Way back when, in the early Web days, good Meta tags alone could result in high search engine rankings. Today, the drive for top search engine ranking has resulted in cramming the search engines with keyword-stuffed Meta tags. Now the search engines look at Meta tags for key words, titles, and descriptions, along with page content - making search engine optimization a critical component of your Web strategy.
Keyword Phrases Must Be Specific and Targeted
Since the keyword phrases that you select drive the optimization process, choosing the right keywords is essential. If you make the wrong selection, search engines won't find your site and neither will anyone else. Keep the following tips in mind when selecting keywords for each page that you plan to submit to the search engines.
Think "specific keyword phrases" not "single keywords".
Competition on the Web is fierce so the more specific your keywords, the less competition you'll face. Since specific keywords can pre-qualify your Web traffic, your Web results will be better. See the difference in the following?
Too General
Websites
Accounting Software
Much Better!
Web site writing and design
Oil & Gas Accounting Software
Here are three tips to keeping your site optimized and on finding the right keywords for your site:
- Think like your target audience. Come up with as many keyword phrases as you can think of that relate to the page you are optimizing. Ask friends and family what they would search for when looking for a site or products/services like yours. Remember, you're not the searcher and it's easy to overlook the obvious when you're too close.
- Borrow words from the competition. Search keywords that you already know you want to target then click through to the top ranked sites. Click the 'View' at the top of your Web browser and select 'Source', or 'Page Source' to view the Meta tags used on the page. Look for "Description" and "Keywords". Borrow liberally.
- Optimize every critical page. Each page contains unique or specific information so develop a keyword phrases list for each page. Your Keywords Meta tag should not exceed 1024 characters including spaces: META NAME="keywords" content="keywords phrase 1, keyword phrase 2, keyword phrase 3, etc. If you exceed this number, the search engines could consider it keyword spamming and they'll overlook, or worse, blacklist your site.
Page Tags Help the Search Engines Find and Rank Your Site We've already talked about keywords. The other two critical meta tags are title and description tags. The correct placement is between the HEAD and /HEAD tags within the HTML that makes up your page. Order does not really matter, but most people usually place the title first, then the page description, then the keywords.
- Title: Perhaps the single most important factor when optimizing your Web site, the title tag is used by engines and directories in their search results listings. Each page should have a distinct title tag that incorporates one or two of the most important keywords for that page. Make it enticing. It should be between 50-80 characters long to avoid being truncated by the search engines. The title tag appears in your source code as: TITLE Your Title Tag - learn to optimize your title tag/TITLE.
- Description: This important tag is the factual description of the content on a particular page and should include one or two of the primary keyword phrases, especially those used in your title tag and page copy. Description Meta tags should not exceed 250 characters including spaces. Use your most important keywords at the beginning of the description in case the search engine limits the length of descriptions. Description Meta tags look like META NAME="description" content="Use your most important keyword phrases to describe what is on your page."
Don't Forget a Sitemap
Perhaps the most important page on your site is your sitemap. Google offers free Webmaster services to help you create a search-engine friendly sitemap - register for these - they're free.
Web Site Content Counts - Make It Rich in Keyword Phrases
Just as a visitor to your site read the copy on each page to figure out what you have to offer, so do the search engines. And guess what? The search engines are looking for keyword phrases.
For best results, each page you submit should include at least 400 words of optimized content. Include your most important keyword phrases, title tags and page descriptions, but keep the flow logical and readable. Adding how-to articles, tips or tutorials help you in the search engines, and often result in links from other sites.
Each search engine and directory has general guidelines for submissions so it's important to bookmark those pages and revisit them regularly for new information. Here are some of the most popular search engine/directory sites:
Sound complicated? Well it can be. Optimizing a page and maintaining high readability can be a balancing act. We're certainly able to help you optimize your content with some text modifications. If you want to get really serious about Web marketing and highly optimizing your Web site, we recommend Schipul - The Web Marketing Company.
If you need some help keeping your balance, email me – we can boost your rankings.
©2008 Beth S. Miller Marketing Communications
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