Posted: Thu Nov 27, 2003 6:11 am Post subject: Please explain this key word thing
Could someone please explain this key word thing to me? How many do I need and how do I get the search engines to know I have them? _________________ Widowedheart
Joined: 01 Aug 2003 Posts: 1106 Location: London, England
Posted: Thu Nov 27, 2003 8:00 am Post subject:
Hi Widowedheart,
Okay, I'll have a go.
A "keyword" or "keywordphrase" is the word, or group of words that your page is focused on.
For an example, let's say that you want to write a page that would stand a chance of being found by someone entering the term "bereavement counseling" into a search engine. Bereavement counseling would then be your keyword (actually a "keyphrase" but the same term gets used for both)
You would naturally use the term "bereavement counseling" when writing your page.
As to how many times you need to use it, it does depend upon the length of your copy ect., but a rough answer is a little bit more than standard English. You may also wish to use your keyword in your title, headline, alt tags etc.
However at the present time, all this is a subject of great debate as Google (the engine that sends most of the traffic) has altered (or is testing) the way it "judges" pages for relevancy. So until things settle down none of us has a clue on the density to aim for
And don't worry the engines will know what keyword(s) your pages are optimized for, whether they judge them the same as you is a different question though.
Keywords, or keyphrases in the case of more than one, are used only by SOME SE's, not all to help in ranking your site pages. Keywords are basically those words searchers would use to try to find your site, your information, in search engines.
There are several ways they are used for SEO (search engine optimization):
1. Meta keywords tag ... in the head section of your page, between the <head> and </head> sections of the html. Searchers do not see your keywords, but some SE's (getting fewer all the time) do use them to either rank, or derive context from your page.
The tag looks like this:
<META Name="Keywords" Content="keyword, keyword phrase, another keyword phrase">
Each keyword or phrase is separated by a comma. The entire keyword tag must be on one line within the html ... and one line only. Not to say you can't include hundreds of keywords, you can, you just can't use the "enter" key (hard carriage return for us old folks) within the syntax of the tag. Most SEO optimizing I've seen recommends 3 to 4 keywords or phrases, no more than 10, as each one you list reduces the overall quality of each keyphrase in the tag.
Keyphrases are also used in the title tag and description tags (also in the <head> section of the html). Here you only use one or two of your keywords or phrases, making sense in your wording, in an attempt to induce the searcher who sees the information you list.
<TITLE>Keyphrase will help you another keyphrase.</TITLE>
<META Name="Description" Content="When you need keyword, do you know where to find another keyphrase to build on keyphrase?">
Now, just having keywords and phrases in your heading isn't good, you also need to use them, within reason and in context, in your page that the viewer sees. Common ways they are used:
1. Heading tags <h1> <h2> <h3> etc. through <h6>
2. Once in bold;
3. Once in italics;
4. as a page name ... i.e. keyphrase-keyword.html
5. sometimes you will see them in domain names as well ... usually the more generic phrase that relates to the entire site ... as in AssociatePrograms.com
6. Sprinkled through out your content paragraphs;
7. As anchor text in a link ... i.e. <a href="/keyphrase.html">Keyphrase gets results</a>
The trick is to get the right keyword density (which btw noone knows what is right on)... so we all experiment with it in ranges from 1% to 20% ... and some much higher ... to see what the SE's like at that particular time.
The secret to all of this is, of course, to figure out what phrases the people are using to search for what your site offers. Many products exist to help in this regard ... SBI and its brainstormer which also includes hosting, SE submission and tracking, and a myriad of other tools ... Wordtracker.com has a neat free trial and a very reasonable daily package ... for $7 and one day, you can research thousands of words in all the top SE's. There are also other software tools, some free ... some not that also work well.
I think I've covered the basics in Keywords101 Hope this helps,
Debs
PS sorry Larry ... we crossed here _________________ Learn how to turn keyphrases into quality, well-targeted articles your visitors and SE's will love with Gary Antosh's new ebook "Web Content Made Easy!"
Debs _________________ Learn how to turn keyphrases into quality, well-targeted articles your visitors and SE's will love with Gary Antosh's new ebook "Web Content Made Easy!"
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