Optimizing a Website to rank higher in search engines is all about how the most relevant keywords are used and placed on a Web page. Therefore, the utilization of keywords is key for search engine optimization on a website.

The most relevant keywords will be the words or phrases that a person uses in a search to find what they are looking for. Knowing the words and phrases that people are typing in a search is what search engine optimization for a website targets.

I’ve seen websites where the words in the (meta data) Title and Description were ones that no one would be searching for, such as a new book title (unless that book is popular or known about and people are searching for it).

In that instance, a proper keyword research would suggest keyword phrases that people are searching for relating to books and see what all the keyword variables are that people are searching for that contain that keyword term. That keyword or keyword phrase could then be included in the Title and Description of the Web page (in the meta data), as well as optimizing other things on the page, as well.

Finding the Right Keywords

There are various places where you can find the best keywords, and my favorite is Google’s AdWord Keyword Tool. It shows the keywords and keyword phrases that have high competition along with all the variables used for the keyword / keyword phrase people are using in a search.

For example, on the keyword phrase “drive traffic to website”, the most competitive versions of this, per the Keyword Tool, include:

• traffic to website
• traffic website
• traffic for website
• website traffic

It would be more difficult to compete with these popular searches, however you do want to optimize your site for these if you want to compete. Also, take a look at other similar search terms that are not so competitive, like:

• drive traffic to website
• how to drive traffic to my website
• targeted traffic to your website
• driving traffic to website

There will be more keyword choices, and you don’t want to get too carried away in your initial optimization of a Web page. It would be better to test and analyze your website optimization efforts on certain keyword choices so you can change them if they are not producing results in coming up in search results for you.

It is recommended that only 1-2 keywords per Web page be used. That means you want to allocate 1-2 keywords for a particular page of the website. One search term for one web page is more preferable though.

Using Keywords In the Right Places

This is where optimization comes into play. Now that you’ve found the right keyword or keyword phrase, the next thing to do is incorporate that into a Web page.

Web Page URL

It is a best practice to name Web pages accurately – a simple URL that conveys the content information of that Web page.

In a Search Engine Watch article, it talks about how search engines are paying more attention to URLs and site architecture.

…for a long time in the world of SEO information architecture has been one of the most important elements in pursuing organic ranking success. It also is of great benefit to the end user…In showing the hierarchical flow of the site, you want to record the tiers of the site, but you don’t want to make it too difficult to follow. For this, ensure that you stay within three folders of the main site root.

In their example, it showed 3 URL structures for a page selling red bikes:

www.example.com/58739.php

www.example.com/products/bike-14.html

www.example.com/bikes/red-bicycles

As you can see from this example, the last one is the better URL.

Web Page Content

• Body Text – Placing that keyword / keyword phrase within the first sentence of the page, or as early as possible, and at least 3 times in the body of the content on that page.
• Headers – Creating header style to the keyword / keyword phrase
• Styling – Making the keyword / keyword phrase bold
• Anchor Text – Putting a hyperlink on the keyword / keyword phrase (within their website or an outbound link)

Web Page Meta Tags

• Title – Have a distinct and accurate title for your page that includes the keyword / keyword phrase
• Description – Write a description for the page to summarize the page that includes keyword / keyword phrase.
• Keywords – (not such a big deal anymore with Google) – Place a list of relevant keywords pertaining to your Web page.
• Alt tags – use alternative text for images
• Comment tags – In the HTML source code, and can be used to  help increase keyword frequency

This about sums it up on the basic SEO techniques. There is more about SEO techniques, however these are the basics, and will give a website more prominence in search results.

As you’ll read elsewhere, this isn’t difficult – it is just very time-consuming to research and implement the right keywords for each of your website pages!