All About Keywords and Search Engine Optimization!
This post is a part of Search Engine Optimization Series.
« Basics of Search Engine Optimization
As promised in my previous post I am going to write about the next and most important element of Search Engine Optimization.
Keywords
If you have been reading about Search Engine Optimization and Online Marketing you must be seeing references to the term keywords. Keywords are nothing new, previously they were known as buzzwords and in today’s internet era this term has gained a lot of popularity. A lot of companies are making fortune with keyword marketing and SEO services.
Keywords contained within a Web page are the most important element to achieve high search engine rankings. Every aspect of Search Engine Optimization is based on the keywords.
Keywords are used by search engines to determine whether or not your web pages will address the needs of Internet users that are conducting a search.
When users search for some information, a business, services, resources etc they use certain keywords to find the information, the more keywords that are found on your web pages, the more likely your web page will be listed as a response to a user’s query.
For example: If I need some information about “Personal Loan Services” i will write this keyword in Google, Yahoo or any other search box and the back end search query will display the links to web sites that contain the information about Personal, Loan, Services. These three words will be highlighted in the results.
The search results will be different if I use “Personal Loans” as a keyword. So to get the most relevant information users normally use the basic terms like “Personal Loans Services in New York” if they are finding services for personal loans in New York.
Now your web-page position depends on what keywords you have used to optimize the your web site.
Should I optimize my Web site or each Web-Page?
Its very important to understand this concept because optimizing only the homepage will not get you the desired rankings and traffic. Each page contains different information so you should take each page very seriously. All techniques needs to applied on every page of a web site and you will get what you are looking for.
How to choose Perfect Keywords?
When you started your company or developed your products, you no doubt sat down with your friends, relatives and business partners and discussed the needs of your target audience. If you haven’t done Brainstorming before launching your products you know much more about the results of your approach.
When you start your SEO campaign it is important to brainstorm search phrases that are likely to bring qualified visitors to your web site.
Sit down with your friends, co-workers and business partners and discuss which keywords are relevant to the products and services you offer.
Compile an initial list of 5-10 search phrases that you feel best represent your company and which you believe people would type into a search engine when trying to find you.
Know Your Competition: Before finalizing a keyword, perform a search on Google, Yahoo, MSN or other search engines and click on the first page in the results. Now carefully check if that web-page is a real competition for your web site. If yes check out what keywords they have used on that page and you will get more ideas for your web-pages.
What Keyword tool should I use?
You can always search for “Keyword Tools” and you will get a lot of web sites providing this service for free or they will charge to display more than a few keywords. Now if you are smart enough you can use different tools to research for Keywords without paying anything 
I have found a few tools that are good for Keyword Research and If you know any please share best practices via comments below:
Web CEO
Free software for SEO, try the free edition if you like it you can buy the paid version however I am happy with the free version
Google Trends - You can compare searches by separating with commas.
Google AdWords Keyword Tool - A very nice tool for keyword research
iWebTool - Lists keyword searches for a day and month
OverTure.com - Good tool for keyword research
WordTracker - Lists top 100 only gives you a link to buy WordTracker for next 1000 long trail - Play smart
Need your help to increase the list please suggest other good and free tools in comments.
Keyword Frequency
Keyword frequency refers to the number of times a keyword or phrase appears within a web page. The more times a keyword or phrase appears within a Web page, the more relevant the page is likely to be for someone searching those keywords. But one should not abuse the system by repeating the same keywords over and over again.
Keyword Density algorithms will vary from engine to engine. What page text is indexed will also vary. But, fundamentally, if your keyword (or phrase) occurs 5 times in every 100 words viewed by an engine, your keyword density will be 5%. I will refer to this term more when we talk about other topics listed below.
You can check the keyword frequency here: LinkVendor.com
Keyword Density
Keyword density is the ratio (percentage) of keywords contained within the total number of indexable words within a Web page. In general, I suggest using a keyword density ratio in the range of 2-8%.
You can check the keyword density here: LinkVendor.com
Keyword Prominence
Keyword Prominence is all about improving the prominence of keywords by placing the important keywords at the top of the page or closer to the start of a web page. The best place to use the keywords in the text is at the top of each page, preferably the main page.The closer your keywords are to the start of the page or the start of a sentence, the better. Some search engines also consider the bottom of the page you should also insert keywords at the bottom as well.
Keyword Proximity
This term refers to the closeness between two or more keywords. Some engines, such as Google, use the concept of “keyword proximity” as part of their ranking formulas. Try to put your keywords as close together as possible and make sure your sentences are clear.
We will discuss it in later posts when we talk about HTML tags and Search Engine Optimization.
Avoid Spam
Search engines are really smart, so make sure you don’t try to play games with them. If you use same color as background or tiny text that is barely visible Search Engines will give you -ve rankings so My suggestion is not to use any of these tricks because 0 is always better than -1
Stop Words
Stop words are common words and characters ignored by most search engines.
e.g. a and are as at be for from he his I in is it of on that
Never ever use these stop words in your keywords as they will be ignored by Search Engines. To reduce the amount of storage space required to index web-pages and to enhance the speed of search results Search engines consider these words as stop words. So I would recommend don’t stop Search engine’s bots with these small words.
I have tried to explain all about Keywords and their importance in Search Engine Optimization, If you find something missing please post it in the comments and I will update the post as user comments and you will get full credit to make this information more helpful.
Please leave your comments and links to useful resources.
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[...] All About Keywords and Search Engine Optimization! | Mohit’s Blog [...]
Overture seems to be off and on these days. That used to be my tool of choice. Now the Adwords tool is about the best with a little Wordtracker thrown in for some long tail keywords.
Stephan Millers last blog post..How to Create Your Own Long Tail Phrases
Thanks for a great post on keywords.
Tanias last blog post..A girl’s bag!
Hey Mohit thanx for the great article man
this is really useful article for newbies and pros
stumbled it
Sunil Pathaks last blog post..Pleas Help Me My Friends Are My Only Subscribers
Hiii Mohit,
I really loved reading ur article..infact..the info which u provide is very clear and will surely be helpful to the biginners.
This is a really comprehensive article about finding powerful keywords to get visitors to your website. To my mind the Google Adsense tool is still one of the very best ways to get good keyword suggestions.
Stephen
http://www.stephenbray.com
Hi Mohit, I Really Agree with Shefali. hey shefali you have just type my thought.
anyway Mohit your way of thinking very clear and sharp really i like…
thanks for this post. and please do complete all post/article. i promise you i will read daily your posts.
Nik
Hey Mohit,
Excellent article on search engines and I was able to follow your instructions and try it. It is great
Thanks
Hi Mohit. Thanks for the great post on keywords. The key to keyword success is research…and using Google Adsense will keep you updated on search engine algorithms.
Great post…we’ll be revisiting!!