Choosing keywords for your site

The basic principle:

1. Keywords you choose should reflect the page you have used them on.
2. These keywords should be used as much as possible in the following locations:
   • URL – yes, a domain that contains your top keyword is going to score you points with Google for that keyword;
   • Page title;
   • Meta tags in your document head:
     • <meta name=”keywords” content=”keyword1, keyword2″ />
     • <meta name=”description” content=”(page description)” />
   • Throughout normal page text, including headings, paragraphs, and alt tags on photos.

If you have a chance to buy a url with your main keyword in it (without making the url ungodly long), do it. I have a url containing a keyword that loads of people use in long lists. But I bought the url and I’m on top.

So a lot of you are probably thinking, “That seems like a lot of trouble. I don’t really want to pin myself down like that. I’ll put a long list that I found someplace in the keywords instead.”

Nope. The fewer keywords, the better. Your page isn’t about hundreds of different topics. It’s about one or two, which can each be described in a few keywords. The Google spider will look at your keywords and see how many times they were used in a natural manner on a page. If not at all, they won’t count at all.

If you’ve really got 100 specialties, your main page should have keywords that are generally about that. Then you should dedicate a page to each specialty to give it a good chance at getting rated well. Subcategory pages are good, too. Just make sure you have clear navigation for both the spider and your customers.

Still seems like a lot of trouble? Perhaps you should narrow down what you’re all about. You really can’t be everything to everybody.