter 1 for nothing. Use it

now to help choose keywords that reflect all your target audiences and conversions.

Does my keyword have a good home?

If you love a keyword but you can’t find an

existing landing page for it, now is the time to examine your reasoning for flagging it

in the first place. Does it represent a legitimate opportunity or goal for your organiza-

tion? Do you have the resources to build a page around this term? Do a reality check

now, because it doesn’t make sense to build Your SEO Plan around terms you can’t

optimize for.

Now:

One by one, step through your flagged keywords and assign a landing page to each one.

Pearl of Wisdom:

Your home page will likely be the best landing page choice for your company

name but not for many of your other keywords.

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