Keywords Phrases – SEO Elements
Keywords, Phrases & other important on page SEO elements is one of the subjects I receive the most email about on a regular basis.
The problem is there is no magic wand, no silver bullet & certainly no quick fix when it comes to on page SEO & this is why so many of us struggle to find the answers.
I have often started a new article with a certain idea about what keywords & phrases to use. Only to find that a few weeks down the line I am changing my ideas to suit what people are actually using to find that particular article & then obviously having to re-optimize for different keywords & phrases.
Long Tail Keywords
Many of you will have heard the term long tail keywords, basically long tail keywords are keyphrases that include the keywords that you wish to use.
Examples:
1. Blog is extremely common & has very high competition from some very big sites. Impossible for me to rank for. Not ranked in the top 100 with Google.
2. Blog Review is a very commonly used keyword & as such is difficult for a new site such as this one, to rank well for. Currently ranked 42 / 576,000,000 with Google.
3. My Blog Review is not so common & therefore becomes easier to rank well for. Currently ranked 3 / 645,000,000 with Google
4. My Blog Review & Optimization On the other hand is not common at all and therefore is the easiest to rank well for. Currently ranked 1 / 2,060,000 with Google.
Now every keyphrase used above includes the all important keyword ” Blog ” & 2,3 & 4 include my other important keyword ” Review “. You can see in the examples above the effect that using long tail keywords (keywords in a phrase) can have & over time as the site ages & gets more popular, the ranking for the term ” Blog Review ” will also improve.
How To Find Long Tail Keywords
Now I know by looking at the example above this all looks fairly easy..? Ahm sorry but no, it all takes time & good Keyword Research & when you finally find your long tail keywords, then comes Keywords Optimization . These are the two most critical factors in deciding whether your page ever sees the light of day or is cast off to the darkest corners of Google’s Index. Unfortunately there is no secret pot of gold (keywords), how well your pages rank is governed solely by the amount of effort & research you put into finding good quality keywords & phrases. By using the two links above you can learn how to carry out effective keyword research & how to fully optimize your keywords to gain maximum ranking benefit.
Other On Page Factors
I have mentioned in previous articles about the importance of the correct usage & placement of keywords and also the correct use of heading tags. Well luckily enough I stumbled upon an article recently that has covered this very issue in some depth. In fact the author of the article had actually run some exhaustive ranking tests in order to ascertain the effect of different on page elements with regard to page ranking.
The Test Results
Here are the page elements in order of importance based upon the average across Google and Yahoo:
1. Keywords in page title
2. Keywords in headings using <h2>tag
3. Keywords in headings using <h3>tag
4. Keywords in Meta Description
5. Keywords in Meta Keywords
6. Keywords in headings using <h1>tag
7. Keywords in Body Copy
8. Keywords in Body Copy – Bold
9. Keywords in Body Copy – Italic
10. Keywords inBody Copy – Bold & Italic
11. Keywords in URL
It would appear from these test results that the <h1> heading tag has been downgraded, possibly due to overuse by spammers. However as this test was carried out in Febuary 2010 then the results are very relevant and something we should all bear in mind if we wish to improve our ranking for the various keywords & phrases by using these important on page SEO elements.
Republished by Blog Post Promoter
No related posts.
Posted by Steve (Admin)
on Feb 10 2012. Filed under Keywords & Phrases.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0.
You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
I have to thankyou for this article, I have recently applied it to my own website & the jump in organic traffic is around +30%. There is no other reason for this increase other than better ranking for my pages.
Great Advice Thanks
.-= Nemia´s last blog ..Philippine Wildlife =-.
@Chris: Yes both Google & CPanel’s AWS are both excellent methods to use in order to discover what keywords & phrases your site is being found by. Very often this can differ considerably from what we think are good keywords & therefore it is a good habit to check on this at least once a month.
.-= admin´s last blog ..4G Networks =-.
I prefer to target long-tail keyword although it is not always possible. I heard a statistic once that over 60% of organic search engine traffic comes from long-tail keywords. I always get excited when I see a long list of keywords (in traffic sources) in Google analytics.
.-= Blogger´s last blog ..Five tips to avoid writer’s block for bloggers =-.