Keywords And Their Proper Use

A keyword is typically phrase a few words long, which indicates the type of information that appears on the web page. This allows web crawlers (often called "Bots" or "Spiders") to correctly index your web page. The success of your website is highly contingent on your ability to properly choose and place critical keywords.

The "head" section of your page contains the "meta tags". It allows the crawlers to view a synopsis of your page's content. Meta tags have a size limit. Conjunctions, articles (a, an, the), or any other words not carrying significant weight should not be included in keywords. Nouns, verbs, adjectives, and (sometimes) adverbs should be used as much as possible.

The Keyword Meta tag: These meta tags used to be very important for keyword placement and indexing. But people abused these with keyword stuffing, or inserting repetitive, irrelevant keywords into the meta tags to trick spiders into ranking their sites higher. Search engines have caught on and penalize sites that stuff keywords. It's a common belief that Google no longer pays attention to your keyword meta tag. It can't hurt to put it in, though, just in case. And there are other search engines in addition to Google.

Title Tags Containing Keywords: Bots place a lot of weight on the keywords found in your title. Define the title tag that within the head section of your web page. It should be brief - syntax is less important due to the very limited space afforded. As always, keywords should be the first few words of the text.

The Description Tag: A description tag should also be in the head section of your web page. Your description should be rich in keywords, but it should read naturally and have correct spelling and grammar.

The H1 and H2 tags: These are used heavily by the search engine spiders. They are like section breaks or titles (but not to be confused with the title tag).

Comments in Images: Spiders cannot interpret images, but they can detect the "alt" text in your image tag. That makes this area ideal for keyword placement.

The Body of the Page: Lastly, the page should make sense. You want your keywords, H1 tags, H2 tags, description tags, and the text body to be applicable and in harmony. The most important keywords should be featured in the first two-thirds of the content. Keep in mind that if your keywords are stuffed in artificially, even iin the basic content of the page, your page rank may suffer as well as your reputation.

Stephen Grisham, Sr. is a copy writer for InfoServe Media, LLC. InfoServe Media is a Houston web design and web hosting company. Or if you just need a few changes to an existing site, InfoServe Media also offers website maintenance. Fast and Affordable.