We all seem to spend hours talking about it, so let's compare...
Give me your top 5 phrases that you have currently appearing on page one of Google
Our sitebuilder service website awebapart.com:
sitebuilder service
sitebuilder uk
sitebuilder online
ecommerce sitebuilder
uk cms host
These might sound impressive but they are not really, since not many people are searching for these terms. We haven't really actively planned much SEO for this site yet, and I do not think that search engine traffic will play a big part in us generating new business anyway. Personally, I think that the way our service is developing, sitebuilder is not the best word to target since this infers mass-market automated DIY sitebuilders, whereas our service is much more of a personal handholding service with us doing the upfront design, similar to that offered by web design agencies.
Our company website abstractworlds.com (we were originally focused on games development, this site is an old site and hasn't been moved across to our sitebuilder platform yet) :
3d java games
free 3d java games
3d mobile games
free mobile 3d games
download j2me games
Again this wasn't really planned SEO, it just happened, these do get a fair bit of traffic due to the number of people looking for games for their mobile phones. Once we revamp the company website we will probably lose this since the website will be refocused with our move away from gaming.
As usual it is our own sites that come last when it comes to putting in the effort, our client sites come first. SEO and search engine visitors is not important to all of our clients, some of our clients have other ways of marketing themselves and their website, but here is a selction of websites on our sitebuilder platform that have targeted some phrases and are on page 1 of google:
Our client wbikes.com:
bmw motorbikes
motorrad
bmw motorcycles northampton
bmw motorbikes northampton
Our client elsbyandco.co.uk accountants:
accountants northampton
accountants kettering
Our client kamstkd.com (tae kwon do club):
tae kwon do northampton
tae kwon do leicester
Our client basicsgiftshop.co.uk (online shop):
antica murrina shop
antica murrina jewellery shop
antica murrina jewellery
helen exley gift books
terramundi pots shop
Our client instantmagictricks.co.uk (online shop):
magic trick solutions
magic tricks solutions
magic videos shop
Our client CSCS.org.uk (comprehensive schools organisation):
comprehensive schools
Another site using our sitebuilder platform icknieldcarsales.co.uk:
used cars letchworth
car letchworth
car sales letchworth
vauxhall letchworth
ford letchworth
Our client wollastonusedbmw.co.uk:
(this site was a custom site, it does not use our sitebuilder platform)
bmw northampton
bmw northants
used bmw northampton
used bmw northants
Our client wollastonusedmini.co.uk:
(this site was a custom site, it does not use our sitebuilder platform)
used mini northampton
used mini northants
As with many of these sites, it is not always the most popular top phrases that bring in the most traffic, but
the long tail collection of many other less popular more specific phrases that bring in the visitors. For instance for a car site a long tail phrase might be: convertible mini pepper white, there might be just one person searching for this, but hundreds of people searching for similarly detailed cars (a particular colour, model, year, etc).
People are getting smarter when it comes to search engine usage. The more the public use search engines the more they realise that it is better to be more specific about their search in order to get the results they want.