If you aren’t using specific keywords to target on your page, your search engine ranking could be significantly harmed. By incorporating keywords into your content, your chances of ranking on the search engine for those key terms is more likely. But first, let’s get on the same page about search engine optimization, or SEO.
What Is SEO?
SEO stands for search engine optimization, which is the process of gaining traffic from free, organic search results on search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. Through SEO, you can increase the quality and quantity of traffic to your website. SEO is one of the key online marketing channels that can pay dividends over time. By optimizing your site, you can deliver information to search engines to have your content indexed and displayed within their search results. This increases traffic coming to your website, ultimately maximizing your revenue generation.
Keywords with SEO
Now that you’re understanding SEO basics, some of the best ways to optimize your content is by defining specific keywords to target on your site. To define these, think of what you want to rank for, and what you want potential customers to search to find you. It is also important to look at what search terms some of your competitors are ranking for. This way, you can optimize for keywords to try to outrank the competition. One key aspect, though, is to make sure you put your keywords in strategic places to be the most effective. Let’s look at some examples.
Where to Put Keywords
- In your title – Google will pay particular attention to the title of your page. By putting your keywords in your title, it will significantly influence your search engine rankings.
- In your metadata – If you add keywords to your metadata, you are more likely to get more clicks to your site because these keywords pop up in your page description. Google also reads these areas to determine which pages to display for a search.
- Throughout your body content – Google and other search engines will crawl your entire page, looking at all of the text. By adding keywords consistently within your content, these search engines will be able to pick up this keyword focus and reward you in the rankings. Be careful not to overdo it, though – “keyword stuffing” is seen as a negative practice by Google and other entities.
- In your headers – Embedding keywords into your h1, h2, and h3 headers is another way to make them prominent for both users and Google. Try different variations to ensure they don’t come off as spam.
- In links – According to a Reboot study, Google determines the authority of a page based on the links embedded. If you tie a relevant link to a specific keyword phrase, it can help with your SEO efforts.
- Within the website URL – The domain name and actual page name are influential in keyword rankings. If you have the ability to alter these aspects, try to incorporate your keyword phrase.
- In graphics – Make sure the file name of your image is a keyword phrase you want to rank for. Your photo could also pop up in Google images for that keyword phrase and lead people to your site.
Contact Sixth City Marketing
If you’re looking for assistance with any SEO tactics, be sure to reach out to us today! We are a highly qualified team dedicated to meeting any SEO needs you may have.
