Choosing Keywords: Using Your Keywords
November 9, 1998
Use a mix of your key words in the following places on your site.
Different search engines use the following in different ways, but
including them all in your page will enable you to have a site that
ranks reasonably well throughout.
The Title Tag.
Try to make your title as descriptive as
possible using your keywords, but remember, this tag will be used
by the search engines as the title of your listing -
<title> cooking, cook, recipes, </title>
is not as attractive as
<title> Gourmet vegetarian recipes, holiday cooking
tips, cookbooks and more </title>
If the two listings were near each other in the results of
your search, which one would you be more likely to click on?
If you want your site to look it's best in all of the major
search engines, aim for a title length of 60 characters.
The Meta Tag
- Keywords Attribute is
the most obvious place to enter your keywords.
<META name="keywords" content="cooking, cook,
vegetarian, vegetables, holiday meals, gourmet meals, food recipes,
healthy nutrition, cookbooks, vegetarian cookbooks,healthy diet,
weight loss information, ingredients, gourmet recipes, non-meat
meals, restaurant, food preparation, Vegies">
Be careful how often you repeat words in your keywords.
Common knowledge online says to repeat a word no more than three
to seven times.
Many people expect miracles from this tag, but it is actually only
one method of helping your site rank better. Search engines index
them on a character count, each letter, space and comma are counted
as a character and approximately 1000 characters are permitted.
Although the above example uses only 231 characters, it is more
important to have keywords that actually reflect what is on the
webpage than it is to dream up every possible search term and
include it.
Since this meta tag is counted by characters, the question of whether
to use commas and spaces frequently comes up. The use of the comma
is part of the specifications for the tag.
Besides, it keeps your key phrases all nice and neat.
The Meta Tag
- Description Attribute
is used by some search
engines to give you the opportunity to write your own description of
what your site is about.
<META name="description" content="A resource
for great vegetarian recipes, cookbooks, everything a gourmet chef
might need">
A description length of 150 characters will cover all of the majors,
although some allow as many as 395.
Use keywords in the ALT Attributes of your
IMG Tags.
alt="vegetarian main dish" instead of
alt="dish". The ALT attribute is required
by the specification, so use it to your advantage.
In the text of the site - when you write the copy, try to have
your keywords near the top of the page inside the copy of your site.
If your site design is built with
frames,
use the Noframes tag,
add meta tags and include a short description of what your site is
about.
Use your keywords on each page of your site, refining the terms
to specifically reflect that page. On the above example, a page
inside the site which goes over nutritional data could use keywords
more reflective of that topic.
Additional Resources
Choosing Keywords: Some Tips
Choosing Keywords
Choosing Keywords: Practices to Avoid
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