Key Word Position and Frequency
Page Title Tag
The title tag of your web page is very important when optimizing your web page for the search engines. Most search engines place a high level of importance on keywords that are found in the title tag.
The title tag text is often the text used in the listing on the search engine results page and the text shown at the top of your browser.
- Use between 50-80 characters including spaces for your title tag.
- Include 1-2 of your most important keyword phrases in the title tag preferably within a (close to) readable sentence as possible rather than as a list of keywords. This avoids problems of being considered to be spamming the search engine and provides a readable sentence for the search engine results page where appropriate – something that will attract the searchers interest as well as something that works for the search engine.
- Place key words near the beginning of the tag when possible so that you do not risk having them cut off.
Each page of your website should have it's own title tag with it's own keywords that related to the
page that it appears on.
Page Copy
- Aim for at least 250 words (search engines prefer a good quantity) of quality readable copy on a web page. This text should include your most important keyword phrases, but should remain logical and readable for your visitors.
- Repeat your keyword phrases often – 5 times is a good target but ensure content remains perfectly readable. Don’t forget to use common abbreviations (the ones your target audience would use) and variations but not misspellings (because from the visitors’ perspective this is poor quality work).
- Use those keyword phrases that you have used in your title and meta tags.
- Note I have used the phrase keyword phrases repeatedly in full. I have resisted the normal editing technique of saying once then shortening to “phrases” thereafter the “keyword” part to be implied. For the sake of the search engine break the normal editing practice.
- Build content: Add how-to articles, tips or tutorials, reference material, guides etc. Content like this helps with the search engines and visitors as they provide more useful information on your website (and other websites may link to them – building your internet presence - which will give you a significant boost on some search engine rankings).
- One further issue concerns the code behind the design of your website. It is preferrable for
the real content to come as close to the body tag as possible. If the content follows a lot of
programming or positioning code (for example javascript and layers of tables) it is not as important
in the search engines eyes as a page with similar content close to the body tag. So CSS (style
sheet) based websites are likely to score better than table based websites in the search engines
(also for accessibility - you can read more on website
accessibility issues on the www.web-accessibility.co.uk - and for use across all web browsing devices).
Text Hyperlinks
Text based hyperlinks can help improve your listing in the search engines.
The search engines assume that what is on the end of the link is closely related
to the content of your page. So some of the engines look for keywords in the
hyperlinks and any text immediately surrounding the hyperlinks. Therefore
include your most important keyword phrases in the link itself and possibly
the surrounding text.
Heading Tags (<H1> to <H6>)
Use of heading tags clearly indicates to the search engine the headings within all the other text on your web page. The search engines assume that text marked as headings are more important than the rest of the text and very closely related to the content of the page that they appear on. So:
- mark up the main page heading as <H1> and use <H2> to <H6> as appropriate
- put <H1> immediately after the <body> tag if you can, the closer the better
- include some of your most important keyword phrases in the heading tags.
Image "alt" Attribute
The alt attribute of each image on your web page can include a keyword phrase that relates to the image. This can help with some search engines.
- Use keyword phrases that you also used in the copy of your web page, title tag, meta description, and other tags.
- These should be included within a descriptive sentence of the image –
not as a list of keywords.
Meta Tags
Meta tags were originally created to help search engines find out important information about your web page that they might have had difficulty determining otherwise from the content. Due to abuse of meta tags they are less important than they used to be as search engines now focus much more on real content but they can still be of benefit.
There are two meta tags that can help your search engine listings - meta description & meta
keywords.
Description Meta tag:
- Up to 250 characters including spaces.
- Accurately describe the content of your page while trying to entice visitors to click on your listing.
- Include 3-4 of your most important keyword phrases. Especially those used in your title tag and page copy.
- Have your most important keywords appear at the beginning
Meta keywords tag:
- Keywords Meta not exceed 1024 characters including spaces
- Only use those keyword phrases that you also used in the copy of your page, title tag, meta description, and other tags.
- Add plurals
- Add common misspellings
- No one word be repeated in the keyword meta more than 5 times
- Include the actual geographic location if it is relevant.
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