Website Search Engine Optimisation Tips
Website Keywords and Keyword Phrases
 If the Website
is infused with targeted Keyword Phrases, the Website has a good chance that it
will appear in the search results when a potential customer searches on those Keywords.
In order to improve chances, the Website should be optimised with Keyword Phrases
that are descriptive, related to content, and which receive a significant amount
of searches on the web.
Keywords should appear in the page title, links, link titles, image descriptions
content and headings.
To start, it is essential to identify your niche marketplace. The phrases to use
are those that have more searches and less competition. If you optimise for terms
that are too broad, you will likely increase traffic but decrease the conversion
rate of visits to results. Talk to friends or family and ask what phrases they would
use to describe your product or service.
Search Engines or Customers?
There is a fine balance between Copy written for Search Engines and Copy written
for Customers.
It is necessary to produce a structured and focused Website that satisfies both
requirements. The ideal Keywords will be frequently used in searches and easy to
read.
First and foremost, the Website must be rich in information and content. It will
then naturally contain the ideal Keywords and hold the attention of the visitor.
For ideas on visual effects, see
Web Design from Scratch
Keyword Tips:
- Use Keyword Phrases, not single words. There is too much competition for the single
Keyword. As Website volumes increase, customers have been forced to become more
skilled at searching – they are now searching more and more for specific strings.
So select appropriate qualifiers to describe a Keyword. For example, "SEO" should
become "Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)".
- To test the usage of a Word or a Phrase on the Web, use a Search Engine to see how
many hits you get for each phrase. Use Australian spelling and idioms, if you want
local visitors. The Macquarie Thesaurus can prove invaluable.
- Find the most common Keywords used with
Google Keyword Tool
or
Wordtracker.
The Keywords shown relate mostly to USA usage.
- Examine each related word in the write up, and determine which variation is most
likely to be used in a search. Avoid infrequently used synonyms of a Keyword. For
example, try to eliminate infrequently used variations of the word "development"
– develop, developing, develops, developed, developer. Include both singular
and plural words.
- The words used in business may be different from the words that customers use. Use
industry terms and the Website will not be found.
- The use of additional Web Pages will allow the Keyword Density to be improved, by
concentrating on a narrow subject. So do not include every Keyword Phrase on every
Web Page. Focus just on from 3 to 5 Keyword Phrases for each Web Page.
- It is best practice to use of H1 and H2 header tags to emphasize pertinent keywords
and phrases. The H1, H2 and H3 headings tags are given high weighting by the Search
Engines when close to the top of a Web Page. Include primary Keyword Phrases in
the headings and insert extra headings to improve the readability.
- Some Search Engines extract details from the top row, some from the left column.
Use the
Search
Engine listings
to check that the Keywords have been placed in the best position.
- Use Keywords in the ALT Tag of Images and in the Title Tag of Links.
Keyword Stuffing
Keyword stuffing occurs when the content of a Web page is excessively filled with
Keywords and Keyword Phrases.
The first Search Engines ranked Websites according to the number of Keywords that
were contained on a Web page. It did not take long before "Keyword stuffing" was
used to obtain better Search Engine rankings. Nowadays the Search Engines can easily
spot Web pages that employ this technique, and such Websites will be penalised.
Google and Synonyms
Google has changed how it treats synonyms (i.e. different words and not a variation
of a word), as synonyms affect 70% of user searches. Google will now attempt to
guess what the user is looking for and will display synonyms in bold. This will
even apply to badly spelt words.
- Use variations rather than repeating the same phrase (Keyword stuffing)
- Use the spoken word and slang, avoiding technical terms. This could also make the
copy friendlier and more acceptable to visitors.
- Focus on the most frequently used synonyms
- Turn off synonyms by putting a plug sign (+) before a word, or by putting a phrase
in quotation marks.
- To find the synonyms of a word, place a tilde "~" in front of the word. Google will
highlight all the synonyms of the word in the SERPs.
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