Website keywords: do’s and don’ts
Quite simply, our websites should generate returns just as we expect from our other marketing programs. You’ve probably heard the terms “optimized” and “keywords.” He may suspect that the keywords on your web page are important, but he’s not quite sure why.
These days, there are a number of hotly debated topics related to web page keywords and the search engine optimization techniques that are based on them. In this article, I will identify these debates in the course of discussing the proper selection and use of a web page keyword list.
meta keyword tagFirst, let’s be clear about the importance of the “Meta keywords” of your web page. so the question is: Is the keyword meta tag important? Reply: It’s not clear. Meta tags are snippets of HTML code that are inserted into the “head” area of your web pages and are, for the most part, not seen by your website visitors. The “Meta Keywords” tag contains phrases and synonyms designed to be a short and concise list of the most important topics on your page.
AimMany experts suggest that major search engine crawlers ignore the keyword Meta tag (eg, see “How to Use HTML Meta Tags”, Danny Sullivan, Search Engine Watch, December 5, 2002). Heck, some experts claim that all meta tags are useless. Turns out, over the years, spammers put keywords in the meta tag that had nothing to do with the content or theme of the site. Web crawlers are believed to ignore the keyword meta tag due to past deceptive practices.
Should You Care About the Meta Keywords Tag? I think you should. Your search engine optimization strategy should be as comprehensive as possible. You must use all legitimate techniques available to you, including the use of standard meta tags.
Regardless of where you stand on the topic of keyword meta tags, it’s clear that carefully building a keyword list is an important first step toward optimizing your web page. We now move on to the process of selecting your keywords.
keyword selection How should you select your keywords? Your goal is to find keyword phrases that are related to your business and that your potential customers actually use on Google, Yahoo! or other Internet search engines. You know your business best. Should you choose the key phrases that best describe your products and services? WRONG!
Let’s say you sell global positioning systems, and you’ve adopted “global positioning systems” as your keyword phrase. But in December 2006 YAHOO recorded 655,000 searches on “GPS” and only 7,800 searches on “Global Positioning System.” Other: You sell pneumatic nail drivers, but in December 2006 there were about 9700 YAHOO searches on “nail gun.” Few searches were performed on “Pneumatic Nail Driver”.
Do you see where I’m going with this? You may be too close to your business to objectively determine how your potential customers will search for your products and services. You may not be the right person to develop your keywords for unless you have kept up with the latest trends in search engine optimization. At the very least, spend time analyzing the keywords and techniques your competitors and peers are using to achieve search engine success.
Additionally, you’ll want to factor in keyword popularity in your analysis. Here are some keyword selection tools you can use:
- Overture Keyword Selection Tool – Inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
- The Google Suggest keyword selection tool: google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en
- The Google AdWords Keyword Tool: adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
You can use these tools to suggest alternative phrases and synonyms that you may not have considered. In addition, the Overture tool in particular provides invaluable quantitative information on the actual popularity of these key phrase internet searches.
Keep in mind, however, that keyword popularity alone is not enough. Examine your list of phrases carefully to ensure that each phrase is BOTH popular and relevant to your business. Your list should contain phrases that generate a reasonable volume of qualified leads. You want visitors that you can convert into customers, not just visitors.
You provide a wide range of products and services. So you should add them all to your list, right? WRONG! Experts disagree on the ideal number of keywords to define. However, there is no reason to exceed 20-25 keyword phrases. And remember: the order does matter. Put your most important sentences first.
Create a comma-separated list of keywords that you can copy and paste into the keyword meta tag of your HTML web page. Here is an example of a keyword tag designed for the hidden header code of a “Search Engine Optimization Tips” page:
- meta name=”keywords” content=”seo tips,search engine optimization tip,seo google tip,denver seo,search engine optimization denver,search engine optimization denver,seo company,company search engine optimization, internet marketing strategy”
As you can see, the keyword meta tag appears in the “HEAD” section of your web page. Meta tags, however, are not visible on the page. If you see http://www.ebizmachine.com/seotips.html, you won’t notice the keywords meta tag.
keyword placement Let’s say you’ve carefully created a keyword list and updated the keyword meta tag for your web page. You’re done, right?
Not even closed! There are several ways in which you will use your most important key phrases. Unfortunately, this short article cannot cover each of these techniques. In fact, experts disagree on the relative importance of the many placements in which you can insert your keywords. I will discuss some techniques that are almost universally considered important.
Here are several potential placements where your main keywords may appear:
- Heading tag content (i.e. H1, H2)
- Title tag in anchor tags
- body of text
- URLs/filenames
- Meta keyword tags (discussed above)
First of all, the title tag is believed to be very important. Like the keyword tag, it’s a snippet of HTML code, but in this case, the content of the title tag appears in the top bar of your web browser. Be sure to insert your main keyword phrase in the title tag.
This is an example of the HTML title tag that is also found in the “HEAD” section of the web page:
- TITLE – Search Engine Optimization – SEO Tips for EBIZ Machines
As you can see, it also appears in the “HEAD” section of your web page, although it is not a “Meta” tag.
It is also believed that some search engines give more weight to key phrases embedded in HTML header tags (such as H1, H2, H3, etc.). This is an example of the Heading1 (H1) tag:
- H1 align=”center”>Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Tips and Tricks
If it’s not too late, create domain names, file names, and URLs that use your important keywords. Here’s an example that focuses on the keyword “Search Engine Optimization”:
1. First create and load a web page called Search-Engine-Optimization-Tips.html
2. Create a link that is something like Review key search engine optimization techniques designed to improve the rank of your page that links to your new page.
Note: It’s okay to separate keywords in your filename with hyphens to help search engines distinguish keywords. You can see that the link text mentioned above also uses our keywords; don’t just display “click here to learn more”, you’re missing out on promoting your important keyword phrases.
Finally, your keywords should appear in the body or content areas of your web page. However, you should not overdo it! In the online article “SEO Chat” “The Ten Commandments of Keyword Selection” (seochat.com/c/a/Choosing-Keywords-Help/The-Ten-Commandments-of-Keyword-Selection/), the The author speculated that the optimal keyword frequency range is between 4% and 9%. This suggests that you should stay below the 9% frequency cap to avoid penalties from major search engines for “keyword stuffing.”
ConclutionGood search engine optimization requires a great deal of experimentation – what works for one website may not work for your site. The techniques that your SEO company will recommend and implement will go far beyond those discussed in this article.
In this document, I outline several proven techniques for using your carefully developed keyword list and dispel some myths along the way:
one. Do Create a short list of keyword phrases that are popular and relevant to your business.
2. Whose Suppose you know what Internet users type into search engines; you may be too close to the business.
3. Do Consider the keyword search popularity goal whose Forget about the quality of leads a search is likely to generate.
Four. Do Use your main keyphrase in the web page title tag, header tags, domain name, web page file name, and page links.
5. Whose Go overboard: Pay attention to keyword density.
[1] Please note that this content is provided for educational purposes to introduce you to important search engine optimization concepts. There are many factors that influence search engine page rank; we cannot promise that the techniques described in this article will work in all cases. Thanks! -Bill Schwartz, EBIZ Machine