For web marketing training, presentations and workshops visit Pacifica Training. If you wish to ask questions about website marketing please head over and register free at the website marketing forum, a knowledge base and community driven discussion group.
Where do keywords go?
Published: May 6, 2005
When writing content for your website, you must consider what the search engines are looking for. Your copy will be a trade off between good sales patter and search engine keyphrases as they often pull you in different directions.
Below are the primary considerations needed when writing the copy for your web pages.
The TITLE tag
The TITLE tag which resides in the HEAD section of your web page is one of the most important elements in terms of getting a good search engine position. Every page must have a unique and keyphrase descriptive title. The actual TITLE text is the phrase that appears in the top bar of the browser so is often not read by visitors meaning it's easy to ignore. Make sure you don't.
Link text
When your web page requires a link to another page, or even website, do not use images, Flash or JavaScript. Use plain text links then apply CSS to make them attractive. That's step one.
With this text, you must again be keyphrase descriptive. Many leading search engines are relying on what the text within a link says about the page it points to so make sure you stick the keywords in the link but also make it readable. Remember, no-one searches for 'click here'.
META description and keywords
Although the leading search engines won't give you any benefit in terms of rank when using the META tags, it won't harm your rank either so put them in if you feel you must cater for the very few small and specialised search engines out there.
In most cases, people keyword stuff the META tags but stick to the rule - short and keyphrase descriptive - and you won't go far wrong. A web page only has a focus of one or two phrases so why should a META tag contain 50?
Heading tags
Headers such as H1, H2 ... will offer your web page a means of structure. Being a H1 means this is the primary header for your page and carries most weight. Please don't take this to mean that all text should be contained within headers because then there is no structure and emphasis on the important information. Use headers wisely and nest them correctly. H3 does not follow H1.
Emphasis
If you have a paragraph of text and want to emphasise information there are two ways to do this. You can use the <em> tag which is a logical emphasis and you can use the <strong> tag which is another logical tag. These need to contain keyphrases too as they stand out from the rest of the content. Keep it readable and friendly though and don't jump on every phrase.
Text
When writing the copy for your web page, keep in mind that the keyphrases need to be top heavy so start your pages off with the primary phrase if possible. Again, keep it readable. If you find your keyword density is too much then add more content and spread the phrases out.
ALT attributes
All foreground images must have ALT attributes within the code. This provides text instead of images when images are turned off, or perhaps when screen reading, or even when a search engine visits. With this in mind, be keyphrase descriptive with ALT attributes.
Conclusion
There appears to be a pattern here. The primary title for this page is 'where do keywords go?'. It's in danger of being confused with 'keyphrase descriptive' but that phrase is something you have to have in your mind when you write any copy for a website.
You can use software to count keywords and make a judgement on your page but the best thing you can do is get someone else to read it.
- Does the copy serve the reader with the information they require?
- Does the primary phrase correctly summarise the content?
Until search engines grow even wiser you still have to balance the sales pitch with keyphrases but this is now and search engines are ever evolving so watch those stats and see how people arrive at your site. Go write for your site!