How To Optimize Keywords On Your Web Pages

by Craig Currens
EverDream Web

Key phrases are what enable you to have search engine traffic. They are the words that persons search for in the Google or Yahoo search boxes at the top of the browser window. And they are directly responsible for the targeted visitors you get to your site, because unless you email your web page link or pass out your business card or something similar there's just no other way persons will find your web site!

Having said that, let's go over the way to use them. For this purposes of this article I will not be explaining how to find the right keywords and phrases to optimize, I'll just be giving you a few tips on what to do on your internet-site pages to help your internet site rise in the rankings with the keyword terms you are optimizing.First let me explain a what not to do. Do NOT optimize your web site for key terms that are not directly related to your site or business.

Let me explain this by running a scenario. I like to use the example of dog related searches. It's simple and we can all relate to it. So, let's say you put in the search box the words "dog collar". When you hit enter, you want to see a bunch of search results that are directly related to dog collars, and preferably, in your area. We'll the search engine should take care of giving you results that are geographically helpful, but the rest of the results are determined primarily by the key words the websites are optimizing. You will, in fact see a lot of dog collar related results. However, what if there was a company that sold flea and tic repellent and they thought they might benefit from web traffic related to searches for "dog collars". They could, in theory, optimize a page on their website for that keyword phrase and rank really high with it. Then, people searching for dog collars would click on their link and maybe buy the flea and tick repellent.

The search engines like yahoo watch out for this, and if a lot of people search for "dog collars", go to this sight and then immediately leave it, the search engine will take note and knock them out of the rankings for that keyword phrase. What this web site should do is optimize keyphrases that are directly related to flea and tick repellent and not try to 'trick' visitors into a visit with misleading Key phrases.

OK, now we know that we should behave and use relevant essential phrases that are directly related to our website's content and products or services. So, how to we best optimize the page for this?

First, we use the keyword phrase we are optimizing in the title tags. You must open a pages code to see this, so open up the.html or.php file in a text editor like Notepad or something similar. The title tags will be near the top of the page.

I'll be using the keyword phrase "flea repellent" in my examples. Here's the title tag example:

[title]Flea Repellent[/title]

Then, in the code also near the top of the page, you should see that there are the meta tags. We want to focus on the Description meta tags and the keyphrases meta tags. Here's an example of each, both of which have the keyword phrase we are optimizing at the very beginning.

If you have placed your keyword in these three critical parts of the code, you've done more than most. Now you can focus on the body of your content. Whatever you do here, do NOT over do it. Your keyword phrase should account for no more than 3% of your content. Between 2 and 3% is the sweet spot.

If you have images on your page, be sure to include the "alt" tags and put your keyword phrase in them. Like this:

[img src="images/picture.jpg" alt="Flea Repellent"]

You only need to do this once or twice. If you have more pictures than that, you should put in other keyword phrases that describe the images. Don't over do the keyword phrase in the alt tags... it could count against you if the SE thinks you are "stuffing" the page with your keyword phrase an unnatural amount.

If you have Header tags on your page, try to work the keyword into some of them:

[h1]Flea Repellent Products[/h1]

And lastly, it helps if the keyword phrase appears near the end of the code somewhere. Maybe in the footer of your page somehow.

Do these things and you will be doing a good job of on-page search engine optimization for your keyword phrase. NOTE: Do not optimize any given page for more than 2 keyword phrases.

C.J Pennington is a freelance Internet researcher and writer for EverDream Web and The SEO Scout blog (http://theseoscout.com). Learn more about SEO by subscribing to TheSEOScout.com.

Article submitted Tuesday, May 31, 2011 & read 1 times.

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