SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMISATION
Selecting Keywords and Keyword Phrases
 If
the Website is infused with targeted Keyword Phrases, the Website has a good chance
that it will appear in the search results when a potential customer searches on
those Keywords. In order to improve chances, the Website should be optimised with
Keyword Phrases that are descriptive, related to content, and which receive a significant
amount of searches on the web.
The phrases to use, are those that have more searches and less competition. If you
optimize for terms that are too broad, you will likely increase traffic but decrease
your conversions. Talk to friends or family and ask what phrases they would use
to describe your product or service.
Search Engines or Customers?
There is a fine balance between Copy written for Search Engines and Copy written
for Customers.
It is necessary to produce a structured and focused Website that satisfies both
requirements. The ideal Keywords will be frequently used in searches and easy to
read.
First and foremost, the Website must be rich in information and content. It will
then naturally contain the ideal Keywords and hold the attention of the visitor.
For ideas on visual effects, see
Web Design from Scratch
Keyword guidelines:-
- Use Keyword Phrases, not single words. There is too much competition for the single
Keyword. As Website volumes increase, customers have been forced to become more
skilled at searching – they are now searching more and more for specific strings.
So select appropriate qualifiers to describe a Keyword. For example, "Access" should
become "Microsoft Access" or "Microsoft Access Database".
- To test the usage of a Word or a Phrase on the Web over the last month, a handy
Websites to try are
Overture, Keyword Discovery
and Word Tracker.
- Examine each related word in the write up, and determine which variation is most
likely to be used in a search. Avoid infrequently used synonyms of a Keyword. For
example, try to eliminate infrequently used variations of the word "development"
– develop, developing, develops, developed, developer.
- The use of additional Web Pages will allow the Keyword Density to be improved, by
concentrating on a narrow subject. So do not include every Keyword Phrase on every
Web Page. Focus just on from 3 to 5 Keyword Phrases for each Web Page.
- It is a good idea to Link Web Pages together with hyperlinks that use Keyword Phrases.
This will improve the Keyword Density, and help the Search Engines relate to the
Web Page. To separate the Keywords, the URL should contain hyphens, not underscores.
- The web page should make use of H1 and H2 header tags to emphasize pertinent keywords
and phrases.The H1, H2 and H3 headings tags are given high weighting by the Search
Engines - especially when close to the top of a Web Page. Include primary Keyword
Phrases in the headings and insert extra headings to improve the readability (and
Keyword Density) of the Website.
- Some Search Engines extract details from the top row, some from the left column.
Use the Search Engine listings
to check that the Keywords have been placed in the best position.
- Name each Web Page based on a specific Keyword.
- Use Keywords in the ALT Tag of Images and in the Title Tag of Links.
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