Choosing keywords
Sunday, August 14, 2011
, Posted by Unknown at 11:25 AM
Introduction to keywords
A part of successful search engine optimisation of web pages is working out what keywordsyour prospective visitors might type in to a search engine to find your site. Some are more competitive than others - try searching for 'web design' in Google, there are millions of results! For smaller, establishing web sites it is better to target less popular keywords and phrases to begin with and aim for success with those.
Why choose keywords at all?
A good web page contains information that people are looking for. When you write the page you need to take a step back and think about what search terms or keywords people would enter to find it. Once you have determined those keywords, you need to narrow them down to 3 to 5 main words. Then you can start to write the page, keeping these words in mind while you develop the content.
While writing the web page, you can use search engine optimisation techniques to make sure you use your keywords in the right places for search engine success.
Key phrases versus keywords
Different keywords joined together form key phrases. These phrases would be what the search engine user is likely to type in to find your site. As a general rule, each page on your site should be optimised for one key phrase. This page, for example, targets 'choosing keywords' as the main two word search phrase. Two to four word phrases are typical - longer phrases are less commonly used in searches. If you are selling products and services then one of your keywords should be your location (i.e. state, province or city).
How to research keywords
Unfortunately there are no shortcuts - good research will pay off with good results. By entering a search phrase in Google you can see what sort of competition you are up against. The blue bar at the top of the results page might say something like 'Results 1 - 10 of about 4,160,000'. That tells you that the search phrase is fairly competitive.
Also, you will learn a lot about how the search engines work by entering different phrases and seeing where they rank. Try and find combinations of keywords that return pages with poor information. If you can write a solid page of content using those keywords you should be able to rank highly in searches provided you follow the basics of search engine optimisation.
The other major source of research for keywords are yourserver log files. When a visitor finds your site using a search page, the words they used to find you are entered in your server log files. By looking at this information you can find:- keywords to target
- phrases to target
- ideas for new pages
As an example, we noticed that people found our site by typing in 'writing email newsletters'. The information we had on the subject was very limited though. We wrote a new page about writing email newsletters, uploaded it to our site and now it pulls in a good number of visitors on its own every day. Keep finding those keywords and keep building new web content around them.
Keyword brainstorming
There are some excellent ways to develop and brainstorm new keywords, which can then be used to write new web pages for your site. The Search term suggestion tool from Overture can be used to see what other words have been used in actual searches on a topic. This is also a great way to find some of the less competitive keywords.
An easy way to find new keyword combinations is to think like your customers. If you sell golf equipment, you would want pages based around putters, balls, drivers, brand names and specific products. Over time you slowly create more and more pages using phrases like 'king cobra driver' for example to cater for specific searches.
Keyword density
If you start to get really technical about your keywords, you will want to know the density or word count of keywords on your page. A part of search engine optimisation is researching the ideal density of keywords on the pages - around 5 to 10 per cent is considered about the 'right' amount. A page needs to feature the keywords prominently but not read like they were added purely to boost the search rankings. A job for someone experienced in writing for the web!
The free keyword counter will analyse one of your web pages and also compare it with another site if you supply the URL. It then gives you an assessment of the top words for the page and the density percentage.
