Where to Use Keywords on a Web Page

Filed in SEO by Matt McGee on August 2, 2011 7 Comments

It’s a common problem, I think: A small business owner does her keyword research and has a good idea of the right words and phrases to use when optimizing her web pages. But … ummm … where should she actually use those keywords?

That’s the topic of my latest American Express OPEN Forum article, which has just been published:

8 Places To Use Your Keywords

I’ll try to keep an eye on the comments there for any feedback/questions, but you can also use the comments below this post if need be.

Comments (7)

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  1. Andrew K. says:

    One other place that may work for some folk is in the primary navigation. “Electronic Green Widgets” may be too long but might still work for Joe so long as his widgets don’t come in too many colors 😉

  2. Another excellent article Matt! Some other related ideas for keyword use are YouTube video titles and tags and blog post titles. I’m not sure whether WordPress blog categories and tags and Blogger labels are given much search engine weight — any thoughts?

  3. danny says:

    Great Article. I’ve been researching some of the better ways to drive traffic to my site And ill definitely be trying to utilize some of these ideas.

  4. Jon says:

    Your forgot about the keyword meta tag, I know most search engines ignore it now, but it can’t hurt.

    • Matt McGee says:

      I didn’t forget it, Jon. I didn’t include it on purpose. Why bother with something that’s useless? No search engine (that matters) looks at it, and all you do is tell your competitors what your keyword research has led to. It’s a waste of time. There’s no reason to use that meta tag. It’s dead.

  5. JamieArdent says:

    Hi Matt, that’s a great article. It’s amazing how many websites don’t have these basics in place.

    I’ve seen lots of small business websites that have no mention whatsoever of their main products or services on their home page.

    It’s like opening up a store and then not putting a sign up telling people what you’re selling.

  6. Robert Maxim says:

    Internal page link text.

    Also, don’t bother with using different link text which all point to the same page. Testing indicates that search engines use a “first link counts” rule and only give keyword credit to the first link to the same URL on a page.

    Andrew K. mentioned using primary navigation links for keywords but you need to keep the “first link counts” element in mind when designing navigation menus.

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