Search Engine Optimization

 

I want to know more about Search

 

Most effective search engine optimization (SEO) tactics have one thing in common: keywords. By anticipating the search terms used by customers and incorporating them into a website, marketers can boost their site's natural search engine ranking, which is vital to Internet marketing.

Obtaining a desirable search engine ranking requires good information about the keywords and keyword phrases related to your website's industry or topic. A good place to start is to examine the keyword density of pages on the website.

Keyword density is measured by the number of times a word appears on a page divided by the number of words on a page. Keyword density is used by search engines to help determine the rank of a website for a given keyword.

One of the best ways to determine the keyword density of terms on your website is to create a keyword cloud. A keyword cloud is a visual representation of a web page based on the way a search engine sees it. To generate your own keyword cloud, try one these free tools:

• Icon Interactive's Keyword Cloud Tool generates a keyword cloud. (www.iconinteractive.com/tools/wordcloud/)
• SEO Tools generates a keyword cloud that includes phrases. (www.seochat.com/seo-tools/keyword-cloud/)

In a keyword cloud, some of the keywords that appear in your cloud are in larger fonts and some are in smaller fonts. The keywords in larger fonts have a higher "keyword density". This means that they occur more frequently in that website. Popular search terms should be the largest words in your site's keyword cloud.

It's important to incorporate popular keywords and keyphrases into your site so potential customers using those words will find your site on search engines. The addition of newly popular and highly relevant keywords will improve the ranking of your site in natural search engine results. To find keywords you may be overlooking, try these free tools:

• Icon Interactive's Keyword Suggestion Tool help find keywords related to the words you enter and display's the popularity of the term. (www.iconinteractive.com/tools/keyword.php)
• Adapt Keyword Finder Beta emails you a report of alternative keywords related to those you enter. (keywordfinder.adapt.com)
• Google Trends can be used to explore and compare the volume of queries over time, by city, regions, languages, etc. (google.com/trends).

Based on what you learn, you can rewrite pages to include popular and effective keyphrases throughout your site. Place keywords in the page title, headings, metatags, comment fields, "alt" tags, URL link text, and throughout the body of your web pages where a keyword or phrase is appropriate.

The trick is to improve density and placement of important keywords and keyphrases throughout the site without negatively affecting the content. Keywords need to be as specific as possible to each page. This ensures that people who find the site through search engines won't be disappointed with the content they find.

Work Smart Search engine optimization isn't based on keywords alone. Importance is also a factor. "Important, high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank," according to Google, which uses its PageRank system to determine the best sites to display in natural search engine results. "Google goes far beyond the number of times a term appears on a page and examines all aspects of the page's content (and the content of the pages linking to it) to determine if it's a good match for your query." An easy way to measure a site's PageRank is to visit a site like checkpagerank.net.

Google and other search engines reward sites linked from other popular and reputable sites. Sites linking to your site should have an equivalent or higher page rank. Text for incoming links should include keywords and phrases.

Incoming links that contain keywords within the text of a link are also viewed as more relevant than links without keywords. Links that use phrases like "click here" or "learn more" are less relevant. And text links that only contain a company's name aren't relevant for keyword searches that leave out the name.

SEO is not about being highly ranked for every possible keyword or getting incoming links from every possible website. It's about being highly ranked for the right keywords and linked from the right kind of websites.

For more information about search engine optimization, see our discussions on:

• Link Popularity
• Sitemap XML Feeds
• Selecting an SEO Vendor