DIY SEO: Keywords and Phrases

This brief tutorial is aimed at site owners and webmasters.

Many professional SEO organisations would like you to believe that the only way that your web site stands a chance of ranking alongsite others, on page one of various SERPs, is by employing their professional and often expensive services. Whilst there is no denying the benefit of accumulated experience in the field of SEO there is much that a site owner can do for themselves. The pre-requisites are: (a) having the time to focus upon SEO related aspects of their site and business and (b) a genuine interest in online marketing and SEO.

Keywords and Keyphrases

Keywords and keyphrases are the words and phrases that searchers will enter into search engines when they are looking for particular products, services, sites or information. Identifying the search terms that relate to the various areas of your site and your business is obviously important. Keyword research is a crucial precursor to further SEO related site enhancement. Most importantly, identifying the terms that would not only lead searchers to your site but also result in conversion means that you are meeting the needs of the users.

Keyword research is clearly important for site optimisation and if you are considering utilising pay per click. Here are some steps that may be followed in order to derive a useful list of words and phrases relevant to your site and business:

Identify any key characteristics of the people who will want to find your site
This is part of your marketing intelligence. E.g. Your site may be aimed at young people, other businesses, women only or pet owners. Various groups of users can use different words and language when conducting searches.
Brainstorm a few top level ideas for the words and phrases that are relevant to your site.
E.g. The products that you are selling or services that you are providing.
Identify the keywords that people actually use to find services and products like yours.
If you already have an operating website a lot of keyword intelligence can be derived from Google webmaster tools.
Take a look at your competitors paying particular attention to the words and phrases that they have used in their page titles, meta descriptions and page headings and content.
Use free keyword research tools such as the Overture keyword selector tool or the Google adwords keyword tool to generate some additional keyword ideas. Also consider synonyms, slang and alternate spellings.
List your keywords and phrases in order of importance for your site
This is an opportunity to review the keywords and phrases identified so far.
Test your keywords and phrases by entering them into various search engines.
Are the returned SERPs relevant to your business and website?
Identify and add relevant long tail search terms.
A long tail search term is basically a longer, more specific term. Long tail terms can be more on target, leading searchers to specific, niche areas of your site than the more general terms that you will have already identified.
Test your long tail terms by conducting searches with the various search engines.
You may find that your long tail search phrases are returning relatively few sites that would be relevant or appealing to searchers using your long tail phrase.
Select keywords and phrases that are relevant to each page of your site.
This is an important step. Choose from 1 to about 3 primary keywords and phrases from your list per page along with a few relevant long-tail phrases, particularly for the deeper pages of your site. Try not to duplicate terms for use in multiple pages.

The outcome of this important work should be a list of words and phrases that are relevant to web users who want to find the products or services that you are offering. These words and phrases have been appropriately sorted and related to the various pages of your site. If you have (sensibly) carried out this research before embarking upon your site design and build it can be used to inform your overall site structure and decisions regarding the number of pages in your site.

Using Keywords and Phrases

Having identified the relevant words and phrases we now need to consider how they should be employed in the pages with which they are associated. The crucial page elements are identified and discussed below:

Page Titles:
The page title (between the <title> tags)is enormously important in identifying to users and search engines the topic of a page in a succinct 60 character phrase. When composing page titles try to keep the primary keywords and phrase close to the start of the page title, try not to duplicate words and phrases and make certain that the phrase accurately describes the content of the page.
Page Meta Description:
Whilst the meta description is of less significance to search engines it can provide a reinforcement of the page topic and, importantly, is the sentence that is often presented below the page title in various SERPs. It should be no more than about 140 characters, it should reinforce the keywords and phrases used in the title and, ideally present a 'call to action' prompting searchers to visit the page.
URL Filename:
The URL filename is a reference to the name of the page file as it would appear in a browser address bar. For example, you may have a page that is all about 'green widgets'. You have identified the phrase 'green widgets' as the primary keyphrase for the page and used this in both the title and the meta description. Ensuring that the filename that appears in the browser address bar is: www.yoursite.xxx/green_widgets.htm will serve to further reinforce the message that this page is all about 'green widgets', whatever they are.
Page Headings:
Your identified keywords or phrases should be used in your page heading(s). A high level heading (<h1> or <h2>) should ideally be one of the first elements in the source order of your page. Lesser keywords, phrases and long-tail phrases may be usefully employed in sub-headings (<h3> etc.)
Page Content:
Remember that your page content should be written for your users. The research carried out into who your site visitors and customers are will potentially influence the language and terms used. Your keywords, phrases and long tail phrases should be used (but not overused) in your page content. The density (frequency of occurence) of keywords and phrases in any page should not be too great. As a good rule of thumb: Ensure that the page copy accurately and fully informs the visitor what the page is all about using language and terms that would be natural to them. Ensure that your keywords and phrases are the most frequently occurring words and phrases in the page but try to keep the percentage to less than about 10%. Most importantly: the page content should be written for the visitor and not specifically for search engines. If the content is good for visitors it will be good for search engines. If in doubt, take a close look at the content of pages from other sites that are returned high in the SERPs for the key, relevant terms that you have identified. Look at the keywords densities in these pages but don't copy anything!
ALT and TITLE Attributes:
The ALT attribute should be used for every image in every page. It's primary use is to support accessibility for those using text based web browsers. It is fine to use keywords and phrases within the ALT attribute settings as long as they are appropriate to the associated image. The TITLE attribute of all page anchors should also be set appropriately to provide information about the link. Again, keywords and phrases may be usefully employed in TITLE attributes as long as they are relevant to the hyperlink. There are other page elements that can use TITLE attributes but the anchor tag (<a>) is the most common and relevant.
Breadcrumb Trail:
A breadcrumb trail aids usability and site navigation by providing visitors with clearly displayed feedback regarding where they are in the overall site structure and the return path to where they came from. It offers a valuable opportunity to reinforce they keywords and phrases relevant to a particular page. For example this breadcrumb trail: 
	Cool Widgets: Home >> Coloured Widgets >> Green Widgets
Indicates to the user that they are viewing a page on 'Green Widgets' that is below the 'Coloured Widgets' page which is in turn beneath the main site index page. The identified main keyphrase for the site being 'Cool Widgets'. Each of these phrases forms the link text leading to that particular page adding to the overall internal site linking using relevant, reinforcing keyphrases. Ensure that the TITLE attribute is set for each of the hyperlinks.
Sitemap:
Including a sitemap is an aid to site usability and can make a significant contribution to SEO. Don't simply recreate your site navigation system. Provide a genuinely useful sitemap usig key, descriptive phrases to link back to each site page along with a brief description of that pages content. The description will, of course, include keywords and phrases that are relevant to that page.

Case Study: Van Leasing from Nationwide Vehicle Contracts

Nationwide Vehicle Contracts are a reputable car and van leasing and contract hire firm in the UK. They enjoy excellent positions in Google UK for search terms like 'car leasing' and 'contract hire'. They decided that they wanted to improve their search engine ranking for the terms 'van leasing' and 'van lease'. This excellent, informative blog post describes the contribution towards improved ranking for these terms made by a change to the URL filename to incorporate the key, defined search term: The Name Game: Using Keywords in URL Filenames

Exercise

Pay a visit to: Nationwide Vehicle Contracts Van Leasing Page: and assess:

  1. How does their page title contribute towards page optimisation for the term 'van leasing'?
  2. How does their page meta description reinforce this term?
  3. How has the breadcrumb trail been used to reinforce the keyphrases relevant to this page and the site's home page?
  4. How has the page heading been optimised for this keyphrase?
  5. Is the sitemap effectively used to reinforce the keyphrase 'van leasing'?
  6. Are there any further optimisation enhancements that can be made for the term 'van leasing'?
  7. Now select a website from your own market sector that is currently ranking well in the SERPs for one of your top level keyphrases and answer the same questions.

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