Assign Specific Keywords to Specific Pages

Assign Specific Keywords to Specific Pages
The next step is to allocate specific keywords to specific pages of your
site for search engine optimization. You then populate each page in the
appropriate places with the assigned keyword. You do this because you
want to ensure that no matter which keyword or keyword phrase your
target market decides to search on, one of the pages on your site is likely
to rank in the first couple of pages of search results.
Many sites populate all their pages with the same keywords in the
hopes that one of their pages will rank high in the search results. They
use the same meta-tags for every page on their site. Again, this is the
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same as buying 100 tickets on the lottery but selecting the same numbers
for every single ticket.
Some search engines rank sites by how early the keyword appears
on the site. The earlier a keyword is mentioned on your site, the higher
your site may be positioned in search results. And remember the points
made earlier: though you don’t want to repeat a keyword hundreds of
times (some search engines are on to this), you do want to repeat keywords
a number of times on each page of your site.
When you have allocated your keywords to the various pages on
your site, you will populate or include the keyword phrases assigned in
the appropriate places for that particular page: Let’s take a closer look
at all those appropriate places.
Title Tags—Use Descriptive Page Titles
It is extremely important that all Web pages have titles. Title tags are
viewed as the most important element of search engine optimization
when it comes to keyword placement. Each of the pages in your Web
site should be given a title.
The title is inserted between the title tags in the header of an HTML
document. indicates the beginning of the header, and the ending
of the header is marked by . A simplified version might
look like:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
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Title tag information identifies and describes your pages. Titles tell
readers where the information contained on a page originated. Most
Web browsers, such as Netscape, display a document’s title in the top
line of the screen. When users print a page from your Web site, the title
usually appears at the top of the page at the left. When someone bookmarks
your site, the title appears as the description in his or her bookmark
file. These are all reasons that it is important that a page’s title
reflects an accurate description of the page. More importantly, the title
tag is typically what the target market sees in search results in some of
the major search engines. In Figure 6.5 you can see that a typical search
result consists of the title tag as the link to the Web site, a brief description
of the Web site, and the URL.
Every page of your Web site should have a unique title tag and each
title tag should accurately describe the page content. Your target market
should be able to read the title tag and understand what the page
they are about to view contains.
Keep your title tags brief—in the realm of 5 to 10 words. The longer
your title tag is the more diluted your keywords become and the more
likely your title tag is to be truncated by a search engine. Notice in
Figure 6.5 that the last search result’s title ends with an ellipsis (…).
This occurs because Google only displays up to 66 characters. Yahoo!
Figure 6.5. The title tag of a Web site appears as the first line of information
about a Web site.
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104 101 Ways To Promote Your Web Site
on the other hand permits up to 120 characters for a title tag. Presently
Google and Yahoo! are the two most important search engines; use
their requirements as an approximation when designing your title tag.
My advice is to include your most important keyword phrases first,
within Google’s 66 character range. Overspill, or less important keywords,
can run into the excess space Yahoo! allows. By including your
most important keywords first you secure their position for use by the
search engines and for browser bookmarks.
The shorter and more accurate the title tag is, the higher the keyword
density and relevancy for that title tag. Try to keep your use of a
keyword phrase to a single instance if possible, unless the title tag truly
warrants duplication. In the case of a hotel, the word hotel might appear
twice in a title: once for the hotel’s proper company name and once
in a descriptive term such as a targeted geographic area.
Match the keywords you use in your meta-tags with the words you
use in your page titles. Search engines check page titles, meta-tags, and
page content for keywords. For certain keywords, your pages will be
more relevant, and therefore will place higher in the search engines, if
these keywords appear in each of these three sections. Position your
keywords near the beginning of your page titles to increase your keyword
relevancy.
Some of the search engines retrieve your page, look at your title, and
then look at the rest of your page for keywords that match those found
in the title. Many search engines use title tags as one of the elements in
their algorithm to determine search engine ranking. Pages that have keywords
in the title are seen as more relevant than similar pages on the
same subject that don’t, and may thus be ranked in a higher position by
the search engines. However, don’t make your title a string of keywords
such as cuisine, French cuisine, imported food, because this is often considered
spam by the search engines and you end up worse off in the
rankings or removed altogether. Also keep in mind that people will see
that title in the search results, and they’re more likely to click on a site
that has a title that flows and is descriptive—not a list.
Keywords Meta-Tag
As we noted earlier in this chapter, a common problem faced by Internet
marketers is how to influence search engines to index their site ap-
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Designing Your Site to Be Search Engine Friendly 105
propriately and how to ensure that their site appears when people use
relevant search criteria. The majority of Internet users employ search
engines or directories to find Web sites, which they do by typing in a
keyword or phrase that represents what they are looking for.
Retaining a certain measure of control over how search engines deal
with your Web site is a major concern. Often Web sites do not take
advantage of the techniques available to them to influence search engine
listings. Most search engines evaluate the HTML meta-tags in conjunction
with other variables to decide where to index Web pages based
on particular keyword queries.
The Web Developer’s Virtual Library defines an HTML meta-tag as
follows:
“The META element is used within the HEAD element to
embed document meta-information not defined by other
HTML elements. The META element can be used to
identify properties of a document (e.g., author, expiration
date, a list of key words, etc.) and assign values to those
properties.”
An HTML tag is used in the HEAD area of a document to
specify further information about the document, either for
the local server or for a remote browser. The meta-element
is used within the HEAD element to embed document
meta-information not defined by other HTML elements.
Such information can be extracted by servers/clients for
use in identifying, indexing, and cataloging specialized
document meta-information. In addition, HTTP servers
can read the contents of the document HEAD to generate
response headers corresponding to any elements defining a
value for the attribute HTTP-EQUIV. This provides
document authors with a mechanism for identifying
information that should be included in the response
headers of an HTTP request.
To summarize this lengthy definition, meta-information can be used
in identifying, indexing, and cataloging. This means you can use these
tags to guide the search engines in displaying your site as the result of a
query. There are many meta-tags, including:
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• Abstract
• Author
• Copyright
• Description
• Expires
• Keywords
• Language
• Refresh
• Revisit
• Robots.
Most of the above meta-tags are not useful for optimization purposes.
The most recognized meta-tag is the keywords meta-tag.
tells search engines
under which keywords to index your site. When a user types one
of the words you listed here, your site should be displayed as a result. A
space or comma can be used to separate the words. Do not frequently
repeat the keyword, rather repeat the keyword about five times in different
phrases. You do have the option of using more than 1,000 characters
in your keywords meta-tag, but be wary of keyword dilution.
You should create a keywords tag for each page of your site that lists
the appropriate keywords for each separate page.
Description Meta-Tag
should be included
on every page of your Web site. The description meta-tag is used to
supply an accurate overview of the page to which it is attached. The
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description meta-tag can influence the description in the search engines
that support them.
It is best to keep the description meta-tag to somewhere in the realm
of 200 to 250 characters in total. Be sure to use the same keywords applied
elsewhere on the page being optimized in the description meta-tag
for consistency and relevancy, however, do not duplicate your title tag in
your description meta-tag or you may run the risk of being accused of
keyword stacking. Also, it helps to include a call to action encouraging
the target market to visit your Web site or some other action.
Alt Tags
Some search engines use the information within Alt tags when forming a
description and determining the ranking for your site. Alt tags are used to
display a description of the graphic they are associated with if the graphic
cannot be displayed, such as in text-only browsers. Alt tags appear after
an image tag and contain a phrase that is associated with the image.
Ensure that your Alt tags contain the keywords assigned to the particular
page wherever you can. This gives your page a better chance of
being ranked higher in the search engines. For example:

You do not want your Alt tags to look something like “Game Nation”
or “Company Logo” because this does not include any keywords.
Be sure you apply proper Alt tags to all images on your site to achieve
best results. Keep in mind that users who browse with graphics disabled
must be able to navigate your site, and proper use of Alt tags assists
them in doing so.
Hypertext Links
A hypertext link consists of the description of a link placed in between
anchor tags. Here is an example of an absolute link, where the link
includes the total path to where the document can be found:
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This is the anchor text for the sample
link
The text inside a hyperlink, or anchor text, is increasingly important
for search engine optimization. The major search engines give weight
to content in and around text links because Web sites typically link to
other related Web sites that the target market is interested in so there is
a strong relevancy pattern.
Good places to use links include the primary and subnavigation aspects
of a Web site, as well as links to external resources from within
the page copy. Likewise, if links on other Web sites pointing to your
Web site include the same string of keywords, your site’s relevancy gets
a boost. When you encourage other Web sites to link to yours, be sure
to provide them with the link text they should use. Similarly, when you
submit your Web site to directories and other link sources, provide the
comparable link or title text.
Domain Name and File names
Use of keywords within your domain name and file names can help with
search engine positioning. Some professionals argue that including dashes
to separate keywords makes it easier for search engines to distinguish
keywords, which can help boost your rankings. Personal experience leads
me to believe that if it actually does make a difference, the difference is so
small that you are better off spending your time optimizing your Web
site in areas that really count. This also applies to file names.
Examples of domain names are:
1. www.thisisadomainname.com
2. www.this-is-also-a-domain-name.com
Examples of file names are:
1. www.thisisadomainname.com/samplepage.html
2. www.thisisadomainname.com/samples-page.html
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It does not take much effort to give your images and file names
meaningful names, so take the time to do it.
Body Text—Header Tags and Page Copy
The body text of a Web page consists of all the visible text between the
and tag, such as headings and the page copy encased in
paragraphs. Along with page titles, body text is the next important area
on which to focus your search engine optimization efforts. Body text is
where you want to spend the bulk of your time.
Headings—

Header Tags

Use your HTML

header tags effectively to indicate the subject
and content of a particular page. Most people use them only as a method
of creating large fonts. Some search engines, including Google, use the
content included within the header text in their relevancy scoring. The
H1 tag is the most important followed by H2. Include your most important
keywords in your header tags. If you can, work a couple of H2 tags
into your page to sort content and improve the relevancy of your page.
Page Copy
You want to ensure that the keyword you have assigned to a specific
page appears in the first 200 characters on that page as close to the
beginning as possible. The higher up on a page the greater the keyword
prominence. Search engines tend to lend more weight to page content
above the fold. The fold is where your browser window ends and where
vertical scrolling begins, if necessary.
The assigned keyword should appear at the beginning of the text on
the page, in the middle, and at the end. You want to build a theme on
your page and to do so you have to spread your keywords throughout
the page, not just focus on the first paragraph.
Always have a descriptive paragraph at the top of your Web page
that describes what can be found on the page for your target market
and for the major search engines. Search engines use this as their source
for a site description and keywords on your site. In addition, search
engines use the content found within the opening paragraph in influ-
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encing the ranking of your site among search results. Again, be sure to
use the most important keywords first, preferably within the first two
or three sentences. This is enormously important. Make sure that the
keywords you use flow naturally within the content of the opening paragraph
and relate to the content and purpose of your site. You don’t
want the search engines to think you’re trying to cram in words where
they don’t fit.
As you can tell, textual HTML content is extremely important to
the search engines, which brings me to my next point. Never create a
page that is excessive in graphical content. For example, don’t display
information that should be displayed in text as a graphic file. I’ve seen
this done numerous times. A site may have the best opening statement
in the world, but the search engines can’t use it because the information
is presented in the form of a graphic. No matter how great it looks, the
search engines can’t read your graphics for content.
Do not make your home page excessively lengthy. The longer your
page is, the less relevant the information on the page becomes to the
search engines. I recommend that you keep your home page short and
to the point. A page consisting of between 250 and 800 words provides
the major search engines with the information they need.
Little things such as how often you update your site can have an
effect on how well your site places in search engine results. Spiders can
determine how often a page is updated and revisit your site accordingly.
This may lead to higher rankings in some of the major search engines.
Fresh content is good for your target market and for search engine
rankings. After all, who wants to view stale content?
As a final note, before you submit your site, be sure the content on
the page you are submitting is complete. Yahoo!, for one, ignores your
submission if you have an “under construction” or similar sign on
your page.
Do not get too muddled down in the science of search engine optimization.
No two search engines are identical so if you spend all of your
time tailoring your site for just one engine you may have many missed
opportunities on your hand. You generally will do just fine if your application
of relevant keywords is related to your page at hand, tied together
with the different optimization elements that make-up a Web
page, and are used consistently and creatively enough to build a theme.
A tool such as Web Position Gold (http://www.webposition.com/) can
assist you in analyzing your pages for keyword density and relevancy.