Basics of SEO: Keywords and How to Work with Them

September 7th, 2011

Proper keyword selection can significantly affect the success of optimizing your site for search engines. Therefore, it is essential to keep the following points in mind…

Start by analyzing what you offer – Make a list of products and services that are significant to your business. Put them in order of importance.

Use word variants – Take your list and think about synonyms. Incorporate different words of similar meaning.

Do not optimize for general keywords – Key phrases that are too vague have several pitfalls. Firstly, it will be a struggle to get your pages to a primary position. Second, they are less profitable. General words attract users to the sites who are still unsure about what they are looking for. These users are still in the survey. They will be willing to buy in the next phase. Therefore, we recommend you to be specific!

Optimize for the specific phrase – Internet users are becoming more and more specific in their search, knowing exactly what they are looking for. You can add keywords with adjectives (“cheap refrigerator”, “quick loan”), or with local names (“hair salon in Brighton”)

Remember the brand name as a keyword option – Many companies have created a stunning site logo, yet these can only be admired by visitors. Search engine robots can not see images. As a result, your website might not appear to people who search for it, even if they know the company name.

Use the tools to work with keywords – These tools help you to verify that you have chosen your keywords correctly. By using e.g. Google AdWords Keyword Tool, you can see the number of people searching for these keywords monthly as well as the rate of competition among keywords.

Location of Keywords

It is important to place your keywords in the following areas:

* Title of the page
* Sub-header
* Body of text
* Names and alternative descriptions of images


You can find the field for alternative description of images in image properties.

Make sure to read this step-by-step SEO guide.