Project Google Part 2 - Keyword Optimization
Search Engine Optimization
In Part 1 of Project Google, you learned how and why to choose keywords, but you should know that website optimization is not only about choosing the right words. Although using and placing keywords correctly is vital, it’s even more important to consider the needs of the people who are going to be using your web site.
If you build your web page with your focus entirely on achieving great search engine rankings, it’s likely that you’re building your site for the wrong reasons. When building a web site or even a single web page, the first question to ask yourself is not how well the page will rank with search engines, but how the page is going to fulfill the needs of visitors and customers. Will they find the information useful? What kinds of information do they need?
While search engine rankings are important, ultimately the web site should be created for the user, not the search engine. If someone finds your site through a search engine and arrives to find that the information they need isn’t there, chances are you’ll lose the opportunity to turn a one-time visitor into a repeat visitor and customer.
On the other hand, if you choose your keywords wisely and build an informative web site that keeps the needs of your customers in mind, they—and the search engines—will eventually reward you with the higher rankings that you want. It takes time to achieve those rankings, but you’ll get much better results in the long term by creating a site that meets the needs of your customers in addition to those of the search engines.
Once we’ve got our keywords selected from Part 1, it’s time to set up our web pages.
See the following Screen Capture for reference: Wesley Chapel Real Estate.
- Choose one or two keywords, or a phrase, to focus on per web page. When a consumer types a keyword or series of words into Google, such as “Wesley Chapel Real Estate”, the search engine tries to find the best possible web site pages that match that request. In order to create a page that best represents those keywords, it’s most effective to focus specifically on those keywords. Targeting too many keywords on a single page makes it more difficult for search engines to decide how to categorize the page, and can cause your page to appear lower on the list of search results.
- Try to maintain a keyword density of around 5%. Keyword density refers to how many times your keywords appear on the page relative the rest of the copy. The ‘less is more’ concept applies here too, as search engines see pages with very high keyword density as spam, and rank them lower. For example, if you have 200 words on the page, your keywords should make up about ten of those words. This is not a hard-and-fast rule, as you should always write with the reader in mind. In some cases, trying to stick to the 5% rule can make your copy sound forced and unnatural, and decrease its readability.
- Include the keywords in your page title. If your keywords are “Wesley Chapel Real Estate”, they should appear in your page title. The page title is important for several reasons. It’s listed along with search engine rankings, and it’s one of the things that will attract visitors to your site. Readers scan page titles very quickly, so yours should tell them what they can expect to find on your web page. Once they reach it, the page title helps the reader know they’ve reached the right place. A relevant page title will help improve your search engine rankings, too. Unfortunately, if you’re working with a Real Living template site you won’t have control over your page title, but you can still create a great page full of relevant keywords.
- Include the keywords in your URL. You’ll notice on the Arbor Greene Tampa page I was able to place the dashes between each word. This is the ideal way, since it’s more easily readable than when the words are crammed together without dashes. Sometimes this won’t be possible, however. For example on the Wesley Chapel Real Estate page I wanted the page included on the left hand navigation bar, so I didn’t add dashes, as they would have appeared on the navigation bar. The way your site looks is almost as important as the content it contains, and sometimes you’ll have to make some minor adjustments to keep it looking professional.
- Add the keywords to your headings. It makes sense that if you page is about Wesley Chapel Real Estate, the heading on the page should include your keywords. Your readers should never be in any doubt that they’ve come to the right web site.
Here’s a link to the finished pages on Kathy’s web site: Wesley Chapel Real Estate and Arbor Greene Tampa.
Stay tuned for Part 3 on Link Building.
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