Optimum Keyword Placement

So you have worked out a list of targeted keywords for your niche market. You now have to correctly use these keywords on your website to gain any value from them. Optimum Keyword Placement is a science. It is not as simple as putting keywords here and there on your website. You’ll need to know where and how to place them on your site properly to give your website the possibility of a high ranking.

Several important tags and attributes are used when placing keywords into the code of your website. To achieve a high ranking on the SERPs (Search Engine Ranking Pages), you should pay attention to these tags and attributes: – specifically, title tags, description tags, anchor text, alt attributes and header tags.

Title Tags

Title tags are the most important tags for any website. Search crawlers use title tags as the main source to determine a page’s topic. The text included in the title tag will be shown as the linked title in the search engine results. To use the title tags most effectively, you should:

• Create a unique, short and descriptive title for every website page.
• Most search engines allow a maximum of 60/65 characters in a title tag. So keep the title length short for proper display in search results.
• Include the most important or influential keywords in the title tag and use them as close to the beginning of the title as possible.

Meta Description Tags

Meta description tags are essential for every page on your website. The description included in this tag is used as one of the factors considered during the ranking process. However, it is not the most critical factor because Meta tags work differently for different search engines. Some search engines, such as Yahoo, would use text in the Meta tag description tag and display the text under the linked title in the search engine results. Others, like Google, give very little weight to Meta descriptions, and it does not display Meta description text on SERPs. Instead, it shows content surrounding the instance of the keyword on your website.

To get the most out of Meta tags, you should:

• Keep your descriptions to around 200-250 characters, about the length of one to two descriptive sentences.
• Create a unique meta tag for each page
• Include keywords with high levels of importance or effectiveness.
• Avoid having the exact text as the title tag.

Both Meta tags and title tags can be found in header tags.

Anchor Text

Anchor text is found on a website that appears to be a hyperlink. Anchor text is one of the most crucial search engine ranking factors. How you use anchor text will affect your search ranking. It is not just anchor text on your website that matters. How your site is included in others’ anchor text is also essential.

Strategy for anchor text:

• Use targeted keywords as anchor text and link to a relevant site or a page on your website.

• Use multiple keywords and phrases as anchor text on a web page. Varying anchor text gives best results.

• Use anchor text as often as there is a solid reason to use it.

Header Tags

Header tags are the attributes that set up the different levels of headings and subheadings on your website. There can be as many as six different levels of headings.

The debate about the value of header tags in SEO has never ended. Some think header tags provide no value in SEO, whereas others think header tags are absolute necessities. However, from a design point of view, you should include header tags in your site. Header tags tell users what a page’s topic is and what the segments of body text are about.

Search engines consider the text within a header tag and how it fits with the body text around it. You should include the most important keyword on your web page in the first-level headings. However, you should avoid using keywords if the keywords do not work in your headings. It is ok to include headings that contain no keywords at all. Besides, you should avoid using a first-level heading on your web page more than once.

Body Text

Body text is another place where you will want to include your keywords whenever possible. You should include your keywords about once every paragraph. However, you should not include the keywords in your body text if the keywords do not work in the normal flow of the text on the page, as the major search engines can penalise your site ranking if the content is not well written and is not original.

In addition to the normal body text, some tags indicate special formatting. Those tags include:

<b> </b>, <em> </em>, <strong> </strong> etc

The particular emphasis makes a search crawler take notice of the formatted words. So it is a good idea to format your keywords using these tags.

The use of body tags has declined since style sheets have become commonplace to control the colour and size of text, links, headings, etc.

Alt Tags

Alt, which means alternative, is an attribute that refers specifically to the alternative text you would use for a graphic. If you use images on your web pages, including alt tags for all those images is good practice. This will help to improve search engine rankings. (Google searches images as well!)