When conducting keyword research, it is important to have as much information as possible so you can pick the best word for the page you are trying to optimize.  There are a plethora of tools available and some of our favorites include WordTracker, KeywordDiscovery and the Free Google Keyword Tool.  These tools are great because they can show you some very important statistics about each keyword.  Some stats that they show include approximate search volume and the competitiveness of the keyword.  The one thing they don’t show you however, is trending.  For that we recommend that you take a look at Google’s Insights for Search.

Insights for Search allows you to compare up to 5 keywords and look at trending data from as far back as 2004.  It also displays significant news stories or events that happened during the time frame so you can see how these events played a role in the search data for the keywords. Trending data such as this can help you to choose a better keyword.  Perhaps when cross referencing your researched terms with Insights, you will notice that a highly searched term is actually decreasing in trending data.  This might cause you to evaluate a different term that is a rising search, which you may not have discovered from your other keyword research tools alone.

Insights for Search also allows you to see related search terms, regional interest and rising searches.  In my opinion, the rising searches section is the most interesting.  These are words that you should be focusing on because they are becoming popular very quickly.  When you see “breakout” listed instead of an actual percentage, it means that the search term has experienced a change in growth greater than 5000%.

The next time you are doing keyword research for a new page or blog, also consult Insights for Search to see what other keywords you might find.

With the New Year here, it gives us all the opportunity for a fresh start.  A chance to reflect on the past year, and do things better in 2010.  While many of us are working on personal goals, it is important to use this opportunity for a fresh start with our websites and SEO efforts as well. 

So often we see that people are trying to “SEO” a website that is poorly designed, or features old technology.  In many cases SEO will bring these types of sites traffic, but when it comes to a conversion, the site may simply not have what it takes to turn lookers into buyers.  Think of your website as a virtual storefront.  When people “walk by”, are they enticed to enter?  You probably wouldn’t visit a mall and step into a store with products displayed from years ago would you?  The same concept goes for your website.  If your website is 3 or more years old, it is time to evaluate whether or not a redesign should be in store.

A website redesign can make SEO practices more effective and give your visitors a fresh view of the products and services you have to offer.  You can also utilize the latest technology to make your website faster and more user friendly.  When redesigning your website, here are some things you should consider

• Study your analytics data to create a website structure.
• Conduct keyword research during the process so you can put your most important pages up front.
• Utilize CSS vs. Flash technology.
• Listen to customer feedback, both good and bad.
• Hire a professional.

A new website can help you to capture the attention of your prospective clients and help them to better find the information and services they are looking for.

A slow loading website may not only deter your visitors, but in the near future may affect your search engine rankings.  In an interview with Google’s Matt Cutts, Webpronews.com recently reported that site speed may become a factor in ranking sometime in 2010.  If you think about it, it makes perfect sense.  Google wants to make the search experience relevant and fast.  The faster searchers can get the information they are looking for the better.

• While having a fast loading web site is not essential for search results now, it should still be a main focus to help your users.  If a site is not loading fast enough, there is a good chance that a user will not wait and leave the site to find information elsewhere.  In order to have a faster loading website, here are a few things you can do now to ensure a quick load time:
• Reduce images on your site. If you have an image heavy page, it will take much longer to load compared to a more search engine friendly text page.  Images are not bad to have on a page, just use them sparingly and only if they compliment the text on the page.
• Reduce excessive Java Script.
• Limit the amount of Java Script in CSS Includes.
• Change to a dedicated server or a Virtual Private Server (VPS). If you are on a shared server with many other websites, it could lengthen the amount of time it takes to load your website. Changing to dedicated server or a VPS will increase the load speed for your site.

While the above tips will get you started, Google has more information about increasing your page speed which can be found here: http://code.google.com/speed/.