Search engine optimization, keywords, and you

Written by Joe on Monday, August 9, 2010

Use them right and you'll have no worries

Using keywords and key phrases are a key part of search engine optimization. But you have to use them correctly. This article will give you some tips on how to use your keyords properly on your website and other websites.

Use keywords in your <title> tag

The contents of the <title> tag are displayed in the top of your web browser and in search engines when linking you your website. This makes the <title> tag one of the most important places to have use keywords. The title tag should be around 6 or 7 words and unique for every web page on your website.

Use keywords in your URLs

Try to include your keywords in your links, http://domainname.com/web-services/seo-services, where “SEO services” is the keyword phrase you attempting to rank well for.

Use keywords in your inlinks

When linking to your website, try to use your keywords. This tells search engines that your website has relevant content for your keyword. It also tells other users what the page they are going to be visiting will be about. If you want to rank well for the phrase "new jersey accountant", your link would look like <a href="your-website.com" title="new jersey accountant">new jersey accountant</a>.

Use keywords in heading tags

Heading tags tell the use what your page is about. <H1> being the most important, should contain the main topic of the page. Use <H2> to <H6> tags for less important titles, but always try to use your keywords.

Use Keywords in <alt> tags

Search engines can't read images, but they can read the images alt attribute. Try to use keywords that describe the image.

Use keywords in meta tags

Though google doesn't really use meta tags anymore, other search engines such as Yahoo! and Bing do. This may change at some point but for the moment it doesn't hurt to use meta tags and include your keywords.

Research secondary keywords

Secondary keywords are important because they could be untapped resources. For example, trying to get ranked well for the keyword "restaurant" might be very difficult. If you add some descriptive words "barbeque restaurant", and even your location "new jersey barbeque restaurant", you will have less competition and rank better and more easily in search engines.

Keyword stuffing

Over use of keywords is a big problem with search engine optimization companies. And you see it over and over. If you look at a web page and see the same words and phrases over and over, it gets annoying. Use keywords and phrases wisely and optimize your text for your users, not search engines.

All search engine optimization comes down to is creating a web page that is useful to people. Don't worry about what page you are on google or other search engines. Create a website that is useful and a resource for people and you will gain traffic and search engine rankings without even knowing it.