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Keyword selection and search engine optimization are vital tools in producing and running a successful website. Before we continue talking about keyword selection and search engine optimization, I would like to make sure that we all understand what the terminology means.

Keywords are the words chosen by you to define your site. They are the words that you hope to rank highly for in Google. So, for instance, if you want to have a website selling ‘fashion’ – ‘fashion, fashionable, high fashion, haute couture’ might be your keywords (more on this later).

Search Engine Optimization or SEO is concerned with presenting your work – the web site and any text associated with it – in such a manner that search engines find it easy to crawl and index, which enables surfers to find you on the Internet.

Let’s use Google as an instance of a search engine – after all, it is the biggest, most used and so most crucial. Google wants to present its users with the best results – that is, most relevant results – that it can for each keyword entered, in order to improve customer satisfaction.

Therefore it has built up an enormous database of which keywords appear on which sites. Then ‘all’ has to do is rank the sites by popularity and, in theory, the most relevant websites should pop up for every keyword typed in.

Now there is you, or me, with our dreams of a website on fashion. If you make ‘fashion’ your keyword, you will be taking on the colossal fashion houses and colossal department stores with their huge budgets and gigantic websites head to head. Who do you imagine is going to win?

It is a no-brainer. You will never even get to page 20 in Google search results. In short, you will have no business. But what if you used a long-tail keyword (LTKW) and focused your website? Say, use the LTKW ‘fashionable plus size black dresses’ and construct a web site on that. It might be a keyword that no one else has thought of.

This is why keyword selection is important and there are numerous books and articles written on it. It is a precise task, a bit of a slog, but some individuals, like me, really enjoy it. Or you could automate the job.

So, that is the first stage: finding relevant keywords to your business so that you have a opportunity of being listed on the first page of Google for that keyword. The second stage is making your web site search engine friendly so that Google can crawl it and index it for your keywords.

If you do not do this correctly, Google’s spiders will crawl off onto another web site and it may be a whilst before they come back, which leaves your web site in still water.

This piece is too short to go into this colossal subject in any worthwhile way, but I will strive to give you the most relevant pointers.

Keep your web site focused on a small range of products and define and use keywords for every item, but do not over use them. Do not repeat a keyword phrase simply for the sake of it.

Make your internal links easy to find by using nav bars, menus and sitemaps.

Do not have loads of external links for your visitors to go off to, make your site interesting enough for surfers and spiders to want to remain there.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on a number of topics, but is now concerned with the SEO Content. If you want to know more, please visit our website at PLR Articles

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