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SEO Techniques 693

25

Using Keywords and Keyword Research

Keywords are the basis of search. Customers go to a search engine and type in a word or
two and then see what results come up. As search engine spiders crawl through pages,
they keep track of key words and phrases that are used often and then use that frequency
to rank pages. This is why a page about sequoias will not rank well in a search for “eng-
lish sheepdog”—the keywords are too dissimilar.

Watch out for companies that promise “#1 ranking on Google” or

similar claims. Often they will fulfill this promise by showing that

a page ranks number one for a highly unlikely keyword phrase. It

does you no good to rank at number one for the search “english

sheepdog sequoia beat down” if no one else is searching for that.

CAUTION

When you are working on optimizing your web pages for search keywords, it can be
tempting to focus on the number of times your keyword phrase is mentioned on the page.
You will see many SEO experts (including old sites of mine) that recommend finding
keyword phrases, using them in specific places (like titles, URLs, headlines, and image
alternate text), and even tracking the density of your keywords (number of times the key-
word phrase is used compared to the rest of the words on the page). But the fact is that
all this is overkill. Here are my recommendations for using keyword phrases on your web
pages:

1. Decide what your page is about, but don’t worry too much about what keyword
   phrase you’re targeting. Just write the content.


2. Make sure the title and main headline reflect the content of the page.


3. Keep the most relevant content at the top.


4. Write the page well, with correct spelling and grammar. Use bullets to make things
   easier to read.


5. Post the page to your website, and make sure it has a text link to it somewhere on
   the site.

You might notice that no where in those instructions did I have you look up popular key-
words or place the phrases in specific locations on the page. The fact is that Google and
other search engines are starting to penalize sites that are over optimized. And although
they are unlikely to drop your ranking because you used a keyword phrase too many
times on one page, they will lower rankings of pages that customers don’t like. And most
people don’t like pages that are obviously keyword focused.