Choosing and Using Keywords

Although there are many different factors, which will influence how well your web pages perform in search engines, many people see 'keywords' as the single most important aspect of any site promotion effort. I would agree that webmasters should spend some quality time defining keywords, however this task should be carried out with a number of other things in mind.

The 'Meta tags' within web pages are used by search engines to determine what pages are about – they are typically repetitions of the main words or subjects contained in the text portion of each page. You will have an idea what search phrases you want to be associated with your site, and hope for high rankings based on these ideas. Of course, this isn't an ideal world, and simply placing keywords within the Meta tags and document text will not guarantee a good search engine ranking – there are a number of other factors to consider.

The most important point is to recognise that the Internet is growing at an exponential rate, with more and more competitors arriving online all the time, all competing for the same market on the search engines. A few years ago, you could probably expect a Top 10 ranking for 'DVD', or 'Marketing', if you followed a few basic rules.

Nowadays, this is definitely not the case – it is increasingly difficult to get top rankings for single keywords. You should think of using multi-word phrases (such as 'buy dvd online', or 'marketing services uk', and include the big hitting words within the Meta tags, but with more of an emphasis on multi-word phrases.

Most search engines use relevancy algorithms to determine how many times your keyword phrases appear in the text of your web page. If you mention 'marketing' in your meta tags, but the word does not appear within the text of your site, search engines will not look favourably on this page and give it a low ranking. So, make sure your keywords appear in the Title and Description tags, within the text, and within 'header' (H1, H2, H3) tags. You should consider placing keywords in the 'ALT' tags for images as well – since this will increase the relevancy of your keywords as far as the major engines are concerned.

So, how many keywords should you use? There are no fixed rules, although most engines will typically accept 800 –1000 characters of keyword text, and 200 characters for the description tag. The first keywords are the most important, with subsequent words of less importance, so make sure your primary phrases are listed first. There has been a great deal of debate over whether you should include commas between keywords, and again there is no hard and fast rule here, so go with whatever works well for you. One thing you should avoid is multiple repetitions of the same word, such as 'dvd, dvd, dvd, and dvd' – this would certainly be seen as 'spamming'.

So, let's say your site is about 'DVD information' – how do you know what your visitors will be looking for and how would you ensure that you maximise the ranking of your pages based on what visitors typically search for?

As long as you follow these general tips, choose distinct phrases which are related to the general content of your page text, avoid any possibility of spamming, and take some time experimenting with keywords, you should be fine. Don't expect top rankings immediately – every site is different and some subjects are more competitive than others. Keyword manipulation is an ongoing activity, and you'll certainly reap the rewards if you spend the necessary time and effort.