SEO (Search Engine Optimization) can make or break a web site.  One of the most crucial things you can do as part of SEO is finding out what keywords and phrases are best suited for your site.   The higher up in rankings your particular set of keywords and phrases are in search engines, the more likely your site will be viewed by potential customers.

Look at the other guy

One of the simplest ways to determine which keywords are right for your web site is by checking out the competition.  This is not to say you should copy your competition’s keywords and phrases but rather see what they are using to get a good feel for what is best for your site.  Go to a competitor’s web site and look at the source code for the first page.  While quickly falling from use, within the header, you’ll see a meta tag named keywords.  The content of this tag will show you keywords used by this site.  Also, looking at the first few paragraphs of the front page should also so keywords and phrases that may be similar to what you would place for your web site.

List it out

Start making your list of words and phrases that you feel mostly relate to your web site.  For example, if your web site is all about coffee, coffee products and the sale of coffee, an obvious first choice would be “coffee.”  From here you can expand on your list by including such words as “coffee beans,” “coffee mugs,” “coffee maker,” and so on.  These words will then all be placed within your web site in specific areas.

Placement is everything

While meta tag usage is still viable (though being phased out), careful placement of your keywords and phrases within the first few paragraphs of your web site entry page is more critical.  Search engine spiders will not only look at the meta tags but also the site itself.  It’s important to realize the first few paragraphs can be the most important and you should also keep in mind that if you overfill the paragraphs with your keywords or phrases, many search engines will catch this and bypass your site in indexing.  Other areas to place your keywords include the title of the page, anchored text areas, even page names.  Careful placement throughout your web site will help further your positioning with search engine indexing.

Different words – same meaning

The next thing to do is to investigate synonyms – not every one puts in the same word that has close to the same meaning.  This may not work in our case of a coffee web site (when someone is looking for coffee, that’s what they will type in a search engine) but can work for sites that offer services rather than products or items.  If your web site offers web hosting, instead of “bandwidth” you might opt for “site transfer” as an alternate keyword phrase.

Standing out in a crowd

Finally, look at your site and see what you may offer that your competitors do not.  If your coffee web site offers specialty machines such as an espresso maker or coffee recipe books, these are things that are just waiting to be incorporated into your keywords and phrases.  These are the words that will enable your website to stand out from the pack.  A person simply looking for some great coffee recipes may happen upon your site as it has been listed with the keyword phrase “coffee recipes”.  A visitor can then become a customer.  Don’t overlook anything – a comparison between your site and your competitor’s sites can help you find these little differences.

Wrap up

Finding and implementing keywords and phrases within your web site really isn’t too difficult.  The difficulty really lays in how you place your keywords and in how you can differentiate you site from all the others vying for top spots in the search engines.  Research and good luck!

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