Search Engine Optimization, Your Website

Why Keyword Placement is vital for Google success

Now that you know the keywords that are most useful for your business, what should you do with them?
In order to make full use of your keywords, you need to make sure they are prevalent in your website.  While you want to make sure you are using them enough, you also don’t want to go overboard and use them too often, or search engines may penalize you.  Here are a few ways to use your keywords effectively for search engine optimization.

#1 - On-page Content
Of course, your keywords should appear as frequently as is natural in the content of your webpage.  While you may think a great way to increase your count of certain keywords is to type “windows Columbus Ohio, windows Columbus Ohio, etc…” over and over again, Google will see this as spam, and likely will remove you from their search engine results.  Remember, in on-page content, you want to focus on a few keywords, make sure you mention them often, but if your content no longer flows naturally you’ve gone too far.

#2 - Page Titles
When customers navigate to your webpage, at the top of the browser window there will be a title for that page.  This is a great location for one of your keywords!  Make sure if your website has multiple pages that each page title is accurate and unique while still making use of your keywords.

#3 - Description and Keyword Meta Tag
When a potential customer performs a Google search, many search results come up and under each result is a brief description of the given webpage.  This short blurb is called the description meta tag.  This description will not show up anywhere physically on your website, but exists hidden in the coding of your website.  If your not sure if you website has one, check with you website technician.  Keyword meta tags are similar in that they also don’t appear on your website, but are very useful nonetheless.  Make sure you tell your website technician that you want both of these used on your website, and that you want to use your keywords in them.

#4 - URLs
Your website’s URL is another great place to use keywords.  For example, instead of having your website be www.htjay234.com/2263-11/001.html, a more useful form for customers as well as search engine optimization would be www.ColumbusExteriorWindows.com/energyefficientwindows.html.  This form is much easier for customers to remember, and gives them a clue about the content of that webpage.

#5 - Anchor Text and Navigation Links
In your website, you may have certain words or phrases that double as a button customers can click on to be navigated to another webpage.  This is called a navigation link.  They usually appear blue and underlined.  Sometimes it is unavoidable which words you are able to use to make a navigation link, simply because of its location in the middle of a sentence.  However, these navigation links should be descriptive enough (not something like “click here”) that customers get some idea as to where that link will take them.  As well, you can use anchor text to further explain these navigation links.  If you hover your mouse over a navigation link, a small box will pop up with a description.  This is a great place to use some of your keywords and to better explain where your customer will be navigating.

#6 - Alternate Image Text
If a customer opens your webpage and for some reason an image on that page is unable to load, alternate image text will appear.  Your website technician can input what this text will be, and it is a good idea to make use of this for a phrase that includes one of your keywords.

When creating your website, you should make sure you are using all six of these ways to implement your keywords.  For further explanation of some of these methods please refer to Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide.