by Sumantra Roy
Keyword rich pages are essential for SEO and good
search engine rankings. Here are some thoughts about how to create good
keyword rich pages, which will suit both, the search engines and your
page visitors.
I am assuming you have a working knowledge of the
different HTML tags like the Title tag, the Meta Description tag, the
Meta Keywords tag, the Heading tags, the Alt Tag etc. If you don't, just
go to:
http://www.utoronto.ca/webdocs/HTMLdocs/NewHTML/htmlindex.html
for a good introduction to such HTML tags. Now, let us assume that your
company sells packaged tours to Australia, and that you are targeting
the keyword "travel to australia". Here's how you create the
KRPs:
The Title Tag:
The first and most important tag to consider is
the Title tag. You should always begin the Title tag with the keyword
that you are targeting. Also remember that the search engines are going
to display the Title tag while they are displaying the results of a
search. Hence, you need to make the Title tag attractive to humans as
well.
Here is one Title tag that I may have used: "Travel
to Australia and discover its scenic beauty". Have a look at
the Title tag - it uses the keyword right at the beginning and also
tells people how beautiful a place Australia is.
Of course, all Titles need not be like the one I
used. The Title that you use depends on the subject matter of your site.
However, you should follow all the general rules that I have outlined
here.
Meta Description Tag:
The Meta Description tag is used by many search
engines to provide a short description of the page that is listed in the
search results. Hence, like the Title tag, it is important that the Meta
Description tag be keyword rich as well as attractive to humans.
The rules for the Meta Description are more or
less the same as those for the Title tag. However, the content of this
tag will generally be longer than that of the Title. Here's what I may
have used in the Meta Description tag:
"Travel to Australia - We
take care of all the details of your trip so that you can travel with
complete peace of mind."
Note how this description repeats the keyword and
also the benefit that it stresses - it says that the customer will be
able to travel without having to worry about the intricate details of
the trip - you will take care of them.
Meta Keywords Tag:
The Meta Keywords tag has become less and less
important as far as search engine optimization is concerned. In fact,
you can get top rankings without having anything in the Meta Keywords
tag at all. However, just to be on the safe side, you would want to
include some keywords in the Meta Keywords tag. You should also include
some of the common upper/lower case variations of the keyword. The rules
for the Meta Keywords tag are pretty simple - don't repeat any keyword
in the Meta Keywords tag more than three times and don't repeat any
keyword one after the other. Here's what I may have used in the Meta
Keywords tag:
"Travel to Australia,
tourism, travel to Australia, Down Under, TRAVEL TO AUSTRALIA"
Note how I have introduced "tourism" and
"Down Under" just to separate the different instances of the
keyword.
Body of the Page:
Even more important however is the real content of your
page and it´s keyword density. So now we come to the actual body of the page. Begin by getting
hold of a nice (but not too large) picture which is applicable for the
page that you are creating. In the present case, I might include a
picture of the lotus shaped Sydney Opera House. Place this picture at
the top of the page. In the Alt tag for the picture, just mention your
target keyword once, i.e. the Alt tag would be "Travel to
Australia". You can include other words in the Alt tag, but it
should start with the keyword you are targeting.
Once you've put up the picture, it is time to
create a Heading for your page. Use the H1 tag to do so. Again, in the
H1 tag, mention your target keyword once, i.e. like the Alt tag for the
picture, the H1 tag could be "Travel to Australia". Again,
like the Alt tag, you can include other words in the heading, but the
heading should start with the keyword you are targeting.
Now it's time to create the actual text of the
page. The way you create the text of your page would depend largely on
what you want the visitor to do after reading this page. In some cases,
you may simply want the visitor to go to the home page or another
specific page in your site after reading this page. In this case, you
should write the text in such a way that the visitor is attracted to the
page that you are targeting.
You would also want to provide links to the home
page or the specific page that you are targeting at strategic places in
the KRP. Or, you may want the visitor to clïck on the link to an affïliate
program that you are a member of. In this case, you would stress the
benefits that the visitor gets by purchasing the product or service that
the affïliate program is selling. You would also want to provide links
to the affïliate program at strategic places in the page and/or at the
end of the page. Whatever it is that you want your page to do, there are
some general rules to follow:
1) The first
thing to remember is that some search engines don't recognize the Meta
Description tag. These search engines will often simply take the first
few lines of text in the body of your page and display that as the
description. Hence, you must ensure that the first few lines of text in
your page are attractive to human beings.
2) Ensure that as many sentences as
possible in the page contain your target keyword once. The keyword
shouldn't just be placed on an ad hoc basis - the way the keyword is
placed in every sentence should actually make grammatical sense and the
repetition should be such that your human visitors do not feel that you
have deliberately repeated a particular phrase throughout the page. This
is not only important from the point of view of ensuring that your
readers don't get a bad impression of your site, but also from the point
of view of search engine optimization - the search engines may penalize
your page for spamming if they find that you have randomly repeated the
keyword throughout the page. Also, while repeating the keyword in the
page, try to repeat the keyword once near the top of the page and once
near the bottom.
3) Make sure that your paragraphs are not
too long - each paragraph should be no more than 3 or 4 sentences long.
This is because people on the web simply don't have the time or the
inclination to read long paragraphs.
4) Try to ensure that the page contains
links to other pages with the keyword being present in the text under
the link. This can often lead to a higher ranking for your page.
5) There is no hard and fast rule regarding
the total number of words that should be present in the KRPs. As a rule
of thumb, try to ensure that there are between 500-600 words. However,
if the number of words falls a bit short of or exceeds this limit, don't
worry too much.
Once you have created the page, ensure that the
name of the file in which it is saved contains the keyword and that the
individual words of the keyword are separated by hyphens. In this case,
the name of the file would be "travel-to-australia.html". This
will get you a higher ranking in the few search engines which give a lot
of emphasis on the keyword being present in the file name.
After doing all this, simply link the home page of
your site with the Sitemap page using a text link. Then, submit your
home page, the Sitemap page and each of the KRPs to the search engines.
When you are submitting these pages, to be on the safe side, make sure
that you submit no more than 1 page per day to any search engine -
otherwise, you run the risk of some search engines ignoring some of the
pages you have submitted.
You can submit your site by going to the
individual "Add URL" pages of each engine. Or, in order to
save time, you can use our free submission tool which helps you submit
your site manually to the search engines, without having to go to the
individual "Add URL" pages of each engine. The tool is
available at http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/t.cgi?3455_b&submission.htm.
Follow all the rules that I have outlined in this
article and you can soon see your search engine blues disappear forever!
