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Factors to consider when selecting keywords for a website
A vital step in improving your standing with search engines is keyword selection. Search engines look for identifying keywords on your site that explain what you do and what you offer to users. Your keywords must be both relevant to the search, and appear frequently on your site to improve your “relevancy” and thereby your ranking in the search results.
What do we mean by relevance? If you own a website about “marketing” with a number of marketing “vehicles” described in your page titles and META tags, and your website comes up first in an AltaVista search for “vehicles,” you can probably expect visits from users looking for cars or trucks. They aren’t going to stay when they find your site is not what they were looking for. And the search engine will take note. Besides, you want people who are looking for marketing help, not “vehicles.”
Give very careful consideration to what words a user might enter in a search for your kind of service or product. What you begin with as keywords may change completely when you turn the project on its head and write keywords from the customer’s perspective. Then review your page titles, META Tags and site summary and rewrite where necessary. The right keywords will greatly enhance your search engine “hits,” and simplify your SEO efforts. But make sure you can back up your keyword selections with relevant content, or expect to see your list rankings degrade quickly.
When selecting keywords, also consider these other important factors:
- Use Plurals. If you pluralize your words, users who request a search in the singular or plural will find your site. For instance: car, cars.
- Diversify. One keyword will get a few people, but not everyone thinks like you do. Try to get into the mind of someone who would find your site/product useful. In the case of a “car” search, the user could enter words like “automobile,” “vehicle,” etc .
- Avoid Excessive Repetition. Some search engines now filter out sites that repeat words too much. Limit keyword repetition to no more than five times and leave it at that. Keep tabs on changes in search parameters on this issue. Major search alterations often receive press coverage.
- Use Varying Forms. Not everyone is going to write “online” as you see here. Right or wrong, there are many people out there that will search for “on-line” or “on line.” What seems silly or incorrect to you makes perfect sense to someone else.
- Use Phrases. In a recent study conducted by one of the major search engines, it was revealed that over 65% of all searches made use of phrases rather than single words.
- Target No More Than Four Keywords or Phrases Per Page. If you try to target more, your page will lose relevancy for all words concerned. Each search engine looks at only a certain portion of your page. Don’t waste that space! Remember that each page in your site may use different keywords. Add new pages with relevant content, and good targeted keywords, and improve your relevancy that way, rather than committing linguistic suicide.
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