Simple SEO

SEO and the Proper Use of Keywords

Keywords or I should say, the PROPER use of keywords is crucial for any SEO effort. Picking the right keywords for your blog and/or post is something that may take some research but once you have decided on your keywords, you have to know where and how to place them.  The proper use of keywords is crucial so here are some areas to consider:

• above the logo
• site title
• post title
• post content
• meta title
• within links as anchor text
• meta keywords

For example you may have a “Daddy Blog” and you mainly provide tips and/or stories for the expecting “father”. “Father” maybe your keyword therefore for optimum results, this keyword should be used in all of the areas mentioned above. Now don’t go and saturate your site and/or page with “father” as this is not viewed well by search engines. Since the example uses “Expecting Father” maybe this can be used as a keyword phrase. Instead of a single word (father) or sets of single words (father, dad, fathers, dads, etc.) phrases offer another way for search engines to recognize you. They may not be as popular as the individual word but can offer another alternative.

Search engines crawl your site and look for words and/or phrases that repeat but not words and/or phrases that are over-repeated. The proper use of keywords AND keyword phrases is crucial but how do you know which ones to use?

Consider your keywords carefully

Google Adwords: Keyword Tool is a great site to find the amount of search results for keywords and/or keyword phrases. You can type in a keyword and this site will provide you with a list of alternative words and/or phrases as well as inform you of how often they were searched during the previous month. Once you have some words and/or phrases how do you know which one(s) to choose? Ask yourself this, do you want to complete with sites using keywords that have been searched for 6 million times per month or alternate keywords/keyword phrases that have been searched for 1 million times per month?

The way I see it, I don’t want to compete with other sites for extremely popular keywords; I would rather compete with sites that are using keywords that are well searched but not the top words. I have a better chance at a higher ranking for the lesser searched keyword. Play around and experiment with different keywords and/keyword phrases and give it time. SEO does not happen overnight and the proper use of keywords is one piece of the puzzle.

Oh, you  maybe asking yourself how do I get a search engine to crawl my site, if it hasn’t already? Don’t worry I will write a post on that soon! For now, post good content with the proper use of keywords.

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