Tuesday 10 June 2008

Choosing Keywords for Web Pages

Consider these factors when choosing keywords:-
  1. The keywords should accurately describe the products or services you offer.
  2. Are the keywords ones people actually search for?
  3. The best keywords are ones people search for a lot.
  4. Can you find competitive keywords, i.e. ones that aren't used too frequently on other sites.

Some of these factors conflict.

As an example, if you are a travel agent selling holidays you might choose think holiday is a good keyword. After all, you are in the business of selling holidays and lots of people will search online for holidays. However, there are so many web pages containing the word holiday that you will unlikely to appear high in any search results. So although "holiday" will be included in lots of search terms, it is not a competitive choice since it will be used in masses of websites.

Instead choose a few more specific terms. Such as:

  • french holiday specialist
  • travel agent shrewsbury
  • discount package holidays
  • last minute package holdays
  • adventure holidays in spain

Build up a list of keywords and phrases you think people will type into search engines then include these in the text of your web pages. The best way to include the words is in a way that seems natural to the human reader.

Having read this far you might think ...

"What's the big deal? I'm a travel agent of course I'm going to include phrases like adventure holidays in France". I don't need to think too much about keywords, all I need to do is write about my products."

... and you would be correct, except there are methods to highlight your keywords so that they are emphasised to search engines. This will potentially raise your pages up the search results. If a competitor website is optimised to reinforce a certain keyword and your site is not then the odds are you will appear lower in the search results.

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