Key words selection

[sem_services]

Hi All,

Which key words should I put in my key word tag for each page. Should I pick every word in my content except "the, and, is" type words? I want to improve my tags so any help is appreciated.

Thanks

[minstrel]

Which key words should I put in my key word tag for each page. Should I pick every word in my content except "the, and, is" type words?

Well, first you are bound to hear sooner or later that you shouldn't bother because search engines don't pay any attention to the keyword meta tags any more anyway.

Now that that's out of the way, I still have keywords for every page because, as long as you don't do it in such a way that it might be interpreted as "spamming", "stuffing", or "spoofing", it can't hurt and it may be helpful to any SEs who do pay attention to them.

However, what you do not want to do is duplicate everything on the page as a keyword - pick a limited number of keywords, and probably more importantly keyphrases, that people are likely to use to find you when they use a search engine. Do this individually and as uniquely as possible for each page on your site - i.e., don't just pick a few phrases and slam them into every page - pick phrases or words that are descriptive of that particular page...

[sem_services]

Thanks Minstrel,

I had keywords on some pages that weren't relevant to that paticular content, so I figured it couldnt hurt to clean it up a bit.

Thanks again

[ron sheldrick]

Totally agree with Minstrel. Also try getting search keyword phrases into your TITLE & DESCRIPTION

[ronniethedodger]

I have a plug-in for my Html editor that reviews the document (excluding Html tags and such) and gives me a listing of the most used words in the content and the total times that they appear. It also writes the META tag in a preview pane so that I can cut & paste it into my page.

The META tag is sorted in descending order starting with the word with the most occurances.

But as mentioned before, the keyword tag is probably on it's way out...still some SE's do use it.

With that said...this plug-in still has a certain advantage if you will notice. It is reporting back to me the "keyword density" on my page.

This reporting helps in determining what phrases and words are appearing more than others -- and seeing this enables me to adjust the density within the content itself. I will rewrite then rerun the plug-in until I get the desired density.

Since SE's are focusing on the written page more and the density of certain words, using a utility such as this plug-in will help quite a bit.

[jaca]

Hi Ron,

What is the name of the utlity you are using? Sounds like it would be great for optimizing my site.

Jan

[sem_services]

Thanks for all the great tips. Ron I would also like to know the plug-in you use.
So far my keyword search,which is regional to Michigan, has put me in the top 3 to 4 positions, but whats confusing me is my two word search. Is this due to my PR? I show up around 300th+. Other sites show up through links that I also am listed, but I dont show up. We are on the exact same page. Does anyone have any insite as to why this happens?

Thanks

[ronniethedodger]

The plug-in is for the Html Editor that I use. I use Html-Kit which is available at www.chami.com/html-kit/

The plug-in is available at the same site at http://www.chami.com/html-kit/plugins/info/wordcount/

Both the editor and the plug-in are available for free. The editor is not WYSIWYG but has a preview pane to instantly check your work with.

Sorry the plug-in only works inside of the editor, it is not stand-alone. Although there is C++ source code available for it at the same url as the plug-in.

The editor is top notch...but if that is not for you, then try this Google Search <--- click here now
This will bring up some results to point you in the right direction. The results are for word counting software utilities...and I think i asked for html in the phrase too.

[minstrel]

So far my keyword search,which is regional to Michigan, has put me in the top 3 to 4 positions, but whats confusing me is my two word search. Is this due to my PR? I show up around 300th+. Other sites show up through links that I also am listed, but I dont show up. We are on the exact same page. Does anyone have any insite as to why this happens?

What's the keyword that gets you in the top 4? and what's the phrase that you're buried for?

[ronniethedodger]

Other sites show up through links that I also am listed, but I dont show up. We are on the exact same page. Does anyone have any insite as to why this happens?

I missed this when I replied to your other question.

It is confusing me a little. Are you referring to link pages (exchanges) showing up ahead of your site in the results? And just on the two-word phrases?

If you are, I have the same thing happening on one of my two-word keyphrases. Last time I checked I was at #54...and there were 4 linkpages with my link on them in the top 50. One of those results was also on page one.

The linkpage sites, in all cases, had nothing to do with the keyphrase. The keyphrase only appears in the text for my link on those linkpages. And they are showing up ahead of my site, which is what those links are pointing at.

Strange, eh?