Secrets of Keyword Phrase Optimization

So you've optimized your Web site structure using the tips from Part 1 of our Web Site Optimization Series (see "A Guide To Leveraging Your Web CMS For SEO") and you've created a site that is prepared to deliver your content in the most Search Engine Friendly format possible. What do you do next? Optimize Your Content.

Optimizing Your Web Site Content For High Search Engine Rankings

Optimizing Web site content involves a number of steps, which includes ensuring that you are using appropriate page titles, heading levels and links or anchors. But the most important next step is deciding what keywords and keyword phrases to use in these main page elements.

Choosing appropriate keywords, and using them correctly, is one of the most important factors to consider when addressing search engine optimization. The most important use for keywords, contrary to popular belief, is NOT in the “keyword” meta-tag. Most search engines, including Google, have been ignoring keywords for a long time when indexing Web sites for search. That is not to say that you should not use your keywords meta-tag, however, you should not rely on them as your main source for search ranking. Remember, the Description Meta-tag is also important simply as the first paragraph that a potential visitor will see when looking at your site listing in a search engine.

Keywords should also be specific to your business and reflect the terms and phrases that your Web site visitors actually use to search for you. It is crucial to target keywords and phrases that are unique to your specific business and set you apart.

Here are a few generally accepted rules for choosing and using keyword phrases:

• Optimize each page separately and for a unique set of keywords or keyword phrases.
• Choose phrases that visitors to your site would realistically use to search for your site, service or product. Avoid internal business or industry jargon that potential visitors may never search for.
• Try to optimize pages for “long tail” phrases (more specific vs more general) rather than shorter phrases that will be highly competitive. For example, if you have an ice cream flavor that is your speciality, (i.e. Rocky Mountain Surprise Chocolate Ice Cream), you should optimize for that phrase first rather than trying to optimize for the highly competitive phrase “Ice Cream”.
• Consider your individual goods or services that might help you stand out in a search.
• Consider regional terms and locations.
• What keywords are your competitors using? Look at where they have placed the keywords in their content (i.e. anchors, titles, headings etc.) and at how they rank in the search engines.
• Ask your customers / visitors what phrases they would use to search for you, your products or your services.
• Give your pages time to rank. Don’t expect optimized pages to rank well immediately. There are many factors that may affect the rate at which optimized pages increase in ranking for specific keywords and phrases, including age of the domain and how often your site is crawled.
• Once you've determined your keyword phrases and allowed time for them to be indexed in the search engines, continue to re-evaluate them. This is where Web Analytics become very important.
• Use your Web Analytics to determine what phrases are doing well for you, which are failing and how they are performing in specific search engines. You should also monitor whether or not these phrases are getting people to the appropriate pages.

Using the Keyword Phrase Analyzer: How Hot Banana Makes Optimization Easy

The Keyword Phrase Analyzer is a simple tool available at the content level (Body Tab) of each page in a Hot Banana site.

By clicking on the Keyword Analysis button at the bottom of the Body tab, you trigger the Keyword Analysis tool to pop-up.

The Keyword Analysis tool reads your page body content and meta information and provides a quick overview of the text contained within the different page elements. The Keyword Analyzer Report also provides a total word count for each page element.

When you type a keyword or keyword phrase into the search bar at the top of the tool, the Keyword Phrase Analyzer will look through your content and provide a quick report on where the keywords are located on your page and the number of times the keywords are found on the page.

By using this tool, you can see the frequency of your target keyword or phrase used in your content and whether it is being used in all of the appropriate page areas (i.e. Page Titles, Anchors, Headings).

The Keyword Weight section of the report indicates what percentage of a particular page element contains your keyword or phrase and then provides an overall page weight. Generally speaking, any large content element (i.e. Body Content) containing more than 9% to 10% is considered excessive and may possibly be flagged as “Keyword Stuffing” by the Search Engines.

The rule of thumb to follow when considering the weight of a keyword phrase on your page is simply to make sure that the page is still relevant and readable to visitors on your site over and above all other considerations.

The Keyword Phrase Analyzer also uses Google Suggest to show the relative competition for your chosen phrase, in the form of number of results returned, and provides a list of additional suggested keyword phrases that might be relevant and also of lower competition.