How to pick keywords while making your site coherent?

[emcacace]

My company is in the service industry, in particular we create databases for companies to use in house. Therefore, when I think of what we do, I think "database solutions".

We have 3 different types of services/approaches we take which I created keywords for those.

Through research I found that people don't look for database solutions, instead they look for the type of database i.e. "inventory database" or "database developer" or the technology used.  I understand 'funneling' of a site from general to specific so I understand how to deal with the first type of keyword. But what about the second. Having my general database page optimized for 'database developer' would be awkward. Specially in the anchor text in my menu link.

Any suggestions? Common strategies used for this type of scenario? Is it ok to still have the internal link be 'database solutions' but then optimize the page for 'database developer'? I'm a newbie struggling with keyword research/selection so any insight would be much appreciated!

[emcacace]

Sounds good! You have been very helpful Matt.

I am assuming then that if I wanted to target a few other related keywords I could link from this new page to the these other pages. So for example in "Our Database Developers" page I could link to "Our MS Access Programmers" for more specific content? Or do you think just having one page (i.e. Our Database Developers) with a sub-section will suffice?

Last question I promise! Using your approach you changed the keyword to plural. I read somewhere that it was not recommended to do that since most people search for singular keywords. Also, according to Google there are more results for the singular keywords. What are your thoughts on that? Am I going not going to rank for the singular term then?

Again thanks a lot! Your insight is very helpful.

[Matt-Williamson]

Hi Eduardo,

I can see the logic behind your structure - I would consider changing the who we are to our database developers and then create content as I suggested above under this section.

• What we do
  • Database solutions
    • Access
    • Cloud
    • Quickbase
  • Mobile Solutions
    • Android
    • iPhone
• How we do it
  • Why Us?
  • Our process?
  • Your Role
• Clients
  • Who we work with
  • Testimonials
  • Case Studies
    • Access
    • Cloud
    • Quickbase
    • Mobile
• About Us
  • Our Database Developers
  • Contact Us

I would also consider moving the "Our Database Developers" page further up the menu structure - it could come under the How we do it section. Also have you got some good rich content for all these pages or would it be better to put several of these headings under one page/section, for instance "Our process" could logically go under "Why Us?" for richer content? As for your page titles you want to make them look natural but include you keyword  - remember you want your titles to not look spammy though. With the over-optimization penalty looming this is particularly important to get right.

[emcacace]

Hey Matt,

Once again I really appreciate your feedback! I agree with your statement about a mess, that is why I am trying to figure out how to incorporate those keywords in without making my site awful and untrustworthy.

Haven't got any title tags yet. Our home page is a summary page of our services and a statement letter of what we are trying to accomplish.

Our menu items are the following. The top menu items are not pages but are there just for organization.

• What we do
  • Database solutions
    • Access
    • Cloud
    • Quickbase
  • Mobile Solutions
    • Android
    • iPhone
• How we do it
  • Why Us?
  • Our process?
  • Your Role
• Clients
  • Who we work with
  • Testimonials
  • Case Studies
    • Access
    • Cloud
    • Quickbase
    • Mobile
• About Us
  • Who We Are
  • Contact Us

[Matt-Williamson]

Hi Eduardo

First of all I would say that the last thing you want is a mess with a little bit of everything - you want to rank well, but you also want a clean professional image for your website to give potential customers the right impression. Can I ask what you current title tags are for you homepage and also what menu items you currently have? This would allow me to get a better view of where you are at and how best my suggestions or others may be implemented to help target your keywords.I know one developer does more than one thing but you could still potentially target the broad and the specific keywords using my suggestions. For instance you menu could be somthing like this:

Home, Our Database Developers, Specific Type of Database Development 1,  Specific Type of Database Development 2, Portfolio, FAQs, Contact Us

Where I have put "Specific Type of Database Development 1" you would substitute this with the actual databse - e.g. MS Access Development.

[emcacace]

Thanks for the input Matt!

I have looked at the top ranking sites and they are either forums, wikipedia, job postings or individual developers. For some of the keywords, there are some companies but the page doesn't seem tailored at all instead it's a huge mess with a little bit of everything.

I have my site structure similar to what you describe. Home->General Database (listing 3 options)->page for each option

The main problem for me is that all the main terms for me involve developer or programmer or consultant. So as I explained before, it seems odd to have those type of keywords under the current pages since those are explanations about the solution / services. The plurals I've read its not a good idea and it doesn't seem to drive as much traffic.

I can produce enough content about these things. What I meant about a stretch was if the team profile's were abstract ones i.e. instead of mentioning who in our company does it, it describes we have a 'database developer or access developer'.  We are small so one developer does more than one thing. Perhaps I need to think about your responses for a bit longer and see if I understand fully what you mean.

[Matt-Williamson]

Well I would personally look at the team and how they are split then I would create a page that is based around your team, who they are and what they do aiming mainly at the term database developer, you can still incoporate specifics such as MS Access. When it comes to the specific types of database I would consider having sections on each of these linking straight from your homepage. I think you really need to look at your current pages and how they present information to people. Can you produce decent content for each of these sections, how does your competition that is ranking well go about it? These are all things to bare in mind. I would consider the plural - so database developers or our database developers assuming you have several then you can create a rich page based around them. If I was considering this option I would set the URL to be database-developers.html or whatever your site is written in. Why do you feel that the creation of a page on the team is a stretch - not enough to wirte about? Thats when you could incorporate quesiton and answers by you team on database development and specifics.

[emcacace]

Oh I see. That is an interesting approach. So instead of forcing a page to adapt to a keyword I create content directly related to it  like a page for the developer or questions/answers on types of databases.

The problem with the developer page is that the work is done by the company so the developer might be the same for 2 different types such as "database developer" and  "MS Access Developer". The related work is already shown in our case studies.

Having said that, I guess I could just have a small excerpt for the previous work and link to the case studies. For the page about our database developer I guess I can make an abstract profile for it since it could be one or many people. So I could have something like 'Your reliable Database Developer'  and then showcase general skills, previous projects and experience. What do you think? Is that what you mean? It's a little bit of a stretch though.

We were hoping to target the main keywords on our main pages while the others through our blog. I like the FAQ question as well though. Thanks!

[Matt-Williamson]

Hi Eduardo - have you considered creating a team section on your website, talking about your database developer(s), their experience in database development and examples of previous work. You could easily optimise this page for the term database developer and you could also use the keyword in the anchor text on your internal link structure (menu) without it being incoherent/unnatural.

You could also consider producing an FAQ or Question and Answer section on your site and answer general questions on types of database and development etc. This is how I would go about optimising for your targeted term, then you can work on the off page elements such as links and social media making the link juice flow to pages such as the one I have suggested so that you can rank well for your targeted term with time and effort. I would also optimise the URL of the page to include you targeted term without going over board and making it look spammy. Hope this helps!