Keyword Selection Secrets
Copyright Cathy Stucker

Choose the right keywords for your Web site with the free keyword selection guide available when you click here.

You may know that it is important to optimize your Web site for your keywords. But which keywords? The keywords customers actually use to search may not be what you believe them to be. And, some keywords may be too general to provide relevant visitors to your Web site. 
It can pay to research keywords. My favorite tool is Wordtracker, and there are both free and paid versions. A less-detailed but fast and easy way to determine the relative popularity of search terms is to use the free tool at http://inventory.overture.com/

Enter the term “Houston restaurant,” and you find that there were 43,472 searches for that term in one month. “Houston restaurant” might be too general, so let’s get specific. There were also 3,505 for “pizza restaurant Houston,” and 890 for “take out restaurant Houston.” Do a search for “Houston pizza,” and you find that there were 3,505 searches for “pizza restaurant Houston” and 3,550 for “pizza delivery Houston.”

If you have a pizza restaurant in Houston, you will want to include  these terms on your Web pages. Include them in the title tags for your Web pages, in the headings on your pages, in meta tags and in the text. That does not mean just stringing together keywords in a random jumble. That means working words such as Houston, pizza, restaurant, delivery and take out into your content. Do not try to cram all of these terms on every page. Have a page focusing on delivery, another on take out, etc.
Meta tags are not visible when you look at a Web site. To see the meta tags for a site, while viewing it in your browser click on “View,” then “Source” or “Page Source.” You will see the underlying code for the page. Near the top, you will see codes beginning with “meta.” Look at your competitors’ sites to see what meta tags they use, but don’t assume theirs are good.

It is important to have your keywords in your title tag. It is even better if you can get keywords into your domain name. Put keywords in the headlines on your pages. Using keywords in graphics does not help, as the search engines will see a picture, not the words.

In addition to the title tag, be sure to include keywords in two other meta tags: description and keywords. Although most search engines do not place much value on the keyword meta tag any longer, it does not hurt to have a list of keywords there. Some search engines will display the description tag when your site comes up in a search, so make it enticing to get searchers to visit your site. 

One thing you should not do is hide keywords. Years ago, a popular technique was to repeat your keyword over and over in text the same color as the background. The search engines are wise to that trick, and doing it now could get your site banned.

Using the right keywords throughout your Web site will help customers find you.

Need help optimizing your site? 

As the Idea Lady, Cathy Stucker helps entrepreneurs and professionals attract customers and make themselves famous. Get free marketing tips in Cathy's newsletter. Subscribe at http://www.IdeaLady.com/bright.htm