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In addition to the images and text you see when you visit a site there are many other bits of code behind the scenes that search engines review when they “crawl” (visit) a site. Keywords are one of the “head” or “meta” tags that appear near the very top of a page’s code and are not visible on your actual page. These are terms that you can choose to code into your site because you speculate that someone will use these terms to search for a site like yours. The page “title” appears at the top of your screen on each page and the “description” shows up under your page title in the search engine’s results but is otherwise not viewable to the average site visitor.

For years, many SEO experts have coached website owners about effectively using keywords, in particular, to increase a site’s SEO. And, until more recently, it was often speculated by many that the more keywords you put in your site’s actual page content and in your head tags the better. This practice has become known as “keyword stuffing” and many site owners still believe that using this practice boosts their rankings.

However, although there was a time when this may have worked well for some sites, search engines alter their ranking systems frequently. And, the latest word on keywords, titles, and descriptions is that Google has adapted their ever evolving logarithmic scale to now place more significance on page titles over keywords, and have also developed much stricter guidelines on the use of too many keywords in a site’s text and in tags. This has made keyword stuffing ineffective and some sites using this tactic are even being ignored or penalized by Google for keyword stuffing. Additionally, other factors like having strong/relevant industry links from other trusted sites, having a more mature/established site, and regularly updating a site’s content will almost always trump any keyword strategy implemented.

So, does this mean that you shouldn’t bother to invest any time in keyword research and optimization for your site? No, not at all! Most experts agree that keywords do still play a significant role in having your site come up in organic (non-paid for) search results. And, spending some time knowing what are the best terms for you to compete with in organic search results will also help you choose strong keywords for paid search PPC options like Google AdWords. However, the goal with keywords should be to maximize a few select terms per page that are based on your site’s natural content along with some variations of those terms and a few other terms you feel you might be able to rank for and incorporate them sparingly in all three head tags. Then, monitor the search queries you get through analytics programs like Google Analytics and adjust them as needed from time to time. This more conservative keyword strategy is within Google’s standards and should help you increase your site’s ranking over time.

If you have an existing site, you should check to see what your tags are currently. If you haven’t updated them in awhile, chances are, they need it. You can view the tags on your site a couple of ways:

1) In Explorer, go under the heading “View” or “Page” (depending on your version of IE) and then “Source” (or “View” and then “Page Source” in Firefox). A pop up with your site’s code will appear and if you look near the top you should see the meta tags for “title,” “description,” and “keywords.”

2) Or, you can use this search engine tool, to view your page like the search engines view it view your tags through the “advanced” mode.

To determine if your tags need updating, or to develop some if you are adding them for the first time, follow these guidelines:

Keywords: 10 or less words per page (5-6 words are more optimal for pages with less content)

One way to start to determine appropriate keywords for a page is to select the top 6 nouns (or variations of them) listed within the content on the actual page itself. Try to use different terms on each page whenever possible. If you have certain keywords you want listed on a page that aren’t in your content, you should try to work them into your actual copy somewhere if it’s possible without making your copy read strangely or become too keyword dense because this makes your site look like a SPAM site. Once you come up with a few terms you think you would like to have on a page try running them through a couple of keyword tools such as a keyword suggestion tool to help you find variations of a term or a keyword difficulty tool or keyword competition check tool to determine how difficult it might be to rank for a certain term. Or, you might even try using SpyFu to determine which terms your competitors are paying to have come up in a search. Then, slim down your list of potential keywords for the page down to your top 6-10 keywords.

Page Titles: 70 characters or less per page (55 characters is more optimal)

Next, pick your strongest keyword for the page. Then, try to work it and about 5 other words describing what the page is about into the descriptive page title. The word on the street is that although Yahoo & MSN still place a lot of emphasis on keywords, as of this writing, Google is said to rank page titles higher than keywords. Since Google holds largest share of the search engine market, this makes this tag an important one to focus on. Per Google standards, it is also very important that each page have separate, descriptive titles. Therefore, do not repeat your page titles on multiple pages and make sure they are relevant to the page content.

Page Description:150-160 characters per page

The description is often determined to not impact your ranking as much as the title and keywords do. However, it should still definitely be given some consideration, be within the guidelines for size allowed, and also include some keywords if possible to add further support to the title and keywords tags. It should also be intriguing enough for someone to want to click on it from their search results if it comes up so they will visit your site. Consider the description as a mini-ad promoting that page’s contents.

To check the amount of characters you have compiled for a tag, you can either use Twitter’s character counter, or a character tool to make sure you are within the limits.

It’s important to remember that keywords, page titles, and descriptions are just one portion of the SEO mix. However, because they can play a significant role, I always suggest that my clients consider spending some time to make sure this portion of their site is strategized well upon its initial launch and also suggest they monitor this over time.

Related posts:

1. SEO Article 2: Content is King to Maximize Your Site’s SEO