Keywords are vital to your online success. Your goal is to organically (naturally) rank high in Google in and other search engines, so you need to implement certain SEO (search engine optimization) strategies and keywords will play an important role in those.

When you conduct keyword research, you’re doing it to learn how your prospective customer is utilizing search engines to find the information or products that they want. You then take the words (and phrases) and use them on your site, to ensure it’s relevant for your target audience.

In the old days, keywords could be stuffed and hidden all over a website to trick search engines into helping a site rank high. Now that they’ve caught on, you have to use them with a more whitehat approach or risk getting de-indexed in Google and other search giants.

Where do your keywords generally need to be? Don’t discount Meta tags in your HTML code. These are still important, but they may not be the most important tactic to use anymore.

Keyword placement depends on what type of page you’re building. If it’s a web 2.0 property such as a Squidoo lens, Hub Page or Google Knol, then you want a keyword in the URL that you register, in the titles, subtitles and content that you write, and also in any tagging space they give you the opportunity to fill in.

If you’re making a blog post on your blog, then the keyword should be in the URL, too. But you may have to check to ensure that your blog template is using this strategy. Under settings and then permalinks, you’ll be able to set your preferences.

For instance, many blogs default to give your post a number like this: http://www.yourblogname.com/?p=123. You’ll need to choose custom structure and enter this code: /%postname%.html – this will make your blog post URL appear with the title of the post, where your keywords will be, like this: http://www.yourblogname.com/title-of-blog-post

Use keywords within all of your content, especially the first paragraph and preferably in the first sentence, so that the initial snippet Google shows has your keyword included (it will appear bold if the person searching uses this exact keyword in their search).

Experts disagree about what density you have in regards to keywords. Some say 2% and others go as high as 10%. What you really need to do is write both human visitors and search engine spiders alike. That means enough keywords so that the searchbots see your content’s relevancy and not so many that it turns off your reader because it reads awkwardly.

Post from: Internet Marketing Blog

SEO Keyword Strategies

Don’t you hate it when you spend a lot of money on how to guides, memberships and tools helping you with your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) efforts, only to find out everything’s changing for the coming year?

It happens to everyone and some marketers can roll with the changes with ease, while others struggle to keep up. If you look to the future, it can help you predict how things might change so you can head off the SEO lag time most marketers will experience and stay one step ahead of the competition.

The biggest change you’re going to notice is that things are evolving into real time. Keywords, indexing – it’s going to be updated quicker than in the past, so you won’t be able to rest on your laurels enjoying a top spot in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) and likewise, you’ll have ample opportunity to move up in the ranks if you pay attention closely.

In 2010, you’re going to see Google working on ways to combine real time results (which basically means the last one to mention something, if it’s indexed, will be shown) with relevancy, which was Google’s biggest beef with websites that were using keywords to trick searchers in the first place!

Real time search doesn’t replace regular SEO page results, though. It’s integrated into the SERPs so that you have the option of choosing the latest results or the pages. So you’ll be able to capitalize on both options as a marketer.

All of the regular SEO tactics will stay the same. You’ll want to post frequently on your website or blog. You’ll want to use relevant keyword phrases without stuffing them into it so that it reads awkwardly.

Backlinks from the right kind of relevant sites will be to your benefit, while so-called bad neighborhoods will still damage your reputation with Google. It’s expected that businesses – both online and offline – will be increasing their spending to SEO experts and investing in SEO tools to help them either boost or maintain their position in the search engines.

You can be a self-taught SEO expert just by educating yourself about what tactics are allowed (and which are frowned upon) and tracking and tweaking your methods so get the best traffic results.

Post from: Internet Marketing Blog

SEO 2010