Keywords are Important for Your Website

If you want people to be able to find your website in a search engine, then you're going to need to have a high search engine ranking. Most people will only scroll through the first ten pages of results to find what they're looking for before they search under a different term, and many don't even look that far. High search engine rankings are awarded, in part, by keyword usage. If your site uses a significant number of keywords that are relevant to your product, then you have a better chance of ending up in a high search engine position.

Some people solve this dilemma by overloading their site with keywords. But, this is only a short-term solution. According to Mary O'Brian, former Senior Director of Sales at Overture.com, "Many search engine marketers would have you believe that the best way to get high search engine rankings is to stuff your pages full of keywords and use tiny text at the bottom of the page to create great spider fodder. This may be a good short-term strategy, and may get you good rankings, but in the long-term that's not a good idea. Spiders are getting smarter. They know when you are trying to spam them. From your customer's perspective this also does a lot to minimize the credibility of your web site."

O'Brian suggests that the best way to draw customers to a site as well as encourage other webmasters to link to your site is to provide high-quality content. The content on your website should be relevant to your product, informative, and grammatically correct. Most people that are searching on the web are looking for information. So, say you're a florist looking to promote your business on the web. If your website simply showcases your product, then you're going to be competing with the biggest flower corporations in the country. However, if you offer some information about your product as well, then you may attract customers that are looking for information that decide to shop with you because they're already at your site.

If you have content that describes what different colored roses signify, then you're going to get hits from people that are searching for that information. Most likely, these people are searching for this information because they intend on sending roses to a loved one. When writing your content, you'll want to pick a keyword that people would search for to find this information and plug it in instead of generic nouns. By providing this information, you are attracting customers that are looking for it as well as providing information that other webmasters may want to link to. You've satisfied two of the most important determiners in search engine ranking - keyword usage and number of outside sites that are linked to you.