How To Use Keywords In A Search Engine Friendly Way

Keywords are vital in Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). They are what make a website targeted. Using the right keywords in the website will help the website attract the right market and appear on the search results only when it is relevant.

Most of web marketing resources talk about the importance of keywords. Indeed, keywords are important but you must not overdo them. If you don’t intend to trigger the red flag from the search engines, you need to play by the rules. There must be some moderations in the use of keywords.

Keyword Factors: Density, Frequency And Prominence

There are three keyword factors that you should consider. First is the keyword density. Keyword density pertains to the ratio of the keywords with the other indexable words in a particular web page. The search engines have varied standards when it comes to keyword density. Google’s standard keyword density is 2% while Yahoo is 5%. This percentage may be too low but this is the search engines’ way of protecting their search results. If there is no keyword density standard, most web marketers will simply fill their web pages with loads of keywords.

The second keyword factor that you should consider is keyword frequency. This refers to the number of times a particular keyword can be viewed on a web page. The more times a keyword appears on a page, the more it will be associated with the page. For instance, if the keyword “web marketing” appears the most in a web page, the page will be associated with web marketing.

Lastly, the keyword factor that you should consider is the prominence. If you want a particular page to be associated with a keyword, place that keyword on the page title, Meta tag or start of the page. It should be on an important or prominent location in the page.

Keyword density, frequency and prominence are important factors in search engine optimisation. The fact that a website needs keywords to rank high on the search results doesn’t justify keyword stuffing. Some web marketers want to take the short cut route to the top of the search results. They do this by putting loads of keywords in a page. Doing this will not help increase search engine ranking because the search engines abhor tricks like these. So it is important that you play by the rules and consider the keyword factors mentioned here.