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Posts Tagged ‘Keywords’

While hitting a specific percent for keyword density is now a defunct technique, that doesn’t mean that keywords are no longer important. What it does mean, however, is that repetition will no longer suffice to make the search engines aware of your content. So, how can you give your keywords some love, and make sure the search engines notice it?

Use exact matches.

If your page contains the exact phrase that a searcher looks for, you’re much more likely to be seen as a “relevant result” by the search engines. As such, if you want to appear under any specific words or phrases, be certain to include that exact phrase at least once in your content. You will want this to be a word for word, letter for letter rendition of the search term that you’re expecting people to use.

Use related terms.

In addition to having the exact keywords, you will want to use terms that are related. The Google Keyword and Sets tools both provide an opportunity to find words and phrases that Google thinks are connected. The more you use related terms, the more appropriate Google will think the content is.

Be Bold (and Italic)

When you use your keyword in the content, don’t be afraid to put it in bold or italics. While the amount of weight given isn’t significantly different, these stylistic changes do help the keywords stand out to your visitors, both organic and robotic.

Organize Your Content

Use headers and sub-headers, along with the appropriate HTML tags, to organize the content on your page. When you do so, be certain to place appropriate keywords in the different headers of your content.

Provide a Shiny, Shiny Title

Google has come right out and said that meta titles and descriptions are an important part of how they rank results. As such, using important keywords and key phrases in your title and meta description will help your relevance.

Make a First Impression

Words used in the first paragraph, or about the first seventy-five words of content, will be seen as more relevant than keywords placed elsewhere, so be sure to include your important key phrases here