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11.06.07
The Complete Guide To Using Words Correctly On Your Site
 By Yuri Filimonov
When optimizing your website, it is generally expected that your pages need to have certain keyword density to be ranked with the search engines.
While it is a good idea to have at least one keyword on the page, you also need to remember that real people will be reading your pages, so you need to also write your text for the people.
What words to use?
Search engines try to view websites like people to better understand what the sites are about, how relevant they are to the search queries, what the intent is behind them and so forth. It means that you need to make the site relevant to your target audience, which will also help the search engines.
To use words naturally, you need to know your audience by:
• talking to them, if you have an office or meet your customers face to face
• visiting the websites they visit and read what they read
• use various keyword research tools, such as WordTracker, to determine which words and phrases are more popular
• read the news about the industry to gather the widely known or new phrases
• be an expert in the industry your website is about, so you'll know not only your audience, but also competitors, products and so forth
In terms of making the website relevant to your customers, you need to know their needs, values and what words they use, when thinking and talking about your product
Where to place the keywords?
To create the website and pages that your visitors will understand, you also need to place the words where the visitors will see them, such as in the:
• page titles (the title tag)
• page headings (the h1 tag) and subheadings (h2-h6 tags)
• text body (paragraph tags, lists, data tables, etc)
• internal link text that you can control (from your other pages)
• URL (the file name, file path, even if was created by a content management system)
If a page has the keyword you are targetting in all of the above points, then the visitor will understand that the page is at least related to it or maybe even about the subject. So will the search engines, which will drive targeted traffic to your website.
How to place the keywords?
Continue reading this article.
About the Author:
Yuri Filimonov is a freelance website optimization and usability consultant, who writes about improving websites to gain more visitors,
customers and profit at his blog, http://www.ImproveTheWeb.com.
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