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Search engines index web pages to help them better understand each web page of your website so they can better match them with a users search. Keywords and key phrases are the common factor between the billions of searches performed each year in search engines and the billions of web pages search engines have indexed.
There are several key places within each web page of your website where you should add your keywords so Google can 1. understand your web page(s) better, and 2. connect your web pages with relevant user searches.
Six Keyword Hotspots:
1. Your domain name (URL)
2. Title tag
3. Description tag
4. Image file names
5. Alt tags
6. The body of the text
1. Your Domain Name URL
Depending on the goals of your site, the domain name (or at least part of it) is a potential hotspot for a keyword. For example, here at seogroup.com, SEO is naturally a focus of our discussions and blog posts. Hence, “SEO” is part of our domain. That doesn’t mean you must have a domain name with your key phrase in it.
By naming sub folders and specific pages according to the content contained on those pages, we make each page more relevant to users and better understood by search engines. For example, instead of naming your services page “services.html”, try naming it after the service you provide. If you sell pizza in Chicago, name the page chicago-pizza.html.
2. Title Tag
The title tag is often the first thing a user sees when performing a search in a search engine. It’s also the first indication of what your web page is about to a user. So be clear and descriptive. Search engines also use the title tag to help understand what your web page is about, allowing them to better match your web page with a users search. In the example below we did a search for the ‘top ten 80s songs’ and it yielded these results. Clearly, you can see that the title is essential when it comes to users clicking on search results. Moreover, each keyword from that search is bolded in the title and meta description, further directing their eyes to how relevant your content is.
Title Tag and Description Tag
3. Description Tag
This tag is what web searchers see below the title of a link, as shown in the above image. Like the title tag, people and search engines use the description tag to better understand what the web pages of your website are about. As you can see in the example above, people read the description tag to see what your web page is about before clicking on it, so make it good.
4. Image File Names
Whenever you place an image in your page, its name should be relevant, and if applicable, use a keyword. Let’s say you have an image of a cartoon dinosaur on a web page about dinosaurs. You might name it something like this, “cartoon-dinosaur-drawing.jpg”. This would be relevant to that page, descriptive of the image, and much better than having something generic like “image4.jpg” or even “dino.jpg”.
5. Image Alt Tags
Google’s webmaster guidelines suggest using alternative text for images, which provide descriptions of the image in text form. The reason for this is that search engines don’t ‘see’ images like humans do, so they need text to process what that image is about and therefore helping them determine what your web page is about. For the above image, the alt attribute might be “Cartoon dinosaur drawing, with text that says ‘RAWR! it means I LOVE YOU! in dinosaur’.“
6. The Body Text – duh?
This should happen naturally. After all, if your page has relevant information and is truly about the keywords you are trying to rank for, then these should appear somewhat frequently in the text. Place your keywords or key phrases toward the top of the page and bold them or underline them when it fits naturally. People and search engines recognize this and both get a better understanding of what your web page is about. Review and Remember:?When it comes to SEO, there are a few key places in which your keywords are well… key. Keep these important keyword hotspots in mind when creating your pages and you’ll see more relevant and targeted traffic.
What other hotspots are there for keywords or key phrases?
Tell us below…