By Glenn Curry

You are working on your website. You want to get it search

engine ready, but don’t have a clue where to start. First of

all, you’ll want to do some research through a service, such

as WordTracker. If you want to rank high in the search

engines you should take some time to research which keywords

would be best to use. Search engine marketers know that any

time you spend on optimizing your website will be worth it.

Too Much of a Good thing

If you are new to search engine strategies and your home

business website sells nuts and bolts, all you have to do is

use the words nuts and bolts a lot on your website, right?

Then you can make sure those search engine crawlers will

find you. Wrong! Using a phrase or word too many times on a

page will actually trigger a red flag. It also will make

your WebPages look and sound dumb to visitors.

Keyword Tips

Most SEO experts will tell you that it isn’t really keyword-

rich content that you want. For example, if you are a hotel

owner in Seattle. Optimizing your business page with the

word hotel would be a waste of time. People who are looking

for a hotel won’t usually type the word hotel on Google.

They are looking for a hotel in a certain city. In your

case, they’d be looking for a hotel in the Seattle area.

What you are want, then, is a keyword phrase, like Seattle

hotel. Look for two or three keyword phrases you can use.

The more you focus on keyword phrases the more people will

find you. You want people to find you so they’ll book a room

at your hotel when they get to Seattle, next week. What if

your website is already written? You can easily edit it.

Anywhere you see the word hotel, just add Seattle in front

of it. Be a guest in our hotel would be changed to: Be a

guest in our Seattle hotel.

Doing the Dash and Slash

Think about your own experience with Internet search

engines. You wouldn’t normally search for dining/sleeping

when you are looking for an out of town place to stay.

Search engines probably won’t separate the words. Why not

change it into two separate keyword phrases instead? We

offer our guests dining comfort and sleeping comfort. If you

absolutely need to have a slash or dash between words on

your web page, leave a space like this: dining / sleeping.

The reader will probably not be bothered by the extra space

and the search engine is more likely to pick up each word,

separately.

Making Headlines

Try and put your keyword phrases in your header tags, using

HTML header codes. For example: Discover Seattle and

all it has to offer at the Seattle Inn. Then, you

would follow with keyword-rich content. Don’t just use the

header tags for your search engine optimizing. It is a

useful way to add optimization, but shouldn’t be a

replacement for using keyword phrases throughout the page.

Who, What, Where?

Chances are you’ve seen some web pages that are just a bunch

of keyword phrases lumped together. It makes little sense to

the reader and makes the page look ridiculous. The trick to

making your site both interesting to read and search engine

friendly is to think like a reporter. Look for ways to ask

yourself the questions that will give you new ways to use

your keyword phrases. For instance, many web sites will

have an FAQ section. Just what are the Frequently Asked

Questions about? Here’s another chance to use keyword

phrases. An added bonus here if you use bulleted

information. It is usually important, so the search engines

will likely be looking for them:

Frequently Asked Questions About:

· Seattle dining

· Seattle hotels

· Seattle Inns

If you are still feeling lost about writing for search

engines, why not hire a company that does Search Engine

Optimization? The cost to your business might seem like a

lot, but search engine marketing strategies do improve

visibility. Plus, you’ll learn some valuable lessons along

the way.

Print-friendly version