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Creating
Keyword Rich Pages
By Sumantra Roy
Once you have
established the keywords for which you should
optimize your site for the search engines,
it is time to figure out how you can get a
high ranking in the search engines for those
keywords. The solution is to create Keyword
Rich Pages (KRPs) - pages which provide good
content and in which a particular keyword
is repeated a number of times so that the
page gets a top ranking for that keyword.
This article
is focused on how you should create these
KRPs. I am assuming you have a working knowledge
of the different HTML tags like the Title
tag, the Meta Description tag, the Meta Keywords
tag, the Heading tags, the Alt Tag etc. If
you don't, just go to http://www.utoronto.ca/webdocs/HTMLdocs/NewHTML/htmlindex.html
for a good introduction to such HTML tags.
Now, let us assume
that your company sells packaged tours to
Australia, and that you are targeting the
keyword "travel to australia". Here's how
you create the KRPs:
The Title
Tag:
The first and
most important tag to consider is the Title
tag. You should always begin the Title tag
with the keyword that you are targeting. Also
remember that the search engines are going
to display the Title tag while they are displaying
the results of a search. Hence, you need to
make the Title tag attractive to humans as
well.
Here is one Title
tag that I may have used: "Travel to Australia
and discover its scenic beauty". Have a look
at the Title tag - it uses the keyword right
at the beginning and also tells people how
beautiful a place Australia is.
Of course, all
Titles need not be like the one I used. The
Title that you use depends on the subject
matter of your site. However, you should follow
all the general rules that I have outlined
here.
Meta Description
Tag:
The Meta Description
tag is used by many search engines to provide
a short description of the page that is listed
in the search results. Hence, like the Title
tag, it is important that the Meta Description
tag be keyword rich as well as attractive
to humans.
The rules for
the Meta Description are more or less the
same as those for the Title tag. However,
the content of this tag will generally be
longer than that of the Title. Here's what
I may have used in the Meta Description tag:
"Travel to Australia
- We take care of all the details of your
trip so that you can travel with complete
peace of mind."
Note how this
description repeats the keyword and also the
benefit that it stresses - it says that the
customer will be able to travel without having
to worry about the intricate details of the
trip - you will take care of them.
Meta Keywords
Tag:
The Meta Keywords
tag has become less and less important as
far as search engine optimization is concerned.
In fact, you can get top rankings without
having anything in the Meta Keywords tag at
all. However, just to be on the safe side,
you would want to include some keywords in
the Meta Keywords tag. You should also include
some of the common upper/lower case variations
of the keyword. The rules for the Meta Keywords
tag are pretty simple - don't repeat any keyword
in the Meta Keywords tag more than three times
and don't repeat any keyword one after the
other. Here's what I may have used in the
Meta Keywords tag:
"Travel to Australia,
tourism, travel to Australia, Down Under,
TRAVEL TO AUSTRALIA"
Note how I have
introduced "tourism" and "Down Under" just
to separate the different instances of the
keyword.
Body of the page:
Now we come to
the actual body of the page. Begin by getting
hold of a nice (but not too large) picture
which is applicable for the page that you
are creating. In the present case, I might
include a picture of the lotus shaped Sydney
Opera House. Place this picture at the top
of the page. In the Alt tag for the picture,
just mention your target keyword once, i.e.
the Alt tag would be "Travel to Australia".
You can include other words in the Alt tag,
but it should start with the keyword you are
targeting.
Once you've put
up the picture, it is time to create a Heading
for your page. Use the H1 tag to do so. Again,
in the H1 tag, mention your target keyword
once, i.e. like the Alt tag for the picture,
the H1 tag could be "Travel to Australia".
Again, like the Alt tag, you can include other
words in the heading, but the heading should
start with the keyword you are targeting.
Now it's time
to create the actual text of the page. The
way you create the text of your page would
depend largely on what you want the visitor
to do after reading this page. In some cases,
you may simply want the visitor to go to the
home page or another specific page in your
site after reading this page. In this case,
you should write the text in such a way that
the visitor is attracted to the page that
you are targeting. You would also want to
provide links to the home page or the specific
page that you are targeting at strategic places
in the KRP. Or, you may want the visitor to
click on the link to an affiliate program
that you are a member of. In this case, you
would stress the benefits that the visitor
gets by purchasing the product or service
that the affiliate program is selling. You
would also want to provide links to the affiliate
program at strategic places in the page and/or
at the end of the page. Whatever it is that
you want your page to do, there are some general
rules to follow:
1) The first
thing to remember is that some search engines
don't recognize the Meta Description tag.
These search engines will often simply take
the first few lines of text in the body of
your page and display that as the description.
Hence, you must ensure that the first few
lines of text in your page are attractive
to human beings.
2) Ensure that
as many sentences as possible in the page
contain your target keyword once. The keyword
shouldn't just be placed on an ad hoc basis
- the way the keyword is placed in every sentence
should actually make grammatical sense and
the repetition should be such that your human
visitors do not feel that you have deliberately
repeated a particular phrase throughout the
page. This is not only important from the
point of view of ensuring that your readers
don't get a bad impression of your site, but
also from the point of view of search engine
optimization - the search engines may penalize
your page for spamming if they find that you
have randomly repeated the keyword throughout
the page. Also, while repeating the keyword
in the page, try to repeat the keyword once
near the top of the page and once near the
bottom.
3) Make sure
that your paragraphs are not too long - each
paragraph should be no more than 3 or 4 sentences
long. This is because people on the web simply
don't have the time or the inclination to
read long paragraphs.
4) Try to ensure
that the page contains links to other pages
with the keyword being present in the text
under the link. This can often lead to a higher
ranking for your page.
5) If possible,
link to other pages which have the keyword
in the file names. This can again lead to
a higher ranking for your page.
6) There is no
hard and fast rule regarding the total number
of words that should be present in the KRPs.
As a rule of thumb, try to ensure that there
are between 500-600 words. However, if the
number of words falls a bit short of or exceeds
this limit, don't worry too much.
Once you have
created the page, ensure that the name of
the file in which it is saved contains the
keyword and that the individual words of the
keyword are separated by hyphens. In this
case, the name of the file would be travel-to-australia.html.
This will get you a higher ranking in the
few search engines which give a lot of emphasis
on the keyword being present in the file name.
That's it! When
you want to target another keyword, simply
create another KRP for it using the procedure
outlined above.
After you have
created the KRPs, you cannot simply upload
them to your site and submit them to the search
engines. This is because the search engines
take a rather dim view of pages which only
contain outgoing links to other pages but
do not contain any incoming links from other
pages. The search engines may penalize sites
which have such pages.
What you need
to do is to directly or indirectly link the
KRPs with your home page. If you are going
to create many KRPs for your site, it will
be impractical to link the home page directly
with all the KRPs as this will needlessly
clutter your home page. Hence, what you should
do is to create a separate page in your site
called a Sitemap page (name it something like
sitemap.html). Add links to all the KRPs from
the Sitemap page. The text that you use to
link to a particular KRP should be the same
as the keyword that the KRP is being optimized
for. Hence, the link to the travel-to-australia.html
file should say "Travel to Australia".
Now, some search
engines refuse to spider pages which only
contain links to other pages and nothing else.
Hence, if the Sitemap page only contains links
to the KRPs but contains no other content,
the search engines may ignore this page. Hence,
what you can do is to add a short description
of the content of each of the KRPs after you
have added a link to that KRP in the Sitemap
page. This ensures that the search engines
will not ignore this page.
After doing all
this, simply link the home page of your site
with the Sitemap page using a text link. Then,
submit your home page, the Sitemap page and
each of the KRPs to the search engines. When
you are submitting these pages, to be on the
safe side, make sure that you submit no more
than 1 page per day to any search engine -
otherwise, you run the risk of some search
engines ignoring some of the pages you have
submitted. You can submit your site by going
to the individual "Add URL" pages of each
engine. Or, in order to save time, you can
use our free submission tool which helps you
submit your site manually to the search engines,
without having to go to the individual "Add
URL" pages of each engine. The tool is available
at http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/t.cgi?3761&submission.htm
Follow all the
rules that I have outlined in this article
and you can soon see your search engine blues
disappear for ever!
Article by Sumantra
Roy. Sumantra is one of the most respected
search engine positioning specialists on the
Internet. To have Sumantra's company place
your site at the top of the search engines,
go to http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/t.cgi?3761
For more advice on how you can take your web
site to the top of the search engines, subscribe
to his FREE newsletter by going to http://www.1stSearchRanking.com/t.cgi?3761&newsletter.htm
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