Keywords
Contents
Choosing the right keywords is half the battle in search engine optimization. Always use common sense keywords that people actually understand and would search for. If you pick words out of your business plan and figure everyone is searching for “competitive global communication solutions,” when you are offering “long distance plans,” your website will be a lonely place indeed.
Research your keywords by talking with employees, customers, vendors, family members and friends. Monitor your web stats to identify terms actually used to find your site. Use Google keyword planner to discover new keywords, to get search volume and forecasts. This is a powerful tool for choosing your keywords. See this video about keyword planner with a tutorial on how to use the tools.
Once you have chosen a list of the best keywords based on relevance, search volume and competition, choose top keywords for each of the main pages on your site. If keywords in your industry are competitive, choose more specific keywords to have a fighting chance to attain top results. The goal is to improve your search results over time to have a first page result for one or more of your chosen keywords.
Where to Place Your Keywords
Search engines figure out the topic of each web page by giving more weight to keywords used prominently. They do this by means of mathematical algorithms. If you use a WordPress website, use an SEO plugin to help you with this task. Whenever possible, put keywords in the following places:
Titles and Meta Tags: It’s important to place your keywords in the title. See the next page on page titles for details.
Headings: The headings tags (H1 – H6) are visible headings of varying sizes. They give search engines, not to mention visitors, a good idea of what the main topic of your page is.
Text Top: The words at the top of your page, at the beginning of paragraphs and at the start of your sentences are generally seen as more important. Make sure that keywords are among the first words to appear. Making keywords bold, larger, or otherwise highlighting them may also help to emphasize their importance. However, be careful not to appear to be stuffing keywords. Page content must read naturally.
Hyperlinks: Use your keywords prominently in your hyperlinks, whenever it would be appropriate for the user.
Alt text: Alt text is the text that accompanies images. Use this option to describe the image and include keywords when appropriate.
URL Text: Include keywords in your page names when appropriate.