Doxia Web Design

In our last post, we introduced the concept and necessity of SEO, then began to share things that must be foundational to your website if it is going to be optimized for the search engines.  Today, let’s focus our attention on generating the right key words.

I would strongly argue that generating the right keywords is the first and most important step in SEO.  Think about it this way, the bulk of your site is built around the words and phrases you believe are important in describing your business, product or service.  From the title of each page, to the alt tags that identify each image, to the actual content of the body, every word and phrase is important.  Should we not, then, make the time at the beginning of a web design project to generate a carefully thought out list of keywords and phrases?

To do this you need to:

• Understand each page you are going to have on the site (e.g., home, about, product 1, product 2, etc.)
• Select a couple of general and specific keywords that are relevant to each page, product and/or service
• Determine how you are going to use these words in simple, easy-to-read sentences

It is important to identify each page, what is it about, what is the message you wish to convey, and what is the call to action?  From there you can begin to formulate a list of key words that are consistent with the content of each unique webpage, as well as the overall theme of the site. 

It is important to remember that when you select keywords for your website, your goal is not to optimize the website all at once, but to optimize each page individually.

• Never optimize a page for more than one or two key words
• Select one or two keywords that best summarize that specific page
• Make sure the content and tags emphasize the keyword(s) by using header tags or bold print and bulleted points

OK, we’ve given you some important things to consider.  Take an objective look at your site.  Is it optimized for your choice keywords?  What are you going to do about it?

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This entry was posted by Steve on Monday, February 9th, 2009 at 9:35 pm and is filed under SEO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.