Keywords are one of the most important page elements because virtually all search engines use them to rank pages and list search results. But how do you know if you’ve chosen the right ones ?

It’s just maths

Search engine rank is based on a simple mathematical formula. A ranking algorithm looks for page elements A, B, C, and D and assigns points to Web pages that contain those elements.

Keywords and phrases are one of the most important page elements, because virtually all search engines use them to rank pages and list search results.
The more points you get, the higher up the search engine ladder you will appear.

Keyword Selection

Keyword selection is the most important step in optimising a page for search engines – and where most people make mistakes.

You can get all the top ten rankings in the world with unusual keywords, but you won’t see any traffic to your web site unless people actually type them in as search terms in a search engine.

Keyword Popularity

You must use a keyword popularity tool to find out how popular your keywords are. Make sure your keywords are appropriate for your site and people are using them to look for your products and services

People assume a top ranking automatically means high traffic. But high rankings only bring traffic if the rankings are for good keywords that people are searching for.

If you’ve done all your optimisation around the phrase “left handed bananas” and nobody ever enters that in a search engine you won’t get any traffic to your site.

Fundamentals

Start with the basics. If you don’t do the fundamentals correctly, advanced tricks won’t help you much.

Look at the keywords you’ve selected and make sure that they’re in the strategic places where search engines look throughout your web site.

  • Page Titles
  • Meta Tags
  • Image Tags
  • Headings
  • Body Text

Spamming

Check your page for anything that might be considered spam by a search engine. Most spam is accidental, but it will get you banned just as quickly as intentional spam.

Links

If you don’t have links, you may not rank well for competitive keywords.
Link popularity and link quality are very important because every major search engine now considers them as a part of their ranking algorithms.

Domain Name

Many search engines now give extra points for the required keywords appearing in the domain name (the www bit) and so may your customers.
If you were searching for “left handed bananas”, which web site would you rank highest and visit first ?
• www.fruitofthenorth.co.uk
• www.lefthandedbananas.co.uk

Submission

Once your optimised your web site you then have to submit it to the major search engines to make sure that they know about your updated web site.
Please be aware that most people think they can submit one day and the web spiders will come the next day.

There may be a considerable delay from when you submit your site to when the spiders actually visit. This can be anywhere from a week to a few months depending on the search engine.