Strategic organic SEO begins with solid keyword research and website analysis. Keyword research requires an in-depth look into both external and internal factors. Although most insights for SEO derive from external sources, such as keyword search volumes and sources of traffic, some ideas for optimization may spawn from internal intelligence. Have you ever wondered which page of a website is most primed to rank for a select search phrase? For smaller websites, the answer might be obvious.

But for larger websites, particularly those optimizing for new keywords or hefty long-tails, the answer to that question might be harder to find. Here we offer one of the simple keyword research techniques to help you evaluate your site's search prowess from an internal perspective. In other words, this easy research tactic will tell you which pages of a website have the highest potential to rank on a given keyword target.

Enter: Google Search "Site:"

At Google.com, enter in the search field "site:" followed by the domain of the website (no space, including www.). Submitting this search query alone will exclusively display the most powerful webpages of the domain in the organic results. However, if after the domain a keyword phrase is added, the results will then rank the webpages of the site in relation to the latter phrase.

Consider this make-believe scenario: The SEO team behind www.carters.com is optimizing the website for kid's sleepwear, particularly pajamas for boys. As a large ecommerce store for baby and toddler clothing, the webpage on carters.com that is most related to boys pajamas may requires some digging. The SEO team can determine the most relevant page on the site for "boy’s pajamas" with the "site:" technique. They can do a Google search for "site:www.carters.com boys pajamas" - and voila!

Now the SEO team of www.carters.com can be certain that the "Boys Pajamas | Kids Sleepwear" page is best primed for the keyword optimization of "boys pajamas."

This information is invaluable, because it does not rely on assumptions or SEO speculation. This internal keyword research technique objectively tells us the page(s) most relevant to the keyword phrase from Google's point-of-view. This little keyword research trick can help you pinpoint both the most powerful overall webpages of a website, as well as the most relevant webpages of a website with respect to a give keyword. For deep websites, this can be an efficient technique, saving time from sifting though sitemaps and website navigation. And if the results of the “site:” research are undesirable, this keyword research technique might even motivate the creation of new, more optimized webpage.

Writing compelling press releases and distributing them through the right platforms is a start, however when taken a step further, press releases offer great potential for Internet marketing and SEO. An optimized press release can result in better search engine visibility and a greater contribution to a website’s SEO efforts.

Consider the following 5 tips to optimize a press release.

5 Tips For Press Release Optimization

1. Like an optimized webpage, an optimized press release should contain relevant keywords. Think in terms of what someone might be searching on the web that may lead them to your press release. Include such phrases in the title and throughout the body of the press release.
    
2. Format your press release using headers, bold or strong tags, and italics. Take the keywords in which you pinpointed from step one, and use them in headers or bold them in appropriate instances throughout the copy.
    
3. Include links in your press release. Whether back to your website, or to a credible source relevant to the press release, including links can make your press release more valuable. In addition, links with custom anchor text can be a great tool for SEO.
    
4. Utilize images and videos to better optimize a press release. Take this one step further by using your keyword targets name these files, and if allowed, use keywords appropriately as alternative text (alt tags).
    
5. Invest for distribution. Free syndication is not always as effective if your goal is to optimize your website and press release visibility. A pay-for-use press release submission site increases the chances of your press release being ranked well in the search engines. PRweb and i-Newswire are two that offer great features.

Press release optimization offers a number of advantages, from generating valuable backlinks to expanding your search visibility. Don’t just publish your press release, optimize your press release for greater opportunities.

For all the newbie’s in the SEO game looking to increase your rank, the term anchor text is used to define the visible words that are displayed on a link. Anchor text substitutes the need to link using the URL and enables search engine spiders to crawl the site being linked to with better sense of direction. The spider can gauge the relevancy of the anchor text to that of the webpage’s content, making it more popular to certain keywords.

For example, a link with the anchor text free rank checker that directs users to http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/rank-checker/ tells search engine that this webpage is about a “free rank checker" and will better rank the site in the organic search results for users searching for similar keywords.

Optimized Anchor Text for Partial Linking

The practice of applying anchor text may seem simple; however there is one strategy to better your organic listings in the search engines. Using anchor text for partial linking a powerful tactic is often overlooked by many in the SEO business. Partial linking is just like it sounds – using only part of the keyword phrase for SEO in the links anchor text.

A few examples of solid partial linking in anchor text (when targeting the keyword phrase “Felt triathlon bikes") would be “top triathlon bikes", “Felt brand bikes" or “learn more about Felt."

As link building continues to be dominant in SEO, using the best practices of anchor text is critical. Start using creative SEO anchor text links to better your organic search performance.

Many websites fail to attract the amount of visitors they desire. This is often because the preliminary keyword research of the SEO process was insufficient and viewed from the wrong lens.

For the best direction leading to SEO success, there are many elements that must be analyzed. Most of these stem from using the right Internet marketing tools.

To help you become more successful with your SEO efforts, we outline four essential tools that the best Internet marketers use.

The Google Keyword Tool

Google provides a keyword research tool intended for Pay Per Click advertisers that displays the number (or volume) of people per month that are searching a given phrase. The data provided by the Google Keyword Tool helps to determine both the worthiness and the competitiveness of certain keywords. These two factors may be interrelated, because often a keyword that appears worthy of optimization lacks heavy competition.

Traffic Travis

Traffic Travis is a software platform that comes in both free and paid versions. It offer a fantastic competition analysis tool that provides a “difficulty rating” for a website's ability to rank on select search terms. In essence, Traffic Travis enables you to analyze how difficult it will be to rank and get traffic.

SEO Spyglass

Backlinks are the most powerful indicator of a strong site, especially for SEO. The link analysis provided by SEO Spyglass allows you to see where a site's backlinks are coming from. Spyglass will also provide statistical analysis on the pages containing those links, such as the Google Page Rank and anchor text. The information provided by this tool allows marketers to gauge how strong their websites are as well as their competitor’s. 

Google Website Optimizer

Conversions are key for SEO, and if your landing pages are not converting, your efforts are going nowhere. The Google Website Optimizer allows you to test different versions of a page to analyze which aspects of the page contribute to greater conversions.

Making decisions based on the factual statistics that these tools collect is likely to improve a website’s SEO efforts. By using these Internet marketing tools, you can give your website the SEO TLC it needs to move in the right direction.