You have created a website about some service, product, information, views, etc. The reason to create a website is endless. Anyways now how will visitors and search engines find you? Here is where Keywords come in to the picture.
Keyword explained in simple terms is: “A word or phrase that defines your service, product, information, views, etc.”
For example, here are the most popular keyword phrases used by people searching for information on search engine optimization:
- search engine optimization
- search engine ranking
- search engine optimisation (notice the English - as opposed to American - spelling of optimization?)
- search engine placement
- website optimisation
- search engine positioning
- web site optimization (notice a space between "web site?")
- high search engine ranking
- web page optimisation
- search engine promotion
- top search engine ranking
- high search engine rankings
- search engine rankings
- better search engine placement
- web site optimisation
- high search engine placement
- search engines optimization
- website optimization
- search engine optimizations (notice the "s" at the end of optimization?)
- high search engine positioning
- engine optimization resources
You notice how many different variations people use to search for information on the same topic?
Hence Keywords contained within a Web page is one of the most important element to achieving high search engine rankings. However, Keywords are by no means the only relevant factor in how search engines rank a Web page. Other factors also count. But the majority of search engine optimization strategies involve a Webpage's keywords in one form or another. Therefore, it's fair to say that keywords are the most important element to achieving top search engine rankings. After all, if a page had no text at all, there is nothing for a search engine to index!
Terminology
Perfect Keywords
You should create each Web page by concentrating on the following (in order of importance):
one keyword or keyword phrase matching the page content
and most frequently used by the target audience
and has the least number of competing pages in the search engines
Keyword frequency
Keyword frequency refers to the number of times a keyword phrase appears within a page. The theory is that the more times a keyword/s appears within a Webpage, the more relevant the page is likely to be for someone searching those keywords. But do not abuse the system by repeating the same keywords over and over again.
Keyword density
Keyword density is the ratio (percentage) of keywords contained within the total number of indexable words within a Web page. In general, the suggested keyword density ratio is in the range of 2-8%.
Keyword prominence
Keyword prominence is about improving the prominence of keywords by placing important keywords at the top of a Web page. Basically, the closer your important keywords are to the start of a page, a sentence, title or Meta tag the better.
Keyword proximity
Keyword proximity refers to the closeness between two or more keywords. In general, the closer the keywords are the better.
For example:
Internet keyword marketing and analysis tools
Internet keyword analysis and marketing tools
If someone searched for "keyword marketing," a Web page containing the first sentence is likely to rank higher than the second, because the two keywords are closer together.
Word stemming
Word stemming is a concept used by some search engines to return search results that include keywords that extend beyond what you searched for.
For example, a search with the keyword "optimize" might return results for, "optimizes," "optimizer," and "optimizers." In general, always try to use the longer version of a keyword, especially plurals.
Stop words
Stop words are common words and characters ignored by most search engines.
For example: a and are as at be for from he his I in is it of on that the they this to was Ignoring stop words helps to reduce the amount of storage needed to index the billions of pages of data, and enhance the speed and relevancy of the search results. Only full-text search engines, such as AltaVista, index every single word on a Web page. As such, always try to use keywords instead of stop words as much as possible. Admittedly, it maybe a bit more difficult to read, but I think it is worth the sacrifice, in the cause of trying to achieve higher search engine rankings.
