SEO for Newbies: using keywords

Now that we have determined which keywords we want to target, we are going to put them to good use. If you missed it, you can read my choosing keywords post first.

title tag
The first thing to do, is use your keyword phrase in the title of your document. I would recommend using the exact phrase you chose as your primary keyword for the page you are editing. For example, if you are targeting the keyword “London Bed and Breakfast”, your title could be . Rather than repeating keywords in the title (e.g. Bed and Breakfast London Bed and Breakfast) I would choose synonyms or related terms that describe your page. Keyword stuffing is never a good idea.

meta description
Although the meta description has lost its importance as an indicator for page content due to widespread abuse by spammers, it is still rather important in the sense that some search engines (not Google) use it to describe your site in the search results (the text that is under the actual link). Write a one or two sentence description of what your web site is about. Use your keywords as if you were writing an adwords ad. After all, you not only want to show up in the first search results, you also want people to actually click the link and visit your site. Use the following format for your meta description (this bit goes into the part of your document): . If you are using xhtml (as you should be , but more about that in a future post), close this tag with _/> instead (the _ being a space).

A note on meta keywords: in today’s spammy world, meta keywords have no importance whatsoever in SEO. I wouldn’t waste my time adding them.

file names
It is a good idea to put your keywords in your file names. Use hyphens, not underscores. Do-not-get-carried-away-though! Limit the number of hyphens to 2 or 3 max. A good file name for our example could be london-bed-and-breakfast.html (or .php .htm etc.). You can (should! ) also hyphenate your image file names. So instead of having an image called logo.gif, try keyword-phrase.gif

alt text
The alt tag is the descriptive text that comes up in the yellowish box when you mouse over an image. Put a brief description in the alt tag, using your keywords. Preferably, use the same words you used for the image file name, but not necessarily in the same order. E.g. for yourimagelondon-bed-breakfast.gif your alt text could be: [name] Bed & Breakfast in London. Don’t make your alt text too long.
A note on the use of images: always try to have a text alternative for images that are links, or try to use text instead of an image, for example instead of having a graphic saying “Fancy a trip to London?” you could use CSS divs to have a cool background and put the phrase on the background image. Or, if you have a image-based navigation menu with cool mouse-over effects, also provide a text-only alternative for your menu elsewhere on the page.

anchor text
Anchor text is the clickable text that is a link, pointing to another internal or external page. Anchor text is more important for SEO than “normal” text, because the text of the link itself says something about the page it’s pointing to. The lesson to be learned: never ever say “visit my really helpful internal page by clicking here!”. Instead, write something like “more information can be found on the getting around London page (it would be even better if the page this link is pointing to is called getting-around-london.html)

A note on anchor text and call-to-action: recent studies (give me a break, I don’t remember the URL, nor who did the study - shame on me ) have shown that anchor text embedded in the page text copy are more effective for call to action. Apart from you your “book now” button, try to have links in the body text as well. For example, in your text copy for the page that describes all the wonderful features of your London B&B, have a phrase like “The B&B is frequently booked, so make sure to make advance reservations for your stay in London!

headers
Use headers like h1 and h2 with keywords where appropriate. If you don’t like the fact that the text becomes enormous, change the headers appearance in your css file. Again, no keyword stuffing, but “natural” keyword use. In our example, you could put a header above the paragraph describing your features saying “Why you should stay at our bed & breakfast in London”.

body text
This is my favourite part! It’s all about creativity and copywriting and you’ll be having a ball! My motto is: write for humans with search engines in mind. Don’t stuff your page copy with keywords, rather than keyword-overkill, use your keywords, synonyms of your keywords and related words in a natural way that doesn’t interfere with the pleasant reading flow of your text. When a possible client visits your site, you don’t want their reaction to be: “What is this spammy crap! I’m out of here!” . Instead, you want them to go: “Wow! What a friendly tone, so well-written! Let’s go stay here instead of at their two-word-vocabulary, spammy neighbours!”

Content, content, content! Have unique, content-rich and quality pages. Break up your text in smaller paragraphs for easy reading (with headers where appropriate). Don’t say “we, we, we” but “you, you you”! Talk to your reader, know who they are. If for example your bed and breakfast is located in a 5th-floor appartment without elevator, you won’t be targeting people over 80 that might have trouble climbing the stairs. Instead, target young people and use language that is appealing to them. Ask yourself what advantage you have over your competitors. What makes your product or service unique? What do you have to offer that your competitors don’t?

Try to work your keywords (synonyms, related words etc) in your text in a natural way (without irritating you readers ). Instead of “We are located in the city center”, write “You will find our bed & breakfast conveniently located in the center of London!”. Work keyword-rich anchor text into your page copy for call to action.

Search engines tend to look for relevant and related words that are close together, clustered as it were. It would be a good idea for you to try and use your keywords close together but not necessarily attached. You could write “… [name] is the perfect choice for your stay in London. Bed & Breakfast accommodation at two steps from London’s major attraction ….”

technorati tags: seo - google - copywriting