A key factor in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the understanding of keywords, where they should be placed on a web page and how they may be weighted with relative value in a given web page for a SERP (Search Engine Result Page).
From a design standpoint, let us first work backwards with a keyword. Ultimately, when a person types a keyword or keyword phrase into a search engine query, they expect their query to lead them to a list of highly qualified website links. These links, once clicked and browsed into, will lead them to the answer, image, or result they are anticipating based the the keyword phrase they initially typed into the search engine query.
A search engine query may have the following three purposes: navigational, informational, or transactional and the purpose is also tied to the query (the question or selection of keywords to search on). The search engine algorithm will take the keywords and decide, based on the relationship of each word to each other in placement, verb tense, names, and overall meaning to decide what the most likely results should be. Each major search engine has it’s own algorithm and SERP based on the keywords or search phrase which is called a query.
The content of a webpage is reviewed by a search engine robot (bots/spiders) that searches the internet (web) for relevant content to index and store the results for various keyword groupings, again based on the specific search engine algorithm.
The bots that visit your website will try to follow as many relevant and working internal links, keep track of content relevance and score various key words based on the placement, use and relevance in content within the XHTML tags and properties, the semantic structure, the page’s title, meta data, and other elements of the web page.
There are several keyword tools to help analyze the popularity or effectiveness of the use of a keyword. These tools were designed to help SEM marketers evaluate keywords for use in search engine marketing campaigns. They also indicate the monetary value of a keyword phrase that may be used in an SEM or PPC (Pay Per Click) marketing campaign.
One example of a Keyword Tool is the Google AdWords tool found in the below link:
Keywords Tool
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
Use the Keyword Tool to get new keyword ideas based on an inputed keyword or phrase and whether you are looking for descriptive words or phrases or for website content. The tools results are tailored to the primary language and the geographical area selected for what terms people are actually searching for.
Keywords can easily be identified by the web page’s content, counting the reoccurence of various words and giving them some weight such as SEOBook’s Keyword Density Analyzer Tool, http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword-density/, SEO Chat’s Keyword density tool, http://www.seochat.com/, and WebConf skeyword desnsity tool, http://www.webconfs.com/keyword-density-checker.php.
Keyword Density is the percentage of occurrence of your keywords in the copy (text content) of your webpage. It is important for your main keywords to not only have the proper keyword density, but also placement and use in the XHTML tags and properties to rank well in Search Engines.
Example Page
<head>
<title>SEO and Keyword best practices</title>
</head>
<body>
<h1 title="SEO and Keyword practices for giving more weight to specific keywords">SEO and Keyword practices</h1>
<p><em>Keywords</em> are the primary source for search engines...</p>
<blockquote>Keywords are Key to a successful marketing campaign employing SEO...</blockquote>
<p>More content about SEO and...</p>
<p>In conclusion, keywords should be artfully placed and...</p>
</body>
In the example page above, notice how the primary keyword is “keyword” and how and where it is used within the web page. The primary placement is in the <title> tag within the head, followed by the main content in the <h1> tag and property of the h1 tag, then one of the first words in the first <p> tag, followed by a blockquote and then within the last <p> tag. Most search engines give the greatest weight to this type of placement schema.
Make sure that your keyword targets are achievable. If you select the wrong keywords it can significantly impact your entire optimization experience. Choose keywords that are highly relevant to the content, affordable to your budget, but yet still offer a reasonable search frequency for your industry. Multiple keywords or your phrase selection should also be designed and targeted to bring qualified traffic to your webpage.
Search engines give greater weight to a keyword if the content also includes various synonyms for your keywords within your body text on your webpage. Google uses these synonyms to tie in the overall relevance of the page to your main target keywords, which in turn can help improve your placement within a SERP.
Other places to use keywords include the domain, page specific URLs, link anchor text, image alt text, inline links and site navigation.
The top SEs are: Google, Ikntomi, FAST, AltaVista and Teoma
Yahoo, who aquired Ikntomi, appears to give more weight to text matching when compared to Google, which seems to give more weight to concept matching.
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