Using Keywords Effectively in Internet Content Writing

I’ve always been curious what is the important of using keywords over the internet. I have never thought that they are they were the words or phrase I type when I do searches on Google, Yahoo or any other browsers I am using.

Many thanks to Sacred VA Institute and Maribeth Oliver for the learning opportunities they have made available for us aspiring virtual assistants.

Going through and reading various articles on the net made me realize and understand more why the right and best keywords is important before writing a content for blogs, websites, advertisements, and news. Finding the right keywords does not mean you have done your job completely. There are rules and techniques to be considered.

Try to focus on only on one or two keywords per article or web page.

Use keywords  on titles, headings and URLs in an article.– Most search engine considers the titles and URL’s first of a post, articles, news and other media in gathering information to supply the results on some searches. Be sure your title is clear and succinct. Remember, Google only displays a certain number of characters from your title in the search result listings, so if your article title is too long, it will get cut off in the display. If you absolutely must use a long title, at least be sure to mention targeted keywords early on.

Indexing and naming your files and attachments such photos, images, text and other documents with your chosen keywords can also help. Use Keywords in ALT tags of images. ALT Tags are image descriptions that are displayed instead of an image in text-only browsers.

Try to use keywords in bold or as anchor text of links.

Use keywords in the content or body of the article but don’t overdo it. Flooding or sprinkling so many keywords in a single post or article will dilute the keywords and reduce its relevance. Use important keyword metrics; keyword frequency and keyword density.

Keyword frequency: the number of times a keyword appears on a given page. Some estimate that one keyword every 120 words is best. Others say that keywords should be mentioned a certain number of times, regardless of the length of the article.

Keyword density: the number of times a keyword appears on a given page relative to non-keywords (the ratio of keywords to the other words on the page). Some estimate that one keyword every 120 words is best. Others say that keywords should be mentioned a certain number of times, regardless of the length of the article. It’s recommended that a particular keyword make up no more than three percent (3%) of an article. Example: a 600 word article should ha no more than 18 keywords (600 x 3% = 18). Search engines may even penalize your site for using a large ratio of keywords, since that’s a favorite tactic of spammy sites.

Stay focused  -one of the best ways to optimize your use of keywords in website copy involves no official SEO tricks at all. Rather, simply make use of your own skills as a sharp writer by staying focused on the subject at hand. Keep your writing centered around the topic. Every single sentence or idea presented in an article must directly relate and add to the main idea of the piece, whether it plays a main role or just a supporting one.

Analyze other high ranked content related to your topic on search results to see how they have used keywords effectively. Learn from them, improvise and feel free to change your article as deemed necessary.

Don’t try to trick anyone with your keywords.  Your readers are smart, and the search engines they use are constantly becoming more sophisticated.  Therefore, it’s always best to use your keywords naturally and- above all- honestly.