Fifteen places you must put your Keyword Phrase and the why behind it…

Welcome to another direct, to the point and content rich edition of The Keyword Informer.

In this issue, we’re going to look at the various places you want to utilize and place your preferred keyword phrases.

I have already conveyed a number of the points that will follow in different articles, discussions, and especially in the weekly NicheBOT Quick Fix Clinic and Live Q&A Show. However, I was looking to create a combined list (a sort of checklist) that one can easily reference to make sure they are not missing any hotspots. ;)

And rather than include a simple quick list of all the places to put your keyword phrases, I’ve included a short discussion as to the why behind it so you have the proper foundation in the placement of your keyword phrases.


Some of the following places are obvious, some of them may not be. Either way, I’ve included visual aids within this article as well for the next time you approach your next website renovation or promotional project.

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  • http://homeremediesfor.blogspot.com Neptune

    As always Jim, you have succeded in providing a very comprehnsive information about SEO tactics.

    Thankful again.

    Neptune,

    My Blogs:
    http://loverelationshipproblems.blogspot.com
    http://homeremediesfor.blogspot.com

  • http://www.KidsandChores.net Janet, The Organizing Genie

    Great article with very specific examples I can immediately apply, and very timely for me. My project this week has been to develop a keyword strategy and begin investigating the possibility of PPC.

    Thank you!

    Janet, The Organizing Genie
    http://www.KidsandChores.net

  • http://www.magazinesubscription.net Mal – Magazine Subscription

    Hello Jim

    A great read and some excellent advice. Extremely userful.

    Here’s a question. On my Magazine Subscription website, for each product I’ve the magazine name in the aswell as the term Magazine Subscription.

    e.g

    Billboard Magazine – Magazine Subscription

    Would you recommend this approach?

    thanks

    Mally

  • http://www.fit-facts.com/exercise-ebook-turbulence-training-reviews.php Rika Susan – Turbulence Training Quiz

    Wow, Jim, this IS a doozie. Looks like you have covered all of the ones we normally try to take care of. Wish I had an article like this to guide me when I started out! Thanks. It’s good to have a list to check that you are not missing anything.

  • http://www.replica-watchees.com/list_Swiss-Replica-Rolex-Mens-replica-watchees.com_1_369.html Buxykay Watches Swiss Replica Rolex Mens

    Well Jim, you’ve done it again. I have gained a lot from the tips you have been giving to us. Thanks for those invaluable lessons.

  • http://www.sharpei-pups.com/Pups.html Shar Pei Puppies

    Hi Jim,
    your articles always make very inspirational and informative reading. In regards to point 2:(” Oh, and you want to make sure and place a hyphen “-” between the words in your keyword phrase of your URL.)
    I’ve always wondered is it better to have a hyphen in the domain name or without hyphen for keyword optimised domains? Or is the statement just related too page name i.e. http://www.sharpei-pups.com/Pups.html versus http://www.sharpei-pups.com/Shar-Pei-Puppies.html
    Thanks Paul

  • http://workathomemailer.com/x/t.php/35 WorkAtHomeGeek

    Hi Jim

    I do find that the first point is very important. I have many websites and those that tend to do well are those domains with the keywords in the domain names.

    Thanks for compiling the list with so much information included.

    W

  • http://www.CMasterson.com Chas

    Your not exactly wrong Jim, but your not accurate either. The total “effect” of the URL on ranking has always hovered around 20%. That includes the total length of the URL – long being bad – the keywords found there – matching being good – and the placement in the url – root being better.

    All the factors add up and if you don’t have keywords in the URL, it’s too long, and it has too many numbers, then you have to make up that shortfall in other ways.

    None of the ranking factors are “Make or Break”. Some sites rank well while missing part of the equation by making up for it in other ways.

  • http://www.BookWorldAudio.com Tom

    Jim,
    I’ve been reading your blog for quite some time now, and as alwasy you give a lot of great information. Thanks for taking the time to share!

  • http://www.ambientmusicgarden.com Music Guy

    Hi Jim, thank you for this. A very useful checklist just to keep in mind when going through my day to day checks.

    One thing that concerns me about my site is that it is not particularly wordy, I have a landing page for each genre of ambient relaxation music so what happens is that the descriptions of the products and the categories (genres) make up a larger percentage of my total word count.

    Of course.. this means that my keyword density is rather high, which I think is only natural for a music site, but will I get penalised for it?

    Im not sure if I am or not.My keyword density today is:

    music 7.64%
    mp 6.33%
    ambient 5.68%
    meditation 4.15%
    relaxation 3.93%
    cart 2.84%
    album 2.4%

  • http://www.legalchambers.co.za Contracts

    Great list!

    2 more recommendations:

    1) If you have a “Link-to-Us” page (whether reciprocal or not) do not just include your homepage URL… Direct clicks to a folder/file on your site with you keyword embedded. Have this code rotate on your page displaying each new visitor a different URL code snippet they can add to their website… each snippet has a different keyword-rich URL.

    2) Sometimes you can name your products in a keyword-rich way. Some affiliate program links passes LinkLove (PR) from each affiliates’ URL to your site. WHen your product name is embedded into this affiliate URL, your target keyword ranks on hundreds on webpages, making it virtually impossiblef or your competition to control this keyword :-)

    Gerrit

  • http://www.ambientmusicgarden.com Music Guy

    Since my last post I have knocked a lot off the top ones and rebalanced with other keywords that aren’t showing up so high.

    Nice one, thank you

  • http://reset_your_life.usana.com/mystory_en.cfm Usana 5 Day Reset | Weight Management Diet Program | Weight Loss

    Hi Jim

    I ahve been very busy lately building my Usana Business in malsysia but can say all your tips are great.

    One thing I have been using is including a site description in my site map on my blog as its now indexed with google and i am getting alot of free searches that way. I have been experimenting with ASdsense and find on just 5 sites I have been making a bit of money with no cost of adwords.

    I hope this helps others. Its does take a while to get indexed as the page ages and gets page rank you will find u will get more hits.

    Thanks Claude Brisbane

  • http://www.bizsugar.com/story/1250 bizsugar.com

    Fifteen places you must put your Keyword Phrase and the why behind it……

    The heart of every search engine optimization strategy are keywords and keyphrases. This article does a great job with the hows, wheres and whys of integrating keywords and keyphrases into your marketing mix….

  • ivon t hughes

    VERY,VERY COMPLETE FOR THE NON TECHIE.

    IVON T HUGHES
    http://WWW.TRUSTCO.CA

  • http://FindHotMarkets.com/blog Find Hot Markets Blog

    Hi Jim.

    A helpful post, thanks.

    I was aware of most of these points, but did not know what you wrote about where NOT to include your keyphrases.

    So I took a look at the HTML for this page and noticed how you’re using the meta keyword tag:

    I’d be interested in why you did it this way.

    Thanks again
    Gary Harvey
    FindHotMarkets.com

  • http://www.sharetradingguide.com Jayant – Share Trading Guide

    Jim,

    Great. I appreciate your hard work and overdelivery. The article is really very educative and although I have read many articles on keyword stuffing, I would rate your article at 10 on 1-10 scale.

    Jayant

  • http://findhotmarkets.com/blog/where-not-to-put-keywords Where Not To Put Keywords

    [...] nichebot.com/blog/140/keyword-phrase-placement [...]

  • http://www.smartproductsourcing.com Alan

    Jim I have a question,

    Recently I discovered that by using just a couple of words in my images I am getting a good amount of traffic from Google images based on the keyword.

    Unfortunately it’s the wrong traffic, these people searching are typing in the word “office people” which is what I named the picture, but those are not the people I want coming to my website.

    Should I just get rid of the picture all together?

    Gotta be careful with stuff like that. You might be getting traffic but they are the wrong ones.

  • http://www.sublime-products.com/articles/15-top-keyword-locations Sublime Products Article Directory

    15 Top Keyword Locations…

    …primer on where to make sure you put your keywords. The list shows the top 15 locations…
    ……

  • http://ductcleaningtwincities.com Dave – Duct Cleaning Twin Cities

    Great post! Another social bookmark site I have found very useful in promoting my duct cleaning twin cities website is Propeller.

  • http://www.hemp-guide.com Chantel

    Thanks for the informative tips, I was missing out on a few of them so I changed them as I read them, now all I have to do is go through all 100+ pages and repeat the process, lol!

  • http://www.topshelfarticles.com Article Writing Tips

    Hi Jim, great article. I haven’t used #8 as much as I should, it is an easy one that does work well.

    Here is another one….instead of just privacy-policy.html or disclaimer.html use your keywords in these links also!

    keyword-research-privacy-policy.html or
    keyword-research-contact-us.html or
    keyword-research-terms-of-service.html or
    keyword-research-disclaimer.html

    Utilize all the “off” pages of your site for additional keyword loaded links. This is one that I have only seen on my sites!(so far!)

    Brian Ankner (non-guru)

  • http://www.topshelfarticles.com Article Writing Tips

    OK here’s another one, in your “tags” section when creating a post in wordpress!

    Use tagalizer plugin and your keywords will be at the bottom of each post so guys like me can just “copy” those keywords and “paste” them into the tags section when bookmarking sites.

    I used Onlywire to bookmark this post in 16 different social bookmarking sites at once. I flipped back here to copy the keywords for this post and much to my surprise….NO KEYWORD TAGS….for a post about where to put your keywords!

    Sometimes the obvious is too hard to see!

    Brian Ankner (non-guru)

  • Pam

    Thank you Jim for such an informative article and it is definitely a good one to print.

    Just one question. Should we ignore the meta tag altogether or place just a basic keyword there?
    Thanks
    Pam

  • http://movie-converters.com/ Download Video Converter

    This article really is a priceless concise overview of SEO keyword marketing, and should come in handy as a checklist ! Conquering online niches is actually quite easy when you’re willing to put in some effort.

  • http://www.chigger-treatment.com Justin Case

    Nice going Jim, As usual.

    I think I already knew most of the those places already, but it is nice to have very succinct reminder all in once place. Well, maybe 15 places. I will be posting this on the side of my monitor to keep me reminded of where to place keywords from now on.

    Thanks for some very timely and useful information.

  • http://hijinx.tv/magicians-for-birthday-parties/ NY Party Entertainment

    Thanks for cutting through the clutter of SEO advice, very useful article. I took your advice!

  • http://http:airbedmattresstruck.com Brian

    Great Stuff!
    Some would put this together with a little packing and sell as a $7 or so e-book.

  • http://newsletter.hijinxmarketing.com Jay Jenkins

    Excellent article, Jim. This is something that has real value that I can pass on to my subscribers. I haven’t seen this information about where to put keyword phrases anywhere else.
    I think you’re about to tick off some of the big guns LOL

    Jay Jenkins

  • http://slimmingcapsules.com Jaffaman

    I mainly use xsitepro to build my websites, because it’s so easy to do.

    I assumed that most people would use the navigation bars at the left hand side of the sites to jump from page to page and find the pages on the sites that interest them.

    The tip to create keyword rich links within the actual pages to other internal pages makes good sense and will be used by myself on the pages of my sites from now on.

  • http://www.mobile-home-refinance.com Tom

    This is some great information. I was doing a lot of it already, but I see where I can make improvements. Thanks for the help!

  • NYGal

    This was useful, but not as useful as it could be. It would be better if you started with the keywords and showed a real life example of how you picked them, explained why, and then showed step-by-step how you programmed your page/set up the tags and what the results.

  • http://www.wordsworth.co.uk Matt – Windows XP Embedded

    Some good advice here! I still think keywords in the URL make a difference tho. How many sites do you see number one with the keyword as a domain? There is a lot!

    One other point to add about site navigation. People often have a logo in the top corner which links back to the home page. Add a keyword into the logos title attribute!

    Also, keyword meta tags don’t do diddly but are a good place to put common spelling mistakes. Ive seen this work!

  • http://monkeezemarketing.blogspot.com Marvin

    This is a fantastic compilation of the most important aspects of basic SEO techniques using keywords. This single article is better and more exact in the quality and usefulness of it’s content than most courses being sold online today.

    Congratulations to Jim Morris for providing a clear concise and well needed overview of how to use keywords in a marketing program.

    This is real information not a bunch of nonsense about magic formulas or secret codes. I am very confident that any one using this information with find that when using in conjunction with standard market research techniques it greatly enhance any marketing campaign.

  • http://paladinprincipals.com Kate – Business Mentor

    Great work guys! You give the right kind of break down for quick and dirty lessons in keyword usage. Are people really still keyword stuffing?? I thought that died 4 years ago.

    Thanks for keeping it simple. I send all of my small business clients to you. If you have enough time to write articles, but not enough time to stay cutting edge on all of the search engine algos, Nichebot is the best.

  • http://www.OneStopWebSupport.com Jeff Baas

    Great article! And I’m glad that you stress the fact that keyword placement should never be just for the search engines.

    Communicating clearly to your readers what your page is about should always be the first priority. And I’ve always found that if I do that well, the result will be a page that the search engines consider well optimized for that keyword term, as well.

  • http://www.VerticalMeasures.com Arnie

    This is an outstanding post. This obviously took some time and thought to put together. I am going to send a link to one of our clients who is redesigning their site, so they can see this and the screen shot.

  • http://www.copywritingmaven.com/2008/05/16/friday-link-wrap-up/ Friday Wrap-Up: What I’ve Been Reading this Week : The Copywriting Maven

    [...] If you do any sort of SEO copywriting work, this is a tidy list to keep handy: Fifteen places you must put your Keyword Phrase and the why behind it… [...]

  • http://www.smallbusinesssoftwarereviews.com Denny – small business software

    Wow Jim, I’ve been missing a few of these for over 10 years!
    Ok, looks like it’s time to re-do some of my page links.

    Thank a ton

    Denny

  • http://learntohost.blogspot.com the_red-learn about web hosting

    hi Jim, thank you so much on the article. I was searching on some useful tips about keyword placement in seo cuz I’m doing the whole construction for my adsense’s blogs especially for the seo. Hence, I found your article. You did a great job for it. Thanks a lot!

  • http://www.verabradleyauctions.com Vera Bradley

    Good Tactics! :)

  • http://twincitieschiro.com Dr Steve – Chiropractic Minneapolis

    Very useful information. So, in reference to #11, does this blog give a search engine friendly link in the comment section?

  • http://www.nichebot.com The NicheBOT Guy

    Hey Gary,

    You said:

    I was aware of most of these points, but did not know what you wrote about where NOT to include your keyphrases.

    So I took a look at the HTML for this page and noticed how you’re using the meta keyword tag:

    I’d be interested in why you did it this way.

    Actually — WordPress automatically created the meta keyword tag. It took the name of this post and made it part of that tag.

    I really only take time to create a keyword rich title for the blog post which ends up becoming the title tag — and apparently WordPress takes over doing its own automation with the Meta Description Tag and Meta Keywords Tag.

    I could go in and modify my WordPress installation and cut out the Meta Keywords Tag altogether, but that would be giving the tag too much of my attention. :D

    Hope that answers your question that I plainly disregard the Meta Keywords Tag and do not spend ANY time on it altogether as I think (1) it’s a waste of precious resources that could be spent on other action items that hold a higher priority; and (2) as mentioned above, meta keyword tags simply creates easy keyword research for others that use desktop keyword tools that scrape keywords from the meta key tag. And why would I want to help others do their keyword research for them?

    Any pages you’ll find on NicheBOT are closing in on two years old and back then, I expended my resources on meta keyword tags — but I can tell you that expend no more energy on that aspect! :D

    Best,

    Jim

  • http://www.nichebot.com The NicheBOT Guy

    Matt,

    You said:

    “Some good advice here! I still think keywords in the URL make a difference tho. How many sites do you see number one with the keyword as a domain? There is a lot!”

    I see a number of top sites that have the keyword as part of the domain.

    I totally think it’s a good idea.

    However, keyword rich inbound links will trump a site that just has the keyword in the domain any day of the week.

    I would much rather subscribers focus their time on acquiring inbound links than hinging on the faith that keywords in their domain name will be enough.

    But all things aside, if someone is starting with a fresh domain name, has a choice and is armed with the information above, get a keyword rich domain name (if available), make certain to use keyword phrases to name the web pages and make sure to acquire inbound links. ;)

    That should cover all bases.

    Best,

    Jim

  • http://www.nichebot.com The NicheBOT Guy

    Pam,

    You said:

    “Thank you Jim for such an informative article and it is definitely a good one to print.

    Just one question. Should we ignore the meta tag altogether or place just a basic keyword there?”

    My pleasure for the article Pam.

    You can definitely just put the basic keyword in the meta keyword tag and be done with — just don’t expect any remarkable miracles.

    My main point is that I see a lot of people expending WAY too much energy by gathering more keyword research just for that tag when it’s not going to make much of a difference in overall ranking and most the major engines ignore that send the bulk of traffic ignore that tag.

    Here’s an interesting article by Danny Sullivan, Founder of Search Engine Watch, called The Death of a meta tag

    And I quote from the article written back in October 2002:

    “Indeed, my advice about the meta keywords tag for ages has been simple. For those running large web sites or short on time, don’t worry about it. The stress and time involved in trying to craft a tag was not worth it, in terms of the minor benefit it might bring.”

    Now Matt above indicated that he puts common spelling mistakes in his meta tags keywords and found that it works.

    I really think this is a time management issue. What’s more important for a time expenditure — crafting meta keyword tags (on page factors) or acquiring inbound links (off page factors)?

    I feel that more energy and effort should be spent on the off page factors and honing those skills than dwelling on meta keyword tags. Just my opinion.

    Hope that helps.

    Best,

    Jim

  • http://www.nichebot.com The NicheBOT Guy

    Paul,

    You said:

    “In regards to point 2:(” Oh, and you want to make sure and place a hyphen “-” between the words in your keyword phrase of your URL.)

    I’ve always wondered is it better to have a hyphen in the domain name or without hyphen for keyword optimised domains? Or is the statement just related too page name i.e. http://www.sharpei-pups.com/Pups.html versus http://www.sharpei-pups.com/Shar-Pei-Puppies.html

    I think it’s best to not use hyphens in the domain names only because it’s easier for the web surfer to remember a domain without hyphens.

    Nonetheless, point #2 relates more to using the keyword phrase in the page name just as you mentioned in this example:

    http://www.sharpei-pups.com/Shar-Pei-Puppies.html

    The main reason is that if you submit an article (or any other piece of distributed content) and the directory hyperlinks your URL instead of allowing anchor text with a keyword phrase, you’ll still have the keyword phrase in the URL (web page name) that gets used in the hyperlink back to your site. Thus, you’ll still get credit for the keyword phrase used in the web page name… ;)

    Hope I was clear on that.

    Best,

    Jim

  • http://CatProblemsResolved.com Kathy – Cat Problems Resolved

    Excellent article thanks Jim. I have already started implementing your suggestions.

  • http://www.healthandwellnessarticles.com/ Pedro

    I thought overall this article offers some pretty solid advice.

    I disagree with the author’s take on alt tags, as I have found these to be quite useful as it pertains to image search results. Sure, keyword-stuffing won’t help you in this day and age, but use of the alt tag as it was intended to be used does have its benefits.

  • abbakd

    Hi Jim,
    Just curious about using keyword phrases in the ‘H’ tags?

    Thanks for the article, very good actionable advice.
    kd

  • http://www.profit-play.com/ProfitLanceFormula/ Trevor White

    Thanks Jim for reducing some of my stress concerning keywords, with good information that I can put to good use as always.

    Just wondering though, when promoting a product, is it better to productname.domain or domain/productname.

    Which would have more weight?

    Thanks again Jim

    Trevor White

  • http://www.concept-i.dk Søgemaskineoptimering Rosenstand

    Hi Jim
    As always a pleasure to read. Not much new for me but it is always good to be reminded. Your articles helps me to keep focus. That’s not bad at all :-)

    Keep’m comming, Jim!

  • http://www.stylecampaign.com/blog Anna – Email Marketing Tips Blog

    Thanks Jim, really useful tips. I plan to implement a bunch of them.

    It’s often hard to have your keyword in a url as so many domains are already registered…I am currently designing a Mother-of-the-bride e-commerce site/blog for a client and as you would imagine all the best URL’s are taken. I spent a frustrating day yesterday trying all sort’s of ideas out.

    So I was relieved to see you say, “keyword rich inbound links will trump a site that just has the keyword in the domain any day of the week.”

    Thanks,

    Anna

  • http://www.vicdalidarealty.com Vicente

    These are all very useful for website owner new in the business like me.Thanks Jim.

  • http://patiopads.com Terry – Replacement Outdoor Cushions

    Excellent article – as usual. And I learned some new things, especially about using my keywords with my name. Thanks for the good advice.

  • http://www.seo-optimise.com.au Greg – Web Architects Designing Optimal Internet Marketing Solutions

    Not only have I found the article on keyword optimisation refreshingly simple but I also thank the others who have contributed comments to furthering the learning experience.

    Too much hype exists around keyword meta tags and I totally agree it is about achieving optimal density ratios on key search phrases within your content. Greatest value will come form doing your research first. Find out what phrases are of greatest interest to people that relate to your area of interest and be careful to be very specific about the area of interest.

    Marketing to a general segments too difficult. Find a core product or service as it relates to a very specific market segment and create your landing page around that and then optimise the content.

    Its a two edged sword – on-page optimisation and off-page optimisation. There is no silver bullet solution.

    Thank you one and all for your comments.

  • http://www.nichebot.com The NicheBOT Guy

    Music Guy said:

    “One thing that concerns me about my site is that it is not particularly wordy, I have a landing page for each genre of ambient relaxation music so what happens is that the descriptions of the products and the categories (genres) make up a larger percentage of my total word count.

    Of course.. this means that my keyword density is rather high, which I think is only natural for a music site, but will I get penalised for it?

    I’m not sure if I am or not. My keyword density today is:

    music 7.64%
    mp 6.33%
    ambient 5.68%
    meditation 4.15%
    relaxation 3.93%
    cart 2.84%
    album 2.4%”

    If you have landing pages for each genre with product descriptions on them, I think it would be natural to have a higher occurring keyword density.

    I honestly don’t think you’ll get penalized at the level you’re quoting above. If keyword density went into double digits, then maybe I’d start worrying.

    As long as the page doesn’t APPEAR (to the human eye) to be overstuffed with keywords that don’t naturally occur within the context of your descriptions, I think you’ll be good.

    Of course, if you continue to worry, you can add in some more introductory language to the page to get your website prospects warmed up to what the genre pages are about.

    Nonetheless, if you want something to worry about, I would make sure to get some hearty inbound links to those genre pages — because you could literally have NO text on the page and be able to rank for keywords with the right inbound links. ;)

    Hope that helps guide you and alleviate any further concerns.

    May the force be with you!

    Best,

    Jim

  • http://www.nichebot.com The NicheBOT Guy

    Gerrit said:

    “1) If you have a “Link-to-Us” page (whether reciprocal or not) do not just include your homepage URL… Direct clicks to a folder/file on your site with you keyword embedded. Have this code rotate on your page displaying each new visitor a different URL code snippet they can add to their website… each snippet has a different keyword-rich URL.

    Absolutely great point Gerrit!

    If anyone visits our Add Link page here:

    http://www.nichebot.com/resources/admin/add_link.php

    You’ll see that every time you refresh that page — there’s a NEW piece of text that webmasters grab to put up on their page when doing a link exchange with us. ;)

    You’ll also notice that there are different links that point to different pages — not just the home page, just like Gerrit is suggesting.

    Once again — great point Gerrit.

    “2) Sometimes you can name your products in a keyword-rich way. Some affiliate program links passes LinkLove (PR) from each affiliates’ URL to your site. WHen your product name is embedded into this affiliate URL, your target keyword ranks on hundreds on webpages, making it virtually impossible for your competition to control this keyword”

    Another excellent point, Gerrit. And that beckons the readers here to make sure when they are looking for a script to run their affiliate program, they want to make sure the URL the affiliate program produces is search engine friendly as affiliates start spreading the word and using keyword phrases in the anchor text.

    This is a great lazy way for affiliates to do viral inbound link promotion for you without having to do any extra work (other than motivating your affiliates to put link text on their web pages). ;)

    Great points — and so noted!

    Best,

    Jim

  • http://www.nichebot.com The NicheBOT Guy

    Kate said:

    “Great work guys! You give the right kind of break down for quick and dirty lessons in keyword usage. Are people really still keyword stuffing?? I thought that died 4 years ago.”

    Thanks for the compliments Kate.

    Funny thing is — about keyword stuffing — I still come across websites that are keyword stuffing with hidden text or fainted text that blends into the background and doing things that IF they get caught or reported, could get their site zapped right out of the index of major search engines.

    So while it may have died out 4 years ago for you — people still do it and think they are being slick about it. One day, it could backfire to their discontent and things could go up in smoke.

    I always say — if you’re gonna do things that are risky, you might as well be risky all the way, but don’t risk losing an authority site you’ve built up for years and years. And make sure you do it on a server or hosting account that doesn’t have your completely legit (white hat) stuff on it.

    If you’re gonna keep your white hat clean, keep it spot white and bleach out any dark (black) spots so you keep your site bearing the fruits of ongoing perpetual traffic.

    Best,

    Jim

  • http://www.nichebot.com The NicheBOT Guy

    Chuck said:

    “Your not exactly wrong Jim, but your not accurate either. The total “effect” of the URL on ranking has always hovered around 20%. That includes the total length of the URL – long being bad – the keywords found there – matching being good – and the placement in the url – root being better.

    All the factors add up and if you don’t have keywords in the URL, it’s too long, and it has too many numbers, then you have to make up that shortfall in other ways.

    None of the ranking factors are “Make or Break”. Some sites rank well while missing part of the equation by making up for it in other ways.”

    I appreciate you giving some relevance to the URL having an impact when including keywords.

    I wasn’t completely discounting that there is an effect with keywords in the URL — just that the overall impact could be overridden with inbound links and become a small part of the equation.

    If a page has nothing much going for it (meaning, no inbound links) and has keywords in the URL, then yeah, the overall effect will be higher (at or around the number you quote).

    I would like to impart and stress to others the importance of getting those inbound links to various pages on one’s website. I would rather someone focus on that rather than hinging upon the impact of keywords in the URL.

    I think it’s important to have a healthy mix of everything discussed above and integrating it into the whole picture.

    Best,

    Jim

  • http://www.nichebot.com The NicheBOT Guy

    Mally said:

    “Here’s a question. On my Magazine Subscription website, for each product I’ve go the magazine name in the as well as the term Magazine Subscription.

    e.g

    Billboard Magazine – Magazine Subscription

    Would you recommend this approach?

    thanks

    Mally”

    It sounds like you’re trying to get every page with a magazine name to rank for Magazine Subscription which I imagine is a pretty competitive keyword.

    I would try to get each page to focus on one primary and a secondary keyword. I would then try to get one of the web pages on your site to primarily focus on ranking for “magazine subscriptions” — acquiring inbound links to that web for other various keywords 3 or 4 word phrases that contain “magazine subscriptions” as the primary root keyword.

    I would also finds ways to include hyperlinks on other various pages in your site that point to that one web page attempting to rank for “magazine subscriptions” using that keyword in the anchor text.

    In other words, I’m attempting to have you focus your efforts on getting one of your web pages focused in on “magazine subscriptions” rather than trying to get every page to rank for the term.

    Hope that helps.

    Best,

    Jim

  • http://www.nichebot.com The NicheBOT Guy

    Alan said:

    Jim I have a question,

    Recently I discovered that by using just a couple of words in my images I am getting a good amount of traffic from Google images based on the keyword.

    Unfortunately it’s the wrong traffic, these people searching are typing in the word “office people” which is what I named the picture, but those are not the people I want coming to my website.

    Should I just get rid of the picture all together?

    Gotta be careful with stuff like that. You might be getting traffic but they are the wrong ones.”

    With images — sometimes I see individuals using them in the wrong way — as it’s the words that sell. That’s not to excuse bad website design or graphical elements of a web page.

    If the image serves the purpose of carrying across meaning of the text it is near — then leave it.

    What I would do is just rename the alt text on the image with some relevant keywords.

    The problem comes in when each picture on a web page has the consistently same keyword for various pictures. It’s fine to use alt text on images — just make them independently different.

    Best,

    Jim

  • http://www.nichebot.com The NicheBOT Guy

    Marg said:

    “This was useful, but not as useful as it could be. It would be better if you started with the keywords and showed a real life example of how you picked them, explained why, and then showed step-by-step how you programmed your page/set up the tags and what the results.”

    I totally agree with you Marg. The only thing is there are different keyword projects for different aspects of website promotion.

    I’ve got a case study for this that I can share about setting up a page and then doing some article marketing and how I picked the keywords. That may work — but again — there are so many various ways to go about things that it’s hard for one study or even multiple ones to cover the whole gamut.

    I’ll share the story with the one web page that got some good effects.

    Best,

    Jim

  • http://www.nichebot.com The NicheBOT Guy

    Dr. Steve said:

    “Very useful information. So, in reference to #11, does this blog give a search engine friendly link in the comment section?”

    Yes, Dr. Steve, this blog does have follow tags that will allow search engines to follow the links and give backlink credit. ;)

    Best,

    Jim

  • http://www.nichebot.com The NicheBOT Guy

    Pedro said:

    “I thought overall this article offers some pretty solid advice.

    I disagree with the author’s take on alt tags, as I have found these to be quite useful as it pertains to image search results. Sure, keyword-stuffing won’t help you in this day and age, but use of the alt tag as it was intended to be used does have its benefits.”

    I am not at all discounting alt tags on images altogether or that they don’t work, but to caution on the side overusing the same keyword throughout each image to try and have an overall impact on ranking for the keyword phrase of the web page. But in the overall scheme of things, there has to be a line drawn on how many things can be focused on in the page. And when it comes down to it — I think that inbound links are THE most important aspect to getting individual web pages to rank and a skill much more necessary to hone than worrying about alt tags on images.

    As I stated up above, it’s a matter of time management and and making a conscious decision to focus on those things that make a big difference, not a small splash in the pond.

    If you’re running an educational or graphical type of site, then I guess visitor value may be high for image search results. Otherwise, I would love to see what the percentage of conversion is for visitors coming in from image search results.

    Best,

    Jim

  • http://www.nichebot.com The NicheBOT Guy

    KD said:

    “Hi Jim,
    Just curious about using keyword phrases in the ‘H’ tags?

    Thanks for the article, very good actionable advice.
    kd”

    Keyword phrases placed in H1, H2, H3 and H4 tags (even the headline) is not that big of an appreciable difference.

    A higher priority would be to have the keyword phrase in the first sentence of the first paragraph of the body of the document.

    Best,

    Jim

  • http://www.ambientmusicgarden.com Music Guy

    Thanks for your thoughts NichBOT Guy. Since then I have managed to reduce the higher density keywords and also rise some of the missing ones to more respectable levels. Now Im wondering how this might change everything for me in terms of placements up or down.

    In recent weeks I have seen sharp rises (and,. actually one sharp fall) across some keyword phrases so something must be working for me.

    I think the next issue that naturally follows on from this topic is about synonyms. Since this is becoming increasingly important to manage synonyms of your market keywords its not a case of a single dimension anymore.

    We need to work through each of our keywords and understand the synonyms and then make sure these are included as well….

    what do you think?

  • http://www.theglobalcopywriter.com Sarah – The Global Copywriter

    Fantastic article there Jim!

    A definite keeper. There’s some stuff here that even I didn’t know.

    A very useful resource for everyone.

    Kudos to you. :)

  • http://www.OneClickSearchEngine.com Uri – Pay Per Keyword Search Engine

    Hi Jim,

    Great advise as usual,

    Although I am a bit ify on the “name – keyword Phrase” scenario as I know most A-List Bloggers view this as a SPAM comments.

    Cheers,

  • http://reservationsfor2.com/tips-on-buying-cheap-ticket/ Stepper

    I think when writing either site content and/or articles…the use of LSI words to maintain a ‘theme’ is an excellent method. Google is now counting themed words in it’s ranking.

    Another tip may be to use your keywords in your navbar if possible. And don’t forget to bold a keyword or two.

    Stepper
    reservationsfor2.com

  • http://cheapkeywords.info/fifteen-places-you-must-put-your-keyword-phrase/ Cheap Keywords

    Fifteen Places You Must Put Your Keyword Phrase…

    Fifteen places you must put your Keyword Phrase and the why behind it…

    by Jim Morris
    Welcome to another direct, to the point and content rich edition of The Keyword Informer.
    In this issue, we’re going to look at the various places you want …

  • http://www.meryl.net/2008/05/links-2008-05-23/ Meryl.net » Links: 2008-05-23

    [...] Fifteen places you must put your keyword phrase and why [Link: Copywriting Maven] [...]

  • http://www.starlitcitadel.com Tao – board games

    Hey Jim,

    Great article. The comments and replies from you are just as good as the original article. I’ll definitely look into some of these suggestions.

    Tao

  • http://robertdobes.com/about/ Web Designer, Entrepreneur

    Hi Jim,
    Thanks for the great article. I have read many articles on the same subject but it’s always good to hear/read someone else’s take on this.
    I believe it is also helpful to include your keyword at the end of you page, I mean in the page footer just like you have it in the first paragraph. What do you think?

    Thanks again
    Robert

  • http://leawagnerfashions.com Lea Wagner

    Thank you for this information. It was so clear. I went to my website and took at look at the headings at the top and found that they only say smartwebsecurity/leawagner/product?code 100(or 200 etc)….This can’t be good if I’m reading your info properly since the product codes are merely how I put them into the Admin so they will show up in their categories. My website was built by a local company, and my webmaster built it. Am I looking in the right place? I have had no one come to my site since I opened it in January 2008 (was supposed to be up in October 2007) and I’ve signed a 1 year contract for the web hosting. I’m going to meet with him soon and ask all of the questions that were brought up by your information, meanwhile I’m bleeding money….arrgh. Anyway THANKS, THANKS, THANKS!

  • http://yourvacationbusiness.com global resorts network

    Excellent info! Google definitely pays more attention to your title and description than your domain name. However, Yahoo seems to rank keyword rich domain names pretty high. Go to Yahoo.com and enter the term ‘home based travel business’ for the search, and a domain with that term pops up first. Do the same search on Google, and that domain won’t show up for five pages or so.

  • http://www.phillipskinner.com/7-tips-for-beginners-a431.html 7 Tips for Beginners for Building Blog Traffic

    Hey Jim & you guys above … great reading excellent thread … the internet is like a great big information note book and the pages keep turning every day “even if we don’t want it too” … with better information that most folks who dip into this book every day trying to solve there current wishes to find the latest greatest secret to wealth and prosperity and usually miss the point of the greatest secret is … ACTION … by taking ACTION on information learned comes out as knowledge learned so success can turn to WISDOM once that knowledge is implemented with strategies to the desired outcome …

    Remembering that old saying by Benjamin Franklin “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different Results” I for one didn’t understand the saying the first time I heard it, so it wasn’t effective on me as it was intended to be. But I expect if my more successful friends keep quoting it, and quoting it, and quoting it, eventually, I might catch on and find the Truth that Lies Deep Within this Wise Saying.

    All my best to you and your Keywords vs. Tactics
    Phillip Skinner

  • http://basicstate.com/ spenser

    Well, now that you’ve let the cat out of the bag, I guess it’s alright to finally admit to keeping a template just like the 15 places here. Too bad. It was a nice way to get onto the radar while designing a site.

    BTW, I came over here because of a link from your bud’s blog roll. findhotniches?

    Not my site, and I can’t click back because I closed the window too soon.

  • http://www.propertynow.com.au Australian Real Estate

    Now that information

    - the 4th line of your search engine listing shows your domain name -

    gave me even more reason to focus on domains with keyword in the url.

    Thanks for the tip

  • http://noneyet Tammy

    Jim,

    Great article as always.

    Thanks.

    I am so glad I’m a member
    of NICHEBOT!!!

    You give some awesome info.

    Thanks again,
    Tammy

  • http://getgoodsolutions.blogspot.com Sharon – Get Good Solutions

    Great information. I’m getting ready to forward it to several people. I thought it very interesting that most of the people commenting didn’t implement your suggestion #11.

  • http://www.wedding-magnets.com Rolf – Save the date magnets

    Hi Jim, Good article. I think having a Keyword in your domain name is very effective because when folks give you a back link you are not always in control of what they use. If you have the main keyword in your URL they automatically give you the good link text. Am I wrong on this?
    Rolf

  • http://www.webtenet.com/ WebTenet Solutions

    Hi there,
    Very nice article and well explained. I have read through many such articles but the way you have explained with screen shots is very nice – a picture is worth thousand words.

    I have a question for you: how do search engine spiders react to keyword phrases within quote marks within my website content? I believe bold, underline, italic, linked etc. are rated higher, but does this apply to phrases within quote marks? Your thoughts on this would be very much appreciated.

  • http://copywritingmagic.info/Internet-Marketing-Strategies David Ashton

    This is such a great information rich story. There is just way too much to remember so bookmarking this page, and this whole site is pretty much essential.

    Well done Jim on a good site and thanks for the images, it helps to understand what your writing about. A picture tells a thousand words.

  • http://www.lille-web.dk Hjemmesider og webdesign

    Great Article – and thanks to Google Translate ;)

  • http://www.idcommunications.org dan – international film distribution

    Hey Jim
    Great article. I would say I have learned many of the points you mention, but its the first time I really can see the relative weight of each keyword placement, as usual, you have a gift for cutting to the chase on explaining these things, without going short on details.

    Thanks Much.

    Dan

  • http://www.reachsuccessonline.com Luca – Reach Success Online

    Great post, I’ve bookmarked this page so I can refer to it often. I like the idea of using different page URI’s in the Author box.

    Thanks,
    Luca

  • http://latterbooking.dk/Latterkonsulent.html Peter

    Hi was just trying to descripe the idea of using keywords to a frind. Showing him your post made it a bit more clear, thanks

  • http://www.seo-services-consultants.com/link-building.html Link building Services

    This is really good site and rich with content.

  • Opal

    Thanks Jim
    This article is going to be most valuable when setting up my websites.
    Opal

  • http://www.golfimpacttraining.com Bob – Golf Tips

    I haven’t seen this many good suggestions in some of the paid ebooks I currently own. I’ve been online marketing for over a dozen years and I found this blog today – and plan to visit often.

    Thanks Jim! Very much.

  • http://www.cristiangraziano.com/blog/best-places-to-put-your-search-engine-keywords Best Places to Put Your Search Engine Keywords | Cristian Graziano Weblog

    [...] engine optimization strategy.Here’s a link to a very good article with a more detailed list of places to place your search engine keywords with lots of screenshots. There are plenty of places to place your keywords – the five above [...]

  • http://www.computeraben.dk Internet man

    Great and simple advice about seo. But I still think it’s better to spend time on linkbuilding :-)

  • http://www.Makemoneyinrecessiontimes.zipfinity.co.cc/fifteen-places-you-must-put-your-keyword-phrase-and-the-why-behind-it%e2%80%a6/ Fifteen places you must put your Keyword Phrase and the why behind it… | Make Money In Recession Times

    [...] a original:  Fifteen places we contingency put your Keyword Phrase as well as a because at a back of it… Making Money Online,Adsense, Affiliate Marketing, Aged Domains, Article Marketing, Automation, [...]

  • http://www.theinternetmoney.com/make-money-with-seo-idea.html Make money with seo idea | Internet Money | Make Money on the Internet

    [...] Make money with seo placing keywords at best places. [...]

  • http://www.businessopportunitynow.co.uk Business Opportunity Now

    Great article. I also hear that you should put your keywords toward the bottom of you page. In the last paragraph of you content is good place. Don’t forget to add into your H1 headers as well. Don’t overdo the alt=keyword tag as that will just kill your rankings dead.

  • http://www.hb-seo.dk SEO H.B

    Nice article Jim, a great roundup on best keyword practices, I enjoyed the read and the reminder on basic SEO.

  • http://www.dynamicweb-seo.dk seo optimering

    Cool! Very informative and in the right sequence…look forward to see more from you :-)

    JP

  • http://www.clarebrace.co.uk SEO Consultant Birmingham

    Wow, Jim, this IS a doozie. Looks like you have covered all of the ones we normally try to take care of. Wish I had an article like this to guide me when I started out! Thanks. It’s good to have a list to check that you are not missing anything

  • http://www.clarebrace.co.uk SEO Consultant

    Great article, Really very interesting. I would say I have learned many of the points you mention and it was good to have them reinforced on your site. this is the first time I really can see the relative weight of each keyword placement, as usual, you have a gift for cutting to the chase on explaining these things, without going short on details.

    Thanks Much.

    Clare

  • http://www.ricemedia.co.uk SEO Birmingham

    Keyword phrases in your domain names – some may initially think this is for some huge SEO (search engine optimization) benefit to have the keyword phrase in your domain name. Wrongo – I have so many key word domains and they seem to rank well for the search term – I think I have to disagree with you on this one.

    Rice

  • http://www.webdesign-midlands.co.uk Website Design Midlands

    You make a good point about having a key phrase in your domain name or URL, in the fact that some websites do not allow you to add anchor text to your links, so this helps not only if you are trying to build back links yourself or if people are naturally linking to your website.

    regards

    WDM

  • http://seospecialistbirmingham.co.uk SEO Specialist

    To the point and well written, I will be check back to this site again and again now i have found it.

    I am not so sure if the keyword domains have a massive advantage these days in terms of Search Engine Optimisation – but what the hey!

    Thanks for the useful advice and discussion, much love.

  • http://h2o-vendingsolutions.co.uk Water Coolers Midlands

    If I am honest I have to say I am confused, i was always under the impression that keywords domain were very important. Then again, perhaps Google would consider domain names from LSA point of view?

    Now that would be interesting.

  • http://seospecialistbirmingham.co.uk SEO Specialist

    This is vauble and good advice, it starts off with some wuite simple pointer but really becomes very advances towards the end. I esspecially like the sectrion on where NOT to put your keywords – great informative reading that we can all learn from.

    Oh and just for the record I dont think Key words in your domains are a bad thing, but i dont think they are a massive benift. Its more a benifit for the user rather than the SE in my book.

    Jon

  • http://www.webdanmark.com Ehandel Leverandør

    Good list, but not all are equally important – if you do a little less of X then you just add for Y.

  • http://www.wozniakgroup.com SEO in Naperville

    I have to agree with SEO Birmingham. Having the exact keyword in the domain name helps.

  • http://www.keywordsvampire.com Furnica Rares

    Great article!
    I’ve been using all these techniques in my website. I just want to say that I’ve been use Alt and Title on images (more for my ecomerce websites) and use them carefully could be a good improvement for your organic search results and traffic.

  • http://www.BenjaminKee.com Ben Kee’s MLM Prospecting Tips

    Great Article Jim! You lay it out in a very simple and easy to understand style. I am especially a big fan of the screen-shots that you included into the posts… a big help for those who are not quite up to speed on all the technical seo jargon. Thanks again!

  • http://www.businessgrowth.org.uk Damien

    Hey Jim, Just stumbled accross this and even in 2010 there is still some great information.
    With regard to ALT tags isn’t it a good idea to ALT tag images that are related to the page?
    SO if you are on a page selling oranges and you have a picture of Oranges it is fine to name the file oranges.jpg and ALT tag it with oranges.
    This has two benefits
    1. it gets your keywords into the alt tag which helps SEO
    2. this is the biggie, if someone finds your image through Google Images and then downloads it, google counts that as a vote for the image!

    Thanks again

  • http://www.etipslibrary.com/2010/11/where-place-keywords-post.html Etipslibrary

    I was not implementing the idea of placing the keyword in internal linking. Thanks for such a comprehensive post on this topic