“We’re taking no chances in marketing this holiday season… Real estate is the key cost of physical retailers. That’s why there’s the old saw, location, location, location.” – Jeff Bezos

Last week I shared tip#1: Be Seen Everwhere! I discussed how over 70% of your traffic comes from sources other than search engines and you should concentrate your efforts on those places instead of worrying about Google. Of course it would still be nice to end up on the first page of Google for the items you sell – which is why Amazon is the #1 spender on Google ads in the retail world, spending more than $55.2 million on Google ads every year. But you don’t have to outspend Amazon to get your pages ranked on Google. And that is the key – Google ranks individual pages on your website, not the website itself. If you are selling “fire roasted salsa”, you want to get that page to rank on Google. Here are two key things you can do to rank for specific keywords:

A. Use the keyword phrase as many times as possible on the page you wish to rank for – this tells Google that this page is all about those keywords. For example, if you want to rank for “fire roasted salsa”, use “fire roasted salsa” in the description of the product at least 3 times.  For example:

The ultimate fire roasted salsa came about because I couldn’t find a fire roasted salsa that reminded me of what I had in Mexico. We fire roasted three different kinds of peppers to create a smoky full flavored fire roasted salsa that can be used as a soup base, chili base and with corn chips. You’ll enjoy the bright flavors of cilantro and lemon that you’ll find in this hardy fire roasted salsa. This fire roasted salsa is addicting!

Yes, it looks retarded to do keyword stuffing on your content, but it insures that Google knows that this page is all about “fire roasted salsa”.

B. Get other sites to link to that page and use those keywords in the anchor text. For example, if someone is writing an article about you or a blog post about you, don’t just have them link to HarvestFreshFarm.com, but instead, create a link like this:

We have found that the fire roasted salsa from Harvest Fresh Farm is the best on the market.

The more external links you have pointing from other websites back to your website, the better – this tells Google that you are really important when it comes to those keywords. Obviously, if 50 people link back to your site for those keywords, and your competitors have only one or two links back to their sites for those keywords, then you must be more relevant they are. (Who the site is, is also important – getting a link from Oprah counts more than a link from me).

In my book, “Amazon’s Dirty Little Secrets”, I list all 200+ variables that Google uses to determine what sites get ranked for what keywords when determining search engine placement. The 2 listed above are a couple of the most important.

Greg Jameson