SEO: What are Keywords and How to Use Them
September 7th, 2011Proper 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 keyword analyzing – Make a list of products and services that are significant to your business. Put them in order of importance.
Use synonyms – 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 free keyword research 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.
Where to use keywords
It is important to place your keywords and synonyms in the following areas:
- H1 Title of the page
- H2 Sub-headers
- SEO (Meta) Title
- Body of text
- Names and alternative descriptions of images
Learn more about SEO and read the SEO guide