Keywords - How to determine your keywords?

[gkgops]

Hi all,

Every body speaks about keywords

What is the right keyword for your site, Is it those keywords that are more searched (similar to your business or products) or some niche keywords

If it is the most searched keywords, You will have to face the competition and if it is a niche keyword, You will have less traffic

Could someone help where to draw the line..

Also am trying to improve keywords for mysite

[hooperman]

What is the right keyword for your site, Is it those keywords that are more searched (similar to your business or products) or some niche keywords

What keywords are you talking about? I can think of several meanings for your question:

- what do I put in the meta keywords tag on each page
- what keywords do I give to a directory that summarise my site
- what keywords to target when actually writing content.

Is it one of those?

[kompoint]

niche keywords are the best way for doing SEO.

[stymiee]

Depends on the niche. If it is a competitive and crowded field start off with more niche type terms so you can get a piece of the market and then work your way up to more broad terms. If the niche is not saturated then start off with more broad terms.

[gkgops]

What keywords are you talking about? I can think of several meanings for your question:

- what do I put in the meta keywords tag on each page
- what keywords do I give to a directory that summarise my site
- what keywords to target when actually writing content.

Is it one of those?

Hi,

I meant those keywords in the content and meta so if someone types for those keywords chances should be more that the site carries those keywords should come up

Mine is a business directory for my local regions

[hooperman]

Well you can forget the keywords meta tag as far as ranking goes because it has very little effect (I'd include it for completeness though).

As far as keywords in your content, just think about what your web page is about. Try and write your content so that you deliver your message clearly to the reader. If you do that, you should find that your keywords appear in places of significance (<title>, <hx> etc) naturally.

If you haven't read it already I'd recommend reading the SEO FAQ.

[parikshat@vinove]

You should avoid the key words for which the top ranking websites have .org, or .net domains.

Also, many keywords having huge traffic volume, would not be able to benefit you of increased sales, since the traffic on most general keywords would not be the classified.
The smart choice would be a selection of list of keywords talking about your business. However, the competition could be addressed should you incorporate the keywords adequately on your website content.

[hooperman]

You should avoid the key words for which the top ranking websites have .org, or .net domains.

This makes no sense. The TLD of the top ranking sites for a particular phrase has no influence on your chances of ranking for that phrase.

[cheap freelancer]

First identify a topic, e.g free homework help and then find out all keywords related to the topic.

[gkgops]

Well you can forget the keywords meta tag as far as ranking goes because it has very little effect (I'd include it for completeness though).

As far as keywords in your content, just think about what your web page is about. Try and write your content so that you deliver your message clearly to the reader. If you do that, you should find that your keywords appear in places of significance (<title>, <hx> etc) naturally.

If you haven't read it already I'd recommend reading the SEO FAQ.

Hi Hooperman,

Thanks for all the guidelines and the fantastic FAQ


Regards

[choudiandian]

I think major search engines like google and yahoo will save any words on your page as keywords. This includes keywords in title, meta description, page content, url, etc.

If you put the hot keywords on your page, you have to strive on SEO to crawl the top ranking in SERPs. And if you put those unfamilar keywords, you will get less traffic.

An example of the first site in my signature is, I got many visitors from google for the keywords like "free directory list" in page 10, while I only got few visitors for the first page ranking of "free sitemap generator"

[JJMcClure]

Well you can forget the keywords meta tag as far as ranking goes because it has very little effect (I'd include it for completeness though).

I wouldn't agree with that. Google may ignore metatagged keywords but most of the other search engines don't, plus, it's where google looks to get the description to show the surfers so it's still worth having a desc meta tag just for that.

It's also useful to test without one and see what text the bots pick up first to use in the desc snippet if they can't find a desc meta tag, once you know that for sure you can make sure your keyword figures there.

[stymiee]

I wouldn't agree with that. Google may ignore metatagged keywords but most of the other search engines don't, plus, it's where google looks to get the description to show the surfers so it's still worth having a desc meta tag just for that.

It's also useful to test without one and see what text the bots pick up first to use in the desc snippet if they can't find a desc meta tag, once you know that for sure you can make sure your keyword figures there.

Actually no major search engine uses any meta tag to rank pages. They haven't for a very long time. Some will use the meta description tag as the description of a page in the SERPs which justifies using one but that is not to be confused with the search engine ranking the page. Google just came out and said that so there really isn't much left to debate on the issue.

[JJMcClure]

Actually no major search engine uses any meta tag to rank pages. They haven't for a very long time. Some will use the meta description tag as the description of a page in the SERPs which justifies using one but that is not to be confused with the search engine ranking the page. Google just came out and said that so there really isn't much left to debate on the issue.

It's worth having it just for the description as I said, and a good trick is to leave it out then spider your page and see what text gets picked up in place of it.

I hadn't looked into this for a while, you say that none of the search engines use meta tags at all?

What's your source? I can't find anything to support that.

[stymiee]

Google just wrote their level of meta tag support. See this thread: http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/show...wpost&t=518783

The whole meta tag thing has been discussed ad nauseum here so I won't rehash it. If you do a quick search (be patient the search functionality is really slow) you'll find plenty of discussion on it.

[andrewdawson]

i think you should use both niche and most search able keyword.
by this you can balance the amount of competition you are facing for keywords

[JJMcClure]

Google just wrote their level of meta tag support. See this thread: http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/show...wpost&t=518783

The whole meta tag thing has been discussed ad nauseum here so I won't rehash it. If you do a quick search (be patient the search functionality is really slow) you'll find plenty of discussion on it.

I knew Google don't use them. I've done a search and apart from getting terribly diverted by lots of interesting info, I couldn't find anything definitive about meta tags.

The consensus seems to be that yahoo still factors them into it's algo and since I'm optimising primarily with Google, yahoo and MSN in mind, I'll continue to add them for more than 'snippet' purposes.

Unless you have a reliable source that says otherwise?

[stymiee]

Definitely add them as they don't hurt you at all. Just don't be surprised when you don't see any benefit from them.

[shakir]

adding key word in metatag is useless, no SE are considering it. Once start develop site has to target keywords and try to include the keyword as much u can , if more time use the key word the density will increes. so SE will give preference for you. This key word has to include in directory submission , forum and link exchange etc. and even it will take months to be up at least i think 6 month to get a good position...
This is my idea about keywords

[JJMcClure]

adding key word in metatag is useless, no SE are considering it.

Please can I have the source for that?

[stymiee]

If you're looking for it in writing from every search engine you're not going to find it. They rarely provide such information. But information like this has been shown to be true for quite some time and is very easy to figure out logically.

[Rohen]

I think SEO is a complete set up from the get go, specially if the site is brand new.

Eventhough you guys say META tags are not that important anymore, I still place them in every single one of my pages.

Is this wrong?

Should contact.php include META TAGS about "contact us."

[stymiee]

Definitely put them on your pages. That is the advice we give everyone. Just don't expect to see a change in your rankings because of it. But you may see your description tag in the SERPs which alone makes it worth doing.

[JJMcClure]

If you're looking for it in writing from every search engine you're not going to find it. They rarely provide such information. But information like this has been shown to be true for quite some time and is very easy to figure out logically.

Fair enough, I'll stop looking for it then.

You a star wars fan? I googled slave 1 because it was so familiar. Bit disappointed with myself for not knowing that one. Ask me anything about epsiode IV though!