Finding the Best Keywords to Use on Your Site

When you own an online business one of the most important things you can do is get high rankings in the search engines. There are many ways of doing this. One of the most effective ways of getting your site noticed by the search engines is by using relevant keywords.

Keywords are words that people use to search for a site. For example: If you owned a site from which you sold pet care items and people typed in puppy food, you would want your site to come up. Now, some people might type in more descriptive phrases as well such as nutritious puppy food, or cheap puppy food. These are the types of keywords you would need to add to your site so your potential customers can find you.

The first step in optimizing your site keywords would be to find exactly what phrases and words people are using to find sites like yours. One way to do this is to do a search for a free keyword suggestion tool. Once you find one, just type in a one or two word phrase and this tool will tell you how many times your word has been searched for and give you other suggestions with their search numbers.

This can be a great way to find out which keywords are best to start using on your site. NOTE: This has to be done consistently. Don’t think that doing it once is all it takes. Keywords are constantly changing so to stay on top, you always need to know what people are searching for.

Now you need to make a list of specific targeted keywords (the more specific to your site, the better). I would start with a list of 10 – 20 keywords and/or phrases.

After you make up your list of highly competitive and specialized keywords it is time to start using them on your web pages. You need to take into consideration something called “keyword density”. This is the number of times you “plaster” your keywords onto your web pages. Too many times can do more harm than good. You would normally want your keyword density to be between 3% and 5%. That simply means that for every 100 words, your keyword appears 3 to 5 times. If you just paste the keywords anywhere and everywhere your site will more than likely be rejected by the search engines.

It is also a good idea to headline your keywords in large, bold type at the top of your site.

For example:

Cheap Pet Care Items Including Nutritious Puppy Food

Another way of putting your keywords to good use is by using them as anchor text for your links. For example, instead of using a regular URL or “click here for a link”, use keywords such as “pet food and toys” as the link.

You also want to make sure your web pages are titled with keywords, not just index or homepage or other generic titles. One example of a good title would be Pet Care, Vitamins, Nutritious Puppy Food, Cheap Prices, Toys

You want to use about 8-10 words in your title as only the first 70 characters will show in the actual title on your page.

Besides using the above methods, you want to sprinkle your keywords in relevant places throughout your web page. Do not just paste them anywhere. Remember, quality, not just quantity will get you more results.

The best placement for your keywords is in the first 20 or so sentences. Then limit the use of the keywords throughout the rest of the text. You might also try summarizing all your pertinent keywords in your final paragraph to tie them all together.

NOTE: The spiders cannot read text on graphics unless you use the ALT tag. The ALT tag is inserted into the image code like this:

image SRC code here and then ALT=”Pet Care Food Vitamins Toys” inserted at the end of the code

Then, if for some reason the image does not show up your keywords “Pet Care Food Vitamins Toys” will.

If you consistently use the methods above, your site ranking should improve substantially. I know mine did once I used these techniques. But remember to research your keywords regularly and make any changes necessary.

Author: Terri Seymour
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Canada duty rates

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