Web Design and SEO Blog

SEO Tip: Identifying Keywords

It used to be that when you wanted your web pages indexed for certain words you would add them to the Keyword Meta Tag within your web pages.  Example: meta name="keywords" content="blue cheese, green eggs". Unfortunately the tag became an easy way to mislead search engines. 

As search engines became more sophisticated they started placing less value on the Keyword Meta Tag.  Today's major search engines, such as Google, either no longer use the Keyword Meta Tag or, in the case of Yahoo, place less value on the tag.

Search engines identify Keywords used throughout the text of pages, in the page title, in the alt tags of images, in links pointing to the web page, in header tags, and in other ways, both on-page and off-page.

It's important to not only identify the keywords that describe your product or service but to also identify which of the keywords people are most likely to use in a search. After identifying the keywords, you need to use them both in the text of the web page and in the code of the web page.

How Do You Identify Keywords?

The first place to start is simply by making a list of all the words (or keyword phrases) that describe your product or service. After compiling your list you can use some online tools to check on the popularity of the keywords and identify alternate versions.

The Google Keyword Tool can be used to estimate the number of monthly searches for keywords.  It can also be used to analyze websites for keyword ideas.

After identifying the keywords for your website you will need to update your website to use the keywords.  We'll take a look at updating websites in the next blog entry.