Ten Tips for Using Keywords Effectively

You probably know that part of the secret to ranking well in search engines like Google, MSN, and Yahoo isn’t really such a secret – it’s a matter of finding the right keywords for your site, right? Well, that’s partially true; you have to select keywords that people are truly using when they search (and not just the keywords YOU think they use when they search), and then use those keywords appropriately through out your web pages. So what’s the best way to do that? Here are some tips to help you focus on finding the best keywords for your web site, and then using them effectively on the pages of your web site:

• Research your keywords – don’t just guess. There is often a big difference between what you think your customers would use to search for your products and services, and what users actually use to perform searches. Try using the Google Adwords Keyword tool (www.google.adwords.com) or other free keyword tools like SEO Book (www.tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook) to do a little research before deciding on your keyword list.
• Select the best keywords. The three most important considerations in selecting keywords are: 1) choosing the most descriptive keyword or phrases, with 2) the most searches performed, and 3) the least number of competing web pages. When you find keywords that fit all of these criteria, use them.
• Select the keyword terms that are likely to bring qualified traffic. Once you know how competitive each keyword is, select the keywords or phrases that are relevant and specific to your content. For instance, highly competitive keywords and keywords that are too general are not good choices, and “long tail” or uncompetitive terms typically don’t need to be optimized for (since no other sites are using these terms anyway). It’s best to stick with the keywords that are specific to your content, yet still general enough to bring in good traffic.
• Start with a strong foundation. Before you begin adding keywords to your web site, you must make sure you have clean, search engine friendly code that can be read and indexed by the search engine spiders (or robots) that visit your site. Without this, you really have no hope of competing in the search engines, regardless of how great your keywords might be.
• Use only a few keywords per page. Don’t put all of your keywords on every single page on your web site. Instead, select 3 to 5 keywords (or keyword phrases) that match the content of each page, then optimize for those.
• Optimize for behind-the-scenes code and on-page content. Be sure that your keywords are used correctly in the Meta data tags in your HTML code (Title, Description, and Keywords), and also in the first paragraph of text on the page. Also sprinkle the keywords appropriately through out the rest of the text on the page as well.
• Use keywords as anchor text. Anchor text is the text that appears as a link on the page, typically displayed as blue, underlined text. Using your keywords as anchor text signifies to the search engines that the term is important, and is relevant to the content on the rest of your web site.
• Use keywords to describe images. Use your keywords in the image alt tags in your html code. Image alt tags are required for all images in order for the code to be WC3 compliant. Image alt tags are intended to provide information to visually impaired visitors, or users who have images turned off in their browser settings. This is a great place to use your keywords.
• Use keywords in headlines and titles. Another great place to use your keywords is in the titles, headings, and sub heads that appear on the page. Always use appropriate header tags (H1, H2, H3, etc.) or bold formatting, since these elements typically signify importance to the search engine spiders.
• Have a presence elsewhere on the web. Google has adopted a Universal Search model, where it now returns search results from a variety of web sources and not just from web sites, and other search engines are following suit. To take advantage of this, you should always use your keywords in press releases, video tags, blog postings, social networking profiles, etc., since these are all used as sources from which the search engine pull results.

Finding the right keywords for your web site is the first step in getting good search engine rankings, but it is just as important that you use them correctly on your web site. Keywords and keyword phrases must be used accurately in the behind-the-scenes web code that visitors don’t see, and also used appropriately in the on-page text and elements that visitors do see. By incorporating some or all of these 10 tips, your web site stands a much better chance of meeting the search engine criteria that determines the order of search results, and getting your site listed at the top!