Keyword Density: The 9 Places to Put Your Keywords for SEO Power

We've covered a lot of ground so far in this SEO Guide. From a definition of Search Engine Marketing, to deciding whether SEO is worth it for you, and if it is identifying the 3 elements involved in SEO:

1. your keyword list — the list of phrases you'd like to be found under
   
   
2. your site's keyword density — how often your keywords appear in your Web site
   
   
3. link building — getting other Web sites to link to your site
   
   

Last time we covered how to create your keyword list - the foundation of all of your other SEO and SEM efforts.

Now let's talk about what to do once those keywords are selected — step #2 is building keyword density.

According to Wikipedia, the definition of keyword density is: "the percentage of times a keyword or phrase appears on a web page compared to the total number of words on the page. In the context of search engine optimization keyword density can be used as a factor in determining whether a web page is relevant to a specified keyword or keyword phrase."

Basically - on a given page, what percentage of all the text is used by a specific keyword phrase? So for example, if a page has 100 words, and your keyword phrase is used 5 times, that keyword's density is 5% for that page.

The part that small business owners sometimes don't know is when we say "text" that doesn't only mean the readable text on the page. It also includes text that is found in your HTML code.

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In a shout out to readers Sherri and James R. who appreciates the practical and tactical, (thanks for your comments! How am I doing?), here is a very specific rundown of what elements of your HTML code are recognized by search engines. You'll want to put your keyword phrases in these places to ensure the SEO power of each of your pages. Note that depending on how your site is built, some of these places you will have access to and some you may need your developer's help with:

1. Title Tag — not to be confused with your "Page Title," the Title tag text shows up in several places including as the bolded blue text on Google Search Engine Results pages.
   
   
2. Meta Description Tag — like the title tag, this tag is important because it appears on the Search Engine Results page right underneath the page title. Sometimes a snippet of your text will appear instead but you always want to have a meta description on every page and it's usually a good idea to customize it for each page.
   
   
3. Page Title — this is the actual page title your visitors will see when they visit the different pages of your site. Avoid using images, try to make your page titles text, include your keywords in them, and try to put them inside an H1 tag. This will give them greater SEO power.
   
   
4. HTML vs. JavaScript — part of the SEO ranking calculation is how high up on the page do your keywords appear? Because of that, it's a good idea to take as much as possible of your JavaScript code out of your site's pages and put them in a single, common JavaScript file. This will make your site easier to maintain and boost it's SEO power.
   
   
5. Your Site's Text — include your keywords repeatedly in the text of your site, but the text still needs to be readable. A good rule of thumb is no more than 3-6% density. Any higher than that and you risk labeling as search engine spam.
   
   
6. Keywords in Repeated Links — using your keywords in the links on your site is a great way to show their importance to search engines. In addition to doing this in your text another great place is in your sidebar or footer. Also consider using the "name" attribute of your link tags.
   
   
7. Alt Tags — each image on your site has the ability to define "alternate" text. This is originally intended for Web site "reading" machines that read out Web pages to those who might have difficulty seeing the page. Instead of leaving the alt tags blank, fill them with descriptive text of the image that includes your keywords.
   
   
8. Filenames — your filenames for both your individual pages and your image files can be fantastic places to include your keywords. Your page filenames will actually show up in the URL for that page for example last week's post has the file name "10_tips_to_avoid_the_biggest_s.html" and the URL for that post is http://www.inc.com/maisha-walker/2009/04/10_tips_to_avoid_the_biggest_s.html. Using your keywords in these filenames can really help your rankings.
   
   
9. Your Domain Name — if you can get a domain name that uses a primary keyword this will give a big boost to your rankings. The implication is that this the entire content of your site is centered around this keyword.
   
   

A big note - this list does NOT include the Meta Keywords tag. While that used to hold weight with search engines, it's pretty much ignored now. It's too easy to put whatever you want in them, so companies used to stuff them with totally unrelated but super popular terms like Janet Jackson or Britney Spears. Search Engines got wise to that scheme and stopped paying attention to them.

Keyword density is where large, content focused sites have an absolute advantage. The more text or pages you have the more you can repeat your keywords in all of the places outlined above. If you have a 5 page site there's only so much you can do against a 500 page, optimized competitor.

Incidentally, this is one reason why businesses blog. Frequent blogging is an opportunity to create many pages of content that can use your keywords. But you have to believe that SEO (and blogging) is going to be a valuable way to generate new business for you in order to use this tactic. Read my post on that here.

For some additional research get it direct - try Google's Webmaster guidelines and their answer to the question: How can I create a Google-friendly site?

Now here's an offer - do you have questions about keywords and keyword density? Post them over the next 7 days by Thursday, May 7th and I will try to answer as many as possible and encourage everyone to join in the discussion!

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10 Tips to Avoid the Biggest SEO Mistake

I started this Search Engine Marketing Series with a definition of the two SEM areas — Search Engine Advertising and Search Engine Optimization. Last week we focused on SEO with SEO My Web Site in 3 Easy? Steps. We discussed the three elements of SEO and what I call their "blind spots".

As we learned last week, the first of those 3 elements is your keyword list. Your keyword list is critical because it is these keywords that will be used for optimizing your your HTML code & programming and build your incoming links. When you start doing SEA you'll find that your keywords are critical there too.

So what are keywords?

Keywords are the word or phrase that someone types into a search engine to find something they are looking for — like "buttermilk pancakes" or "cannon digital camera".

When a searcher types in one of these phrases, a "search engine results page" (aka SERP) is returned with a list of Web sites that the search engine has decided best fits that phrase.

Here are the SERP pages for "buttermilk pancakes" on Google (top) and Yahoo (bottom):

So let's say you own a diner in Durham, NC and you'd like anyone who searches for "buttermilk pancakes" to see your diner at the top of the results page.

That sounds pretty good, right?

I mean the #1 ranking, I know the pancakes sound good and yes — that was a trick question.

In fact, choosing "buttermilk pancakes" as your keyword phrase could not only waste a lot of your resources, it could also cause problems for your business.

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Here's why.

First — there is such a thing as too much traffic. How many phone calls do you need from someone in another state trying to place a delivery order or asking you'll mail them your pancake recipe? If your staff time get's maxed out by inquiries from people who won't ever do business with you, your staff won't have time or energy for the people who will.

Second — you will have devoted valuable time and money on a top position for a keyword that may hurt your business rather than help it. Those resources could have been spent far more productively elsewhere.

Unfortunately, many small businesses fall into the trap of choosing the keywords based on volume — thinking the ones that provide the most traffic will be the best investment. But what you really want is to focus on the keywords that will bring you the most business, even if they bring a small amount of traffic.

So how do you do that?:

1. Focus on "Buying" Phrases — as shoppers get more serious keywords get more specific like "buttermilk pancakes durham nc". Think of what people are searching for when they're ready to buy.
   
   
2. Skip Generic Phrases - tire kickers love generic keywords. As in the example above, try to make your keyword phrases 3 words or longer.
   
   
3. Iterations - try using what I call "iterations" like locations. "durham nc" "north Carolina" etc.
   
   
4. Is it soda or pop? — there may be more than one way to say the same thing. Use Google's keyword suggestion tool to choose the most popular term and maximize your reach.
   
   
5. Do a Search - for each keyword you're considering, make sure you actually look it up in the various engines. You'll glean really helpful data from this.
   
   
6. Know your neighbors - know what kinds of results you'd be surrounded by. Ranking on some keywords can hurt your brand by association.
   
   
7. Know your competition — your search competition — who is at the top of the list for the keywords you want, how big is their site and how well optimized is their site?
   
   
8. List Length - for SEO the size of your list should depend on how much content you have to work with and how fierce your competition is. Start by looking at the keyword density of your competition as a target. For example 5% density means 5 repetitions for every 100 words. You can then figure out the potential size of your list by taking the keyword density you're aiming for vs. the number of words you have available per page and the number of pages on your site.
   
   
9. Product & Brand names — these can be highly valuable. If your customers know them, don't forget to optimize for them.
   
   
10. Don't forget Misspellings — of brand names, product names, location names, your company name, names of prominent staff etc.
    
    

Have you been burned by keywords or have they been the path to success?

Share some of your keyword tips below!

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