Best strategies keywords and Content

Now that you have the basics about keyword usage and the importance of content, how do you bring the two things together so that your website will prosper?

There is no direct formula for doing so, but you can find some real results if you implement a number of known methods to help you. Google itself often provides a great deal of suggestions in terms of keyword usage. In your balancing act for quality content and keyword ranking, keep the following strategies in mind.

GO WITH QUALITY CONTENT FIRST

First things first, write quality content for your website. Nothing else will be as important to the success of your business has having quality content on it. There are several ways you can do this successfully.

1. Use factual information
You want individuals to come to your website knowing that what you have to say is real and valuable to them. Therefore, each page should contain factual information. Before you post a blog post or an article, verify the information you are going to present. For example, going back to the example about the table search, be sure that you are providing factual information on the wood type, size, history or other topic.

2. Make it interesting
Coming to a website filled with lines and lines of information that is boring is going to be so dull people will leave. Without spending too much time in the process, add some statistics. Use descriptive language that paints the picture for the reader, "these mahogany tables are designed in the style used by Ancient Romans…."

3. Become a resource
One of the best ways to ensure you have quality information on your website is to make your website the one-stop shop for all information on that niche. For the reader, a website that contains all of the information they need is going to be highly valuable. You may provide information about the history of tables, how to use tables…tips for staining them…and so on, for example. These items help you to become the resource these individuals need to have.

4. Be the expert
For those who play a role in your website (and this is a very good thing) be sure that people who visit your website know that you are the expert in the field. You should stand out as being the authority. You do this when you provide valuable content to them. Do the hard research and find those interesting subjects to talk about. Answer questions. Relate to your customer base.


When you put these items together, the end result is very simple. You have a website that is packed with great content that people can naturally benefit from reading.

Chances are also good that you also have a website that is filled with quality keywords. After all, if you are writing about your topic and exploring all areas of it, you likely are using the most important words related to it. Still, you should still do some research and get better quality keywords into your work.

USING KEYWORDS PROPERLY

There is no better way to rank your quality content in the search engines than to use keywords properly. It is often the case that website owners see this as a step they can skip. Instead of doing the research to find the right keywords for their websites, they think they already know what they are. This is often not the case.

FINDING THE RIGHT KEYWORDS

Finding the right keywords is a process that often involves researching using any of the free keyword search tools available. You can also use Google's service to help you to do this.

Once you use these services, you are likely to get a list of keywords associated with your primarily keyword. In our case, the keyword we plugged in is the word "tables." As you are creating your table website, you have likely used a number of words that describe this product. But, did you include all of the most important words?

The top keywords, those used most often by users who are searching for the topic you have, should be included on your website. They do not have to be the only words that you use, though. These first words are heavily used and should be used at least somewhat in your website's content where it is appropriate to do so.

For example, with the word "table," the top five keywords used included:

• Tables
• Pub Table
• Pedestal Table
• Dining Table
• Glass Table


These words are going to be mentioned on your website because they are commonly used words for your niche. What about those other keywords in the list?

If you look down the list, you will see other words that could relate to your website. They look good, but fewer people are using them to find information online. Often, it is best to include some of these too. The reason for doing so is very simple. Most other website owners who are targeting keywords for their websites are using those top-tier words as well. There is a lot of competition out there for those words. Therefore, even with a great website, there are likely others fighting right along with you. Since the other words have less competition, you are more likely to rank well in the search page results for those keywords.

In the table example, the words "pedestal dining table," "modern dining table," Glass coffee table," and "square tables" got far fewer hits than those top-tier keywords. The lower competition still makes them valuable.

Use a combination of those top-tier words and those that are far more specific if they relate to your website. This unique combination will ultimately give you better results in the long term.

WHERE TO USE KEYWORDS

Now that you know which keywords you should have on your website, the next step is to consider the placement of keywords on your website. As mentioned earlier, there are various locations on your website that you can use keywords. Use all of these locations for keywords.

Within each of those documents, you need to place keywords in the right locations. There are several things to keep in mind in the case of blogs and articles/web content. The following guidelines can help you to place keywords into these mediums appropriately.

1. Place keywords in the title of each page or article
The best way to place keywords in the title is in the following format. "KEYWORD GOES HERE: Interesting Content Goes Here." An example for the table website might be, "Pedestal Dining Table: 3 Tips for Buying the Right Dining Table." This shows the search engines the importance of this word.

2. Within the first 90 characters of the first paragraph, be sure your keyword appears again
Also, it is important to note that you can use a mixture of keywords, but do consider having one or two primary keywords per article. Primary keywords should be located in these locations. Again, this early positioning helps to show the importance of the keyword to that page.

3. Use keywords in each of the paragraphs that you write on each page
Do not overdo it, though. For example, you do not want your primary keyword to show up more than one or two times in each paragraph, depending on their length.

4. Break up text using subheadings
Use secondary keywords in your subheadings. These will be positioned between paragraphs. Not every paragraph needs them, but sections of the article can be divided this way for easy reading benefits and keyword boosts.

5. Use keywords in the HTML for your website too
This includes using them in each individual blog post/article that you post. This also helps with page ranking.


Use a combination of keywords in each of your articles, but do not put too many into them. If that sounds confusing, it is because there is no hard and fast rule. What you want to do is to divide up the pages on your website or in your blog posts so that over the course of all of the pages, you use all the keywords you would like to use.

Do not try to put all of your keywords for your website into every article you write. It won't work and will deflate the quality of each page considerably. For example, one blog post may include the keyword "dining table”; in that article, words like "dining room table" and "square table" may be included, but not many more than that.


KEYWORD DENSITY

Keyword density is the amount of keywords on any one page in comparison to the number of words on this page. A few years back, it was common for the "less than expert" Internet marketers to try and work in high keyword density numbers. More keywords sounded horrible, but many thought that this would boost their search engine results pages significantly.

The problem is that this does not work. It hurts your page ranking and causes you to have awkward sounding content on your website. Content is king, though, remember, and therefore, you need to make changes to this significantly.

The question is, then, how much density should you go for? This is really up to you to decide since each page will be different, but most experts agree that you want a density that is under 5 percent. In most cases, only 2 to 3 percent keyword density is best.

To compute keyword density, you simply need to take the number of times that the keyword appears in the page's text and divide that by the number of words on the page.

For example, if the word "dining table" appears 8 times in our 400-word blog post, you would divide 8 by 400 words and get 0.02 or 2 percent. Do take the time to do this for your articles. You do want to ensure that there are plenty of keywords but not too many.

If you would rather not waste your time on calculating density, there are free and paid software programs available online that will calculate the density for you. These are helpful when they are accurate. You do not have to be 100 percent accurate here.

KEEP IN MIND

• Quality content is vitally important to the success of your website. Write your content to be quality content first.

• Go back and insert keywords as they fit into the content you have written.

• Do base topics and blog posts around keywords that are important. For example, choose a top ten list of tips for repairing dining room tables…this makes keyword usage easier and more effective. Plus, the reader gets it.

• Do no obsess about keywords. You do not have to have a lot of them on the website to see results. Choose a good mix and include them in each article, but only as they fit with your topic appropriately.