Keywords & Keyword Phrases Help People Find Your Website
by Robyn Harton

You want people to be able to find your site by using search engines. To give your site the best chances, you need to optimize it for search engines. This means setting up your site so that search engines can place you high in their rankings. That way your site will show up closer to the top of the list when people search for related things. The most important component to optimizing your website for search engines so that people can find your site on the internet is keywords and keyword phrases. Keywords and keyword phrases are the most important because they affect all your other search engine optimization strategies.

Keywords vs. Keyword Phrases

Keywords are single words that describe the content of your web page in a positive light. An example of a keyword for a site that sells large purple widgets that would be "widgets." Keyword phrases are a combination of words that more precisely describe the content of your web page. For the large-purple-widget-selling page, a keyword phrase might be "purple widgets."

What Keywords/Phrases to Use

To make the most of your keywords and phrases you have to aim them at the people you most want to visit your site. To figure out what keywords and phrases to use, you have to think like a stranger. It's not helpful to think in terms of wanting everyone to buy your large purple widgets. It's much more helpful to think "What would a person who wants to buy or know about a large purple widget type into a search engine to find it?" They might type "widget," or "purple widget," or "large widget," or "large purple widget." While the keyword "widget" obviously comes up in all these items, it's also a very broad field and there are likely to be a lot of widget web pages out there already on the search engines. Thus, targeted phrases that describe your product, service, or information more exactly can be a bigger help in getting your web page found. Sit down and spend some time thinking about how people might look for what you offer. Ask people you know how they might look for that type of thing with a search engine. Research possible keyword phrases online by using a search engine to find sites about keywords. Choose two or three keywords/phrases for each page on your website. Focus on keyword phrases to aim more directly at people looking for your offerings and help rise above the generalized competition.

What Keywords/Phrases Not to Use

There are some things that just don't work as keywords or phrases. For instance, unless a personal already knows about your company, your company name isn't likely to help them find your page about large purple widgets. Also, do not use keywords and keyword phrases that have nothing to do with the actual product or information on your page. Yes, "sex sells," but unless your page is actually about sex, you'll annoy more visitors than not. An annoyed visitor who may tell friends about your trickery is worse than not being found in the first place. So be sure that you don't use keywords that have nothing to do with your page.

Where To Use Them

The bottom line of using keywords and phrases effectively is to use them everywhere you can without repeating them senselessly. Use your keywords and phrases to write your page text, especially at the top of your web page. Repeat them as often as possible without making the text silly sounding. In general, if it sounds ok to a human in the text, it will look ok to a search engine. Use them in your meta tags like the description and keywords tags. To avoid keyword spamming, which is senseless because it will get your page tosses out of many search engines, be careful not to repeat your keywords or phrases in your meta tags. For instance, it's probably not going to choke a search engine to have the keyword phrases "large widgets, purple widgets, large purple widgets," in your meta tags and your page text, but it almost certainly choke a search engine to use "widgets, widgets, widgets." Lastly, although this isn't directly related to search engines, use selected keywords and phrases in your email signature. This creates a mini-advertisement in every email you send out and helps people find your web page.

Summary

Keywords and phrases are critical to getting your site found on the internet. For the best results they should be carefully researched so that people looking for your service, product or information can find your web page. They should be used in your web page text and in your meta tags. Keywords and keyword phrases are your friends if used correctly.

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by Robyn Harton, Owner of Robyn A Harton Creative
Articles & Tips on Making Graphics and Web Design Work for You
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