Search Engine Optimization – Keywords
Lately, everyone I have talked to wants to improve their rank in search results on Google and Yahoo. They want to optimize the search results of their web site so that when someone search for a product or service they offer, they come up in the top results in the lower left corner of the search results page. The lower left corner is referred to as the “organic search” results area of the page.
Many things affect the order of the web sites listed in the search results; keywords, quality score, inbound links, and web site content – to name a few. I’ll talk about all of these in future posts – but todays post is about keywords.
Keywords are meta data included in the head section of an HTML document. Check out the example below:
Meta tags are information inserted into the “head” area of your web pages. Other than the title tag (I explain this below), information in the head section of the code for your web pages is not displayed by browsers (Internet Explorer, FireFox, Chrome and Opera). Instead, the meta tag data coded in this area is used to tell search engines information that someone searching the web might not want or need to know.
Let’s take a look at the HEAD section that I might use for my blog. Check out the example below:
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Welcome to Rori’s Blog</TITLE>
<META name=”description “content=”Sharing information about search engine marketing and search engine optimization.”>
<META name=”keywords” content=”search engine marketing, search engine optimization, SEO, SEM, keywords, meta tags, Rori Rasel Blog, Rori Rasel”>
In the code shown above, you can see the beginning of the page’s “head” area as noted by the <HEAD> tag — it ends at the portion shown as </HEAD>. Everything between the opening <HEAD> code and the closing </HEAD> can affect how a search engine finds your web site.
The title tag, <TITLE>Welcome to Rori’s Blog</TITLE>, will display at the top of the search engine window to tell you the name of the web site you are viewing, followed by the name of the search engine you used.
The first META tag, <META name=”description “content=”Sharing information about search engine marketing and search engine optimization.”>, is the text that will display on the results page when someone enters keywords that recall your web site.
The second META tag, <META name=”keywords” content=”search engine marketing, search engine optimization, SEO, SEM, keywords, meta tags, Rori Rasel Blog, Rori Rasel”>, tells the search engines, if someone enters these terms in the search field – display this web site in the search engine results. If someone searches on “rori rasel” – my blog will appear in the results. IF someone searches on “SEM” and “keywords” – my blog will appear in the results. I think you get the idea of how keywords can impact when you appear in the search results.
Now – this is a very basic explanation of the <HEAD> section of an HTML document– but it does get us to keywords. Here are some guidelines for keywords:
- Keywords should be 10 to 15 basic terms and simple two or three-word phrases.
- Put keywords in every one of the HTML documents included in your web site.
- Make sure that your keywords relate to the content that appears on that particular web page.
- Test your keywords on a search engine (Google and Yahoo).
- Check out your competition. What keywords are they using?
- Access the Google Keyword Tool: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal You can run this tool for your web site – and you can also run using various keywords. This is a fabulous tool to use when starting or managing a PPC campaign. Make sure that when your results appear at the bottom of the screen you use the “Show All” columns option to see all of the information Google provides.
Look for future posts about mroe details of using the Google Keyword Analyzer. Feel free to post any comments or ask any questions. I am happy to explain things in more detail.
