Keywords '" the First Tool in Your SEO Tool Kit

Victoria Stankard
SEO is the act of publishing and marketing information on the Internet to improve search engine understanding of website content. A keyword or keyword phrase is what a web user types into the search engines in order to find relevant web pages and the use of Keywords in text is an essential component of good SEO.

"Guessing" at keywords and bolding words you think might be important for SEO is really not the way to go about optimizing your content nor will it help your SEO. Theonly way you can truly know what keywords are actually good keywords is with the help of a keyword search tool.

It will tell you how often a particular keyword is seen in Google and will show you the previous month's searches in relation to an average year search on the same keyword. It also has a powerful keyword suggestion tool, organizes and stores all your data for quick reference and happens to be FREE.

Keyword Phrases and Long Tail Keywords

Most people type into the search engines a phrase or a question, such as "how to grow an indoor herb garden," "how do I get rid of the fleas on my dog?" "how to stage my home to sell quicker," "new construction homes in the Tampa Florida area," etc. The use of keyword phrases and long tail keywords are best for most search engine queries.

"Seattle real estate" is an example of a real estate keyword phrase that web users might type into the searches if they were looking for relevant pages about real estate in Seattle. Long tail keywords are keyword phrases with three to five words in them and they narrow the search down even further. Long tail keywords are usually more specific and will draw lower traffic than shorter, more competitive keyword phrases.

Longtail keywords for the broader keyword phrase "Seattle real estate" might include: "Seattle luxury homes for sale," "Seattle foreclosure homes," "Seattle short sales," "Seattle condominiums," "luxury homes in Seattle," "Seattle townhomes" "Seattle Single-family homes" and so forth. Although these long tail keywords may not get searched as often as "Seattle Real Estate," they will bring more targeted results and have a higher conversion rate.

Keywords in Title Tags and Heading Tags

One of the best ways to get topic authority for specific keywords is to include them in the main title of your page as well as in heading tags (h2, h3, h4, etc.) within your text.

The title (heading 1 tag) is one of the very first things the search engines look at to ascertain the topic of your page or post. Therefore, you want your title to include the search term you are going after in your text. You also want to avoid using heading 1 tags within your text as they can cause topic confusion.

The use of heading 2, 3 and 4 tags that incorporate search terms are very good for organizing and breaking up blocks of text and will also give you more SEO topic authority than a bolded keyword.

Keyword Density and Keyword Stuffing

Keyword density is the percentage of words on a web page that match a specified set of keywords and can be used in determining whether a web page is relevant to a specified keyword or keyword phrase. Generally speaking, the higher the number of times a keyword appears in a page, the higher its density - around 5% is effective for content optimization. To figure out keyword density on a page, count how many times you've used your keyword and use the following formula - you don't have to be exact on this - simply use it as a ball park figure.

keyword count divided by total word count x 100 = keyword density in %

A lot of ad sites utilize keyword stuffed content void of substance which is considered spam and a form of black hat SEO. The search engines don't look at spam sites favorably and will often penalize or ignore them in the SERPS. If you want to avoid having your site seen as a spam site, watch your keyword density.

The use of good keywords will help build topic authority for your target market, help your search engine placement and generate more traffic to your website.

Search Engine Optimization and Quality Content - The Best of Both Worlds!

If you are a leader in your industry or would like to be one and desire a strong Internet presence, allow us to help you GET FOUND NOW. Our proven SEO methods will drive qualified visitors to your website and ourquality,optimized content writing serviceswill help you convert that traffic to dollars!

Read more about optimized content, blogging tips and SEO Word Press:

SEO content writing services

Five SEO WordPress blog writing tips for better blogging

The magic formula for SEO blogging success!

SEO Blogging 101 - How to write blog posts for people and spiders

How to use tags for WordPress blog SEO

Website usability and "curb appeal"

SEO WordPress XML-RPC ping services

SEO Website geo-targeting for specific locales

Deconstruction of a 500 word marketing article

SEO WordPress training

Do you really want to outsource your content offshore?

Duplicate content and web content plagiarism

Website search engine optimization case studies

If you are interested in SEO WordPress training, SEO content writing services, SEO WordPress blog design or SEO for your existing WordPress blog, please fill out the online contact form or give us a call at 813.443.1585 or 813.484-1363.

Let us help you GET FOUND NOW!

Follow us on Twitter

Published by Victoria Stankard

Victoria is a nationally syndicated, online journalist, SEO copywriter and co-owner of GET FOUND NOW, an online organic search engine optimization company. She and her husband, Michael, currently live in Tam...  View profile

To comment, please sign in to your Yahoo! account, or sign up for a new account.