1. Primary meta keyword (the first one) must be an exact match with the file name of your page. This lets the search engines match up your keyword with your page and give your page higher relevancy. Here is an example from: Ocular Defense Formula (Pr2 and #2 in Google). The first keyword for this page is "Ocular Defense Formula." This seemingly obscure product gets 33,000+ search engine results in Google alone. So it is not that obscure after all. And makes for a good example.
2. Use only 5 keywords in your meta keywords tag. More than that and the search engines might think you are keyword spamming and won't list your page. The search engines rank your keywords in the order that they appear. This makes the first one the primary keyword and the second one a secondary keyword and so on. You should line your keywords up in the order of relevance to the page. Here is the meta keyword tag I used in this example.
- "Ocular Defense Formula, Lutein, Bilberry, eye health, vision"
3. Use all of your keywords in your meta description, with the primary keyword as close to the front as possible. Definitely within the first 5 words of your description. The search engines don't read your description verbatim, but can find and match them with your keyword list. So try to use them all but don't repeat them if at all possible. Again if your meta description repeats your keywords too often the search engines might think you are keyword spamming and not list your page, so don't do it.
4. Meta description should be between 100 and 200 characters. It is important to get a solid description of your page. Less that 100 characters and the search engine may not find it relevant enough to list. More than 200 characters and the search engines may truncate it. Which looks unprofessional on your part. Truncated meta descriptions may leave searchers with the impression that your content will be too wordy and full of you know what. Too short a description and your visitors may think there is not enough information on your page and move on to the next result. So try to get your description just right, not too long and not too short. Here is the meta description for ODF.
- "Ocular Defense Formula with Lutein, Bilberry and herbs to support eye health and protect your vision from aging and oxidation. Learn how to improve your visual acuity."
5. Line up your meta keywords up too resemble a sentence. Although search engines don't read your keywords as a sentence verbatim, it should reflect well what your page is all about. See the meta keyword tag above.
6. Proof read your content twice. You should always proof read your work before you post for a lot of good reasons like spelling, grammar, placement and paragraph distribution. Once your page looks great proof read it again with your focus on keyword placement and repetition. You want your keywords placed in your content sparingly. What? you say. Again over use of your keywords might result in the search engines thinking you are keyword spamming. That isn't to say you shouldn't have too few. My rule of thumb is 3 uses of a keyword for every 300 words. This lets the search engines know that there is a lot of supporting content for the keyword.
As you are proof reading you may discover that you have a much better keyword for your meta tag than what you originally thought. For instance in ODF I discovered that I had left out the keyword "vision". After proof reading my page I added that keyword to my list and used it a couple more times in the page.
7. Put your meta description all on one line in your html code. This will ensure that the search engines reads it all. I have noticed that some search engine results leave off the second line of a description. That may leave out some of your meta keywords if that happens.
8. Never use more than 3 words for your primary keyword (and file name). People rarely search for a keyword phrase over 3 words long. Too many words in a keyword phrase and the search engines may not find enough relevancy to list your page in the results. Two words in a keyword phrase (and file name) is ideal. For Ocular Defense Formula, I thought 2 words weren't enough to describe the page. "Ocular Defense" would have been too vague and misleading. I could have named the page something else and optimized for those keywords, but, ODF is a product page and optimizing for something like "Eye Health" would have been misleading and probably not get listed high in the search engines.
9. Use your primary keyword in the first and last paragraph of your page. The search engines will give more relevancy to your page if they find your keywords at the beginning and the end of your page. Also your primary keyword should appear in the first 90 characters of your content.
Note:
Use your primary keyword as a text link in your page only once. Not twice but definitely once. If you don't want your visitors to leave your page make that link an "add to favorites" bookmark. On a product page this works great because you don't want to give your visitors the opportunity to go else where. Optimizing your keyword and descriptions should improve the relevancy of your page and boost your search engine rankings. Notice how I used my primary keyword and description meta tags in this last paragraph. |
