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 Advice For Webmasters |
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How and Where to Use Keywords
In general, you will likely want to use the plural form of your keywords. However, you need to verify this using WordTracker as sometimes the singular form of a word is searched on more often. Google as of the November 2003 “Florida” update now incorporates word stemming into their search results. See the following section for a discussion on word stemming. Google treats hyphenated words as two words: house-plans is the same as house plans on Google. However, words connected by an underscore, such as house_plans are treated as a single word currently. In addition, Google is not case-sensitive, so HOUSE PLANS, House Plans, house plans, and HoUsE pLaNs are all treated the same. Use Keywords in the Following Places The following shows where keywords should be used on your web pages. The list is in approximate order of importance (subject to change). The first four items are particularly important, with Google giving weight to keywords found in the title much more than any of the other locations.
First paragraph of page (first 20 words): <BODY><P>keywords</P> Bold and/or italicize keywords also. Link (anchor) text: <A HREF>keywords</A>. The clickable portion of links. Last paragraph of page: <P>keywords </P></BODY> <FORM><OPTION>keywords</OPTION></FORM> Note: There has been a trend where more people are abusing H1 tags by wrapping them around entire pages of content or by using multiple H1 tags on a page. This is a bad idea and borders on spam – the H1 tag should be used a page headline, nothing else. It is perfectly legitimate to reduce the size of H1 text on a page using a linked style sheet but that’s about it. There is some evidence to suggest that Google may be discounting H1 text as a result so it may carry less weight for ranking moving forward. The same can be said about image ALT text – some people are putting entire paragraphs of content in them for each image on a page. It is perfectly legitimate to put keywords relating to the image or to the section of the page that the image appears but that’s it. There is evidence to suggest that image ALT text does now carry less weight than before. Images that are clickable (wrapped in a A HREF tag) do not appear to have a discounting of ALT text however. About Word Stemming As of November 2003, Google now uses word stemming. Word stemming allows all forms of the word – singular, plural, verb form as well as similar words to be returned for a given search query. This can work both for and against a site depending on which form of a word a page is primarily optimized for. So if someone types in "house plans", not only will pages that are optimized for that phrase be returned, but so will pages that contain all variations of that phrase, for example: house plan house planning house planner house plan house planning house planner Stemming can be overridden. When you enter a search query in google, place a plus “+” sign in front of the word for which you want to disable stemming for. For example: house +plans Pay attention to stemming for your keywords – particularly to what the root word is and what Google considers to be a match for that word when optimizing pages over time. Besides the title of a page, Google places special importance on the use of keywords in the text of links. This means you need to structure your links correctly. Ideally, you should only use text links on your site as opposed to graphics (like buttons) links. Google looks for, and counts, keywords contained in link anchor text – the clickable portion of the link. Remember that Google cannot see graphics-based links – all it has to go on is the ALT attribute for image tags, which doesn’t carry near as much weight. In fact, recent evidence indicates that Google may not continue to read ALT text in image tags due to their misuse. If there is a second sentence to remember in this book, it is as follows: Keywords found in link text should match keywords found on the page that the link points to – especially in the title of the page. Here is an example of the ideal link structure for Google. Of primary importance is the use of keywords in link anchor text (text between the <A HREF> </A> tags). Note also the use of keywords in the actual name of the graphics file. Every little bit helps! Text-Based (Ideal) Link Structure: If you must use graphics-based links on your web pages, be sure and fill in the ALT text attribute of the image tag as follows: Graphics Link Structure: • Information in the <META name= “Keywords”> tag • Information in the <META name = “Description”> tag Note: Google has been known to display information from the META “Description” tag in their search listings if it cannot find a description for your page in the OPD (DMOZ) directory. Because of this, and because other search engines do read it, you should use this tag and have a decent-sounding description that includes your keywords. Make sure each description is unique per page. • Information within the <!—Comments --> tag • Information within the <STYLE> • Information within <SCRIPT> tags (JavaScript and other client-side code) • Duplicate links to the same page (only counts once) • Links that point to the same page they are on • Any graphics or multimedia (menu buttons, photos, animations, Flash) |
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| Getting Started | |||||
| The Importance of Google | |||||
| How Google Works | |||||
| So What Is a Ranking | |||||
| When Google Comes Visiting | |||||
| How Google Ranks Websites | |||||
| Determining Your Best Keywords | |||||
| So What Exactly Are Keywords? | |||||
| Using WordTracker | |||||
| What is your Primary Keyword Phrase? | |||||
| Your Secondary Keyword Phrases? | |||||
| Putting it All Together | |||||
| a | |||||
| Optimizing Your Website | |||||
| Structuring your Site Correctly | |||||
| Structure by Theme and Topic | |||||
| Create Lots of Short Pages | |||||
| Don’t Nest Your Pages | |||||
| Don’t Bloat Your Pages With Code | |||||
| Keywords in Your Domain Name | |||||
| a | |||||
| Optimizing Your Web Pages | |||||
| Keyword Factors Used in the Algorithm | |||||
| The Importance of the <TITLE> | |||||
| How and Where to Use Keywords | |||||
| a | |||||
| Linking Your Pages Correctly | |||||
| Structuring Your Internal Links | |||||
| Best Practices for Internal Linking | |||||
| a | |||||
| More Advanced Techniques | |||||
| Multiple Sites – Is it Worth It | |||||
| Domain Pointing and Subdomains | |||||
| a | |||||
| The Importance of Links | |||||
| Link Factors Used in the Algorithm | |||||
| Introducing PageRank | |||||
| So What is Link Quality? | |||||
| All About PageRank | |||||
| PageRank vs. Search Result Ranking | |||||
| Toolbar PageRank vs. Actual PageRank | |||||
| Increasing PageRank | |||||
| The PageRank Equation | |||||
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| Submitting Your Site to Directories | |||||
| About the Google Directory | |||||
| Submitting Your Site to the OPD | |||||
| Submitting Your Site to Yahoo | |||||
| Submitting Your Site to Business.com | |||||
| Other Search Submissions | |||||
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| Getting Ready for Linking | |||||
| Creating “Link to Us” Code | |||||
| Maintaining a “Related Links” Page | |||||
| Dealing with Non-Reciprocal Links | |||||
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| Which Links to Focus On | |||||
| Best Practices and Tips | |||||
