No Comments Written by Anders on July 30, 2008 – 12:01 am

Select Keywords

Selecting general and specific keywords that are relevant to the specific products, services, or content of each page of your Web site is an essential component of search-engine optimization, or SEO. General or generic keywords are one or two keywords in length and are commonly referred to as long-tail or head terms; specific keywords are three or more keywords in length and are commonly referred to as tail terms. For example, the keyword “cheese” could be considered a head term; the keyword “gourmet cheese gift basket” could be considered a tail term.

Head terms tend to generate substantially more traffic than tail terms, but do not necessarily lead to more sales or repeat visitors. Tail terms typically send much less traffic, but often convert at a higher rate than head terms. Therefore, you should select a blend of both head and tail terms to incorporate into each of the pages of your Web site.

Choose Between Head and Tail Terms

Regardless of whether you are optimizing an existing Web site or building a new Web site, you should select keywords that are consistent with the content of each unique Web page, as well as the overall theme of the Web site. In general, you should select tail terms when optimizing Web pages with specific content and head terms when optimizing Web pages with more general content. Select head keywords for your home page that represent the overall theme of your Web site. For example, if your Web site is about gourmet cheese, for SEO purposes you want to select the keyword “gourmet cheese” for your home page.

Typically, your home page has the highest number of backlinks (links pointed to your Web site from other Web sites) out of all the pages on your site. Home pages are also generally viewed as the most important page of a Web site and are meant to tell both readers and search-engine spiders what the overall Web site is generally about. For this reason, your home page has the highest chances of ranking for the competitive head terms, and your subpages should target less competitive head terms, as well as tail terms.

Select Head Terms Sparingly

It is difficult to rank for head terms, especially head terms that define your particular industry or Web site category. In fact, only the top ten Web sites within any particular industry or category rank on the front page of a search engine for a general head term. Unfortunately, even if you take and apply all the suggestions in this blog post, there is no guarantee that you will rank for one or more competitive head terms. In many cases, the Web sites that rank high for competitive head terms use manipulative tactics that are inconsistent with the terms and conditions of the major search engines.

As a result, Web sites using shady SEO practices tend to enjoy top ranking for only a short period of time prior to being banned from the search engines for a short time or indefinitely. Although you may be tempted to use manipulative practices that may allow your Web site to be competitive for head terms in the short term, the risk associated with such practices is great. Instead, focus on building great content with an emphasis on providing your readers with a great user experience.

Select Tail Terms for Most Web Pages

Your primary SEO strategy should focus on building content that ranks well in the search engines for long-tail terms. Too often the SEO efforts of Web site owners fail because of an overemphasis on ranking for head terms. Although the traffic volume for head terms is greater, you stand a much greater chance of ranking well for specific tail terms. Moreover, ranking well for just a few tail terms is much better than not ranking at all for a head term. Always keep in mind that you need to set long-term goals for SEO. Over time, as you build out content on your Web site and optimize each page for select keywords, you will notice that your Web site traffic has grown substantially.

Optimize Every Page of Your Web Site

When you select keywords to incorporate into your Web site, remember that your goal is not to optimize your Web site all at once, but to optimize each page of your Web site. You should never optimize for more than one or two target keywords per Web page, because doing so dilutes your optimization in too many directions and decreases your overall effectiveness and ranking potential. The approach you take to optimizing each page of your Web site is different depending on whether you are optimizing existing Web page content or building new content.

If you are optimizing existing Web page content, you should select one or two keywords that best summarize that page. In addition, you may need to manipulate the content a bit to make sure that your target keywords are emphasized and stand out from the rest of the content. If you are building new content, you should have one or two target keywords in mind before you start writing. For example, if your target keyword is “Extra Double Aged Gouda,” your Web page content should focus specifically on gaining ranking for that keyword.

Add Target Keywords to Meta Tags

When optimizing your Web site, you should strategically place one or two target keywords in the title tag of your Web page, as well as in the description and keyword meta tags. Your selected keywords should ideally be the starting point used to generate the content for each Web page you construct. If not, you should make sure that your target keywords are strategically sprinkled throughout the page. When you are building backlinks to your pages, keep the target keywords for each page in mind. If your page is about storing gourmet cheeses, building links with the anchor text “storing gourmet cheese” produces the optimal results.

Picking head terms that have established Web sites ranking for them within the top few search results is setting yourself up for failure if you are starting from scratch with a nonestablished domain. Although ranking within the top few organic results for the keyword “mortgage” could lead to significant revenue generation, a newly established Web site with no authority in the eyes of search engines stands little chance of gaining top placement for such a competitive head term.

And even though you cannot immediately rank for a general head term like “mortgage,” you can break the general term “mortgage” down into smaller, more specific topics, and optimize for those tail terms throughout your Web site.