Keyword Placement Strategy
If you want your website to do well in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) you need keywords. There are of course many other factors that affect how a page is indexed and ranked but right at the heart are the keywords around which a page is built.
It helps to thinks of the indexing robots as skim readers. They glance at the title and description then note the main header. If all three align then they will have already got a good idea about the page topic. If the introductory paragraph continues in the same vein then all well and good. The robot doesn’t need the fine detail – the seed has been sown.
When the next robot comes along to follow the links it will note the anchor text and see where the link leads and relate the anchor text to the title, description and header of the new page.
This is why it is vital to look at the site as whole. A link that says ‘click here’ is useless along with a header that says ‘welcome’.
The purpose of this article is to give you a few clues as to how to promote your keywords. As an example I am going to work with the keywords: royal jelly.
Inbound Links (AKA backlinks)
Inbound links that point to a page should include some reference to the target page. It’s also a good idea to give the target page a sensible name as well:
For example:
<a href="royal-jelly.html">Royal Jelly</a>
Note the use of the hyphen in the file name – until recently search engines treated a hyphen as a space so that royal-jelly is two words whereas royal_jelly was indexed as a single word. The difference is now not so important but a hyphen makes reading easier for the visitor.
Document Head
Page Title (the bit at the top of the browser)
When you use a search engine, the first line of any result is the page title. If you are hoping to attract customers via a search engine, you need to write relevant page titles. And try to use proper sentences like this (it’s more friendly):
100g jars of organic royal jelly from Herefordshire.
But make sure you do it in less than 60 characters as that’s all the search engines normally display. For more information on titles here is an excellent article from seologic.com.
Description Metatag
It’s the only metatag you really need to worry about. Keep it to a maximum length of 150 characters and describe the contents of the page. Most search engines will use the description at some point during the indexing process and you will often see it displayed as part of the snippet on the results page. If you are really clever you can build pages that promote the description so that the search engines don’t construct a snippet from the main content:
Our organic royal jelly is selected from natural hives in Herefordshire. Left to mature for 6 months, the result is a smooth jelly….
It’s a description, so write a description for humans not computers.
Document Body
The Main Header <H1>
Introduce the document. Use the main header to attract the visitors – tell them what to expect:
200g Pots of Organic Royal Jelly
The indexing robots use the main header to get a feel for the page, so don’t waste the opportunity to get in a few keywords.
Introductory paragraph
No matter what sort of page you are building you should always have an opening paragraph. Again, you should introduce the subject and make sure you repeat the keywords used in the title and header.
We highly recommend our organic royal jelly. Well known for its stress reducing properties…..
Inline Content
Provide captions and alt text for your images. Two more chances to put your keywords on the page.
image caption: Royal Jelly – 200g Jar
alt text: 200g Jar of royal Jelly from…
Here are some more ideas for your content.
The Footer
The perfect place to repeat the main navigation links. Add your contact details and say goodbye. Sign off the page with a reminder of the page content – use your title or header for inspiration so that your keywords are the last thing anybody sees:
Organic Royal Jelly from BeeThings.com
Summary:
Each page needs: a title, description, main header, navigation, introductory paragraph, content and footer.
Use each of these to promote your keywords, yourself, your services. In the above examples you can see 7 natural repetitions of the Royal Jelly keyword. It really isn’t rocket science.