What’s the Word?

Posted on 25 August 2009

Keyword research and targeting is one of the most important aspects of optimizing your website. The keyword terms/phrases you choose will be used in your title tag, H1 tag, URL, meta description tag, throughout the content of your site, and possibly in your domain name. The odd thing is, many websites ignore this most basic principle of SEO. It’s true that there are many other ways to achieve a high page rank but keyword targeting is one of the most relied upon and proven methods (and it happens to be what we do best.) 

Choosing the right keywords for your website involves more than guesswork. You can’t assume you know what keyword terms/phrases are best for your site. Sometimes choosing the most obvious terms can be detrimental to a website. Think about it, if you choose keywords that are obvious to your industry chances are all of your competitors, large and small, have also thought of them and are bidding on them. This makes it very difficult to rank on these types of keywords because so many websites are competing for the same words and some of those websites have much more money and energy to throw into it. This is why research is required. Your best bet is to find a comprehensive keyword tool. These will give you options for both long-tail and generic keywords that would be prudent to incorporate in your site’s content. You should also check out the keywords your competitors are using and consider whether it is worth competing with them on those terms or whether you should target more specific terms and therefore have less competition and a higher chance to rank. It definitely takes quite a bit of thought to choose your keywords wisely but once you have them chosen it will help you optimize other aspects of your site. 

Now that you have your keywords chosen, how do you incorporate them in the content of your site?

• Keywords should have a prominent position (i.e. first or second word) in your title tags, meta description tags, H1 tags, URLs, and body text of your site. Although you can’t always have one of your keywords in your website’s domain name, if it is available and makes sense, then buy that domain name. Both search engines and users will immediately know what your site is about. 
• Use keywords in body text but don’t over use them. They should be placed toward the top of your body text and then sparingly throughout the rest of the page. Only use your keywords when they make sense. Search engines and users alike don’t respond well at all to overuse of keywords. Users call it annoying, search engines call it “keyword stuffing”, and your website is vulnerable to penalty on both counts. 
• Don’t put all your high ranking hopes on one keyword. Have a selection — both generic and long-tail — of keywords you are targeting. This way if you can’t seem to rank on one term, you still have a chance to rank on others. It’s all about diversity. You want to rank on more than one term because not every searcher uses the same verbiage in their search queries. For example, two searchers might both be looking for rain boots. One searcher uses the term “rain boots” while the other searcher uses the term “wellies.” They both are searching for the same item but simply used different terms. Your site should cover all the variations of your keywords so you don’t limit your traffic. 

Keyword targeting is one of the most fundamental aspects of site optimization. It is the foundation of many other aspects of optimization and can contribute to higher page rank- when incorporated properly. Sometimes the smartest methods of SEO aren’t the most progressive and “cutting edge”, sometimes they are the ones, like keyword targeting, that just work. 

More on keyword targeting…

* http://www.seomoz.org/blog/perfecting-keyword-targeting-on-page-optimization

* http://blog.fluencymedia.com/articles/seo-keyword-targeting-strateg/

* http://www.seomoz.org/blog/10-steps-to-advanced-keyword-research

(Photo credit goes to Sachyn on sxc.hu)