How to Make Your Keywords Work

Keywords used in the visible text of a blog post are considered as among the big factors that determine how a site will rank in the SERP. Using keywords effectively can therefore increase a site's chances of "getting noticed" by the search engines. Here are ways on how to make keywords work for a web page:

1. Use descriptive keywords with lesser competition. Many people advice the use of keyword research tools when writing articles but top ranking keywords may not always be the best as there can be tons of people using the same keywords. Using single word keywords can prove to be very competitive so the use of keyword phrase will be a good option. Another way to do this is to "localize" your keyword (e.g. Davao Jobs instead of Jobs). This post provides tips on how to best localize a keyword. Remember to use related keywords and synonyms.

2. Do not break your keyword phrase. Keyword proximity refers to the closeness of your keywords in your page or article. The closer the keywords in your article are, the better. This is best applied when using keyword phrases. It is best not to put stop words such as "in" and "at" between important keywords in your article. Example:

Eden is one of the best Davao tourist spots

is better than

Eden is one of the best tourist spots in Davao

Another good example of using keyword proximity is here. Proper use of forward and reverse proximity must also be observed (eg: optimizing website vs website optimization) because they may have different ranking results.

2. Place your important keywords in the beginning and end of your article.This is otherwise referred to as observing keyword prominence. Important keywords, particularly the keyword that you want to rank on should ideally be placed in the beginning of the first paragraph. Using the primary keyword in the last paragraph is also advised.

3. Emphasize your keywords.The v7n blog says that bold texts have more weight than regular texts. Italized words words are also given more emphasis than regular words in your article so use bold or italic texts in your target keyword. Remember not to abuse the use of these specialized texts though, highlighting a keyword once or twice is enough.

4. Avoid over stuffing your article with keywords. I have noticed that I have been using too much keywords lately particularly in my sites that display google ads. Nevertheless some SEO experts already say that keyword density is useless as this is not related to keywords' proximity and prominence. On the other hand, some SEO people also say that overstuffing articles with keywords will have undesirable results. Search engines reportedly penalize the use of excessive keywords and see this as a form of "keyword spamming". So what is the ideal keyword density? Garry Conn says 3% to 6% for keyword density is ideal. This tool can be used to check a page's keyword density. Nevertheless, I want to take heed of this advice from bigoakinc.com: If too many keywords make your article sound silly, then take them out. You should after all, write for humans and not for search engine robots.

5. Use alt tags. Search engines "read" texts so make your images "readable" by using the alt tags. Alt tags are used to describe an image and serve as a text keyword. The general format for the alt tag is <img src="image.jpg" alt="keyword phrase" title="keyword phrase" />. According to searchengines.com, the search engines do not penalize overstuffing alt tags with keywords. Nevertheless, better be careful than sorry so be cautious when using alt tags in your image.

6. Optimize keywords one at a time. Do not optimize a number of keywords in one article or page. Concentrate on one keyword one at a time. You can use related keywords in your post but make sure that you focus on one keyword that you will use in your title tag, emphasize and place in the beginning of the article.

7. No black hat please. Be careful not to use "hidden texts" by avoiding text colors which are of the same or near the color of your background. Many consider this as a popular form of black hat SEO which can result in your site being penalized by the search engines.

This article is part 2 of CTT Blogging and SEO Series