Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is increasingly important to a Web site’s success. Keyword research is an essential element of effectively marketing your web site. Putting the right words in the right place the right amount of times! Once you have a list of keywords that you want to rank well for in search engines you will need to SEO these keywords in the various locations throughout your page’s code. You need a strategy for how you’ll successfully use those keywords. The factors that search engines take into account when indexing goes beyond one keyword per page placement, and the competition is fierce. In order to bump up your placement in a directory’s results, you need an implementation strategy.

Below is a listing in order of importance of the places to put your keywords.

1. Include a keyphrase in the first sentence of your text.
2. Title Meta Tags (not more than 60 characters): < TITLE > tag
3. Meta Keyword Description
4. Header tags: h1, h2, etc.
5. Bold/Italic Tag Content
6. Body Text on top, middle and bottom of page: A good keyword density is 4-7%
7. Alt Tags in Pictures that are Links: Image < ALT >
8. Title Tag in Anchor Tags
9. Anchor Text (incoming and internal) “deep linking”
10. Use a keyword in your URLs

Search engine spiders read the HTML code on your page and score the page based on established criteria. If the search engine finds keywords in specific locations throughout the document, it will assume that your page is very relevant to that keyword.

Make sure the text on your page sounds natural, not artificially stuffed with keywords. Remember, you have to please human visitors to your site as well as search engines. It really isn’t rocket science.