What is keyword optimization and how to I optimize them the right way?
Keyword optimization is a search engine optimization technique to help you choose the right keywords for your business, and then use them to increase your Website’s ranking and visibility online.
To do this, first select your keywords. To choose the right keywords you wish to optimize on, you can use many complex software and commercial online tools to analyse and to look for profitable keywords and phrases or you can simply follow these steps.
If you choose generic and short words, they will be virtually worthless. Your website will largely be ignored and drowned out in a sea of competition around the world. Try to focus on key phrases your customers would likely use to find your product or services in your area and niche. These are “long tail” keywords that have less competition and are more targeted to your market audience.
How do you find these keywords and phrases? The answer is to simply use Google. Enter your keywords in Google’s AdWords Tool right here for your specific search location and get suggestions and instant analysis on these suggested key phrases. You can also see the number of searches for the phrases and how competitive it is online! When you have narrowed down and decided on your keywords, it’s time to optimize your website using them.
There are two basic key points (no pun intended) to remember for the optimization your website (there are many many other “signals” and “meta-data” used by Google but these two are the most important). One is the “Anchor Text Optimization” and the other is “Page Title Optimization“.
1. Anchor text is the part of a link on a web page that is visible to your visitor.
For example, for the following link:
Linktranet Can Help Businesses Online
The HTML code to produce the link is this:
[framed_box width=”0″ height=”0″ bgColor=”#c0c0c0″ textColor=”#000000″ rounded=”false”]<a href=”http://www.linktranet.com” target=”_blank”>Linktranet Can Help Businesses Online</a>[/framed_box]
The Anchor text is the “Linktranet Can Help Businesses Online” part after the “>”. This is highly important to Google’s algorithm (and other search engines’ algorithms) in determining your rankings. If your website have many links pointing to it with this Anchor text, the more likely your website will come up when someone is searching for a term such as “Help my business online” in Google’s search box.
A word of caution, do not try to artificially “stuff” links on your web pages in order to try to “game” the search engines. It will not work, for many technical reasons that are too detailed to explore here. Focus on creating valuable content and links just as you would focus on creating value for your customers. Both your website ranking and your business will be rewarded in the long run.
2. Optimize page titles. Page title is what you see in the titlebar of your browser when you visit a website. A properly optimized page title should:
- Be short. Limit the length to be 80-100 character for the best result.
- Use your keywords. Minimize the total number of words while maximizing the number of keywords you are optimizing for. Focus on creating linguistically natural sounding titles without diluting the weight of each keywords with unnecessary or redundant words.
Remember, to optimize the page titles the right way means eliminating unnecessary or superfluous words without resulting in something that only computers can understand.
For example, “Linktranet Business Online” would be an ineffective title that is understandable only by computers and will hurt your ranking. “Linktranet | Your Online Business Solution” minimized the total number of words, maximized the weight of each keyword and is comprehensible by both human beings and search indexing algorithms – much better for your ranking!
Why bother with such a fine distinction for on-page SEO optimization?
By following this simple step, a properly optimized page titles and anchor texts on a website can effectively boost your rankings by 200-300 positions, in as little as as 48 hours! With minimal or no costs, optimizing keywords the right way is a critical first step towards growing your business online with the minimal of effort required!
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For the entire blog on the seven steps to improving the SEO for your business online see the post on Finding Link Love.
