Keywords in Websites

Keywords and phrases are the words people type into the search bar to look for information. Getting your website to feature on the first page of a search engine’s listing is a major achievement as you’re in competition with millions of other web pages that exist.

If you’ve got a really unusual product or do something different that no one else does you’re more likely to feature on the first page as there’ll be little competition. The flip side of this is whether you’re so unusual that no one will be looking for you anyway (which is why your website marketing is important, but that’s another article).

Selecting Key Words

When designing your website one of your objectives should be to get the search engines to find your site. To do this you should include a number of relevant key words.

Key words are particularly important on the home page as this is where the visitor lands. The home page should be an overview of what your website offers and the key words should invite the reader to visit other pages. When writing your home page look at it from the visitor’s point of view, i.e. what does this website offer me and does the home page contain what I’m looking for?

Research − ask people what words they would put into a search bar to find your website − there may be some you haven’t thought of. Write a list of key words and phrases relevant to your site.

For example, if you’re a gardening retailer you might use words such as: gardening, garden furniture, plants, garden tools, horticulture, flowers, vegetables, lawn care, garden design, plant propagation and organic gardening. These words all link to the main theme of the website.

If you’re not imaginative there are some software packages on the web that can be downloaded which supply key words according to the category of a business. Using these packages can save a lot of time and they’re usually free.

Using Key Words

Consider how to include key words in your copy without overloading (known as stuffing) and ensure your text flows logically. A web page shouldn’t contain more than 5-10 repeated keywords or it starts to sound stilted. Many search engines also recognise when a word is used too often and may by-pass the site totally if it’s heavy with key words. The term you should aim to achieve is ‘key word rich’, i.e. a summary of what your website offers, written in simple and accurate copy using the right balance of key words to your advantage.

Some websites use key words repetitively to try and get higher rankings. The search engines see this as spamming.

Don’t underline key words or any website text unless they are a link to another part of the site.