Thread: Keywords

when entering your keywords in BV. Should you enter less or more?
Do too many keywords hurt more than benefit?
What's an ideal count to conctrate on or is that irrelvant?

your ccomments are appreciated

Mike

Originally Posted by matrixxxxxx1

when entering your keywords in BV. Should you enter less or more?
Do too many keywords hurt more than benefit?
What's an ideal count to conctrate on or is that irrelvant?

your ccomments are appreciated

Mike

Hi Mike,

I don't think there is a 'perfect nuimber' of keywords. When someone asked a similar question yonks ago I did a teeny bit of checking around and found that most websites that are taken seriously tend to have anywhere between 10 and 40. I think I've limited mine to around the 20 mark because many experts say that too many will score a big negative with the SEs.

I hope this helps :o)

Don't enter keywords that you don't have on the page. The major se's don't look at them any more, but some of the smaller ones still use them. However, they do notice (all of them) if you spam them. What IS important in your meta is your title and description.

Thnx for the tips Amanda and Beth. I apreciate your info.

When you guys get a minute, If you woudn't mind going over few of my pages and checking my keywords/descriptions. That would be awsome
"View page source" I'm sure you already knew that, but just in case..heh

Keep in mind that I'm targeting a specific area and not the World Wide Web, so thats why my titles may seem werid.

Looking forward to your feedback

Mike

Want to list the site you want me to look at? And if you tell me what you're targeting, I'd be better able to answer.

Hi Bethers you say " What IS important in your meta is your title and description "
Very new to this so bear with me can you just expand a little, I see the description box in metatag allowing 25 words. Do you mean put descrption of the page and the title of your website. Sorry confused could you expand please.

Thank you so much
Paul

Hi ollie35,
Bethers is absolutly right...

You normally enter your Title in page properties and your Description in the meta tag box.
It is also useful if you include your page title within your description.

Hi Bethers

The site is http://www.atexflooring.ca
I'm targeting an area called Durham region, which consists of 4 towns, and few towns on the outskirts.

Small description of customer profile

• 95% home owners
• Men/Women over 30
• Mid to high Income
• etc...

What I would like to achieve is:

If someone comes into a SE and types the company name "Atex Flooring" to be able to find it.
My keywords are the name of the towns I'm targeting and the product names. I.E I live In a town called Ajax, therefore if my customers types ajax carpet for example I would like to be able to come up on the SE's.

Mike

You should discover very quickly that you'll be number 1 for your name - unless that's a really common name over there.

With what you want - to come up using the city names - I think you need to add some text in various places. I would change how you have your name at the bottom and do something like this:

Copyright 2006 - Atax Flooring
telephone as is
Atax Flooring - serving Durham region - Ajax | other town | other town | other town

This gets the names of the towns on the pages and will help you when people search using them.

For your titles, I suggest you change them, because you don't want to confuse people or se's - and you need the town names ON the page - just in the title or description won't do it for what you want. You can do the title - say for carpeting - like this "Durham area carpet | Ajax | Pickering from Atex Flooring" This gets the names in there so people know what their reading - and also adds your name for branding purposes.

For your meta - you have a problem because you are listing words in it that are not on the pages. While the major se's don't use the keyword list to help you - they will notice if they think you are using it incorrectly and it can possibly hurt. You never want a word in there that isn't on the page the list is for. So, adding those towns as I suggested, will allow you to put them in the keyword list!

Your description is good but needs correct spelling, capitalizations, punctuation, etc (which the se's notice also) - and remember this description will sometimes be pulled to be used when people search. Here it is rewritten:
Atex Flooring sells carpet, laminate flooring, hardwood floors and tiles to the Durham region, including Ajax, Pickering, Whitby, Courtice, Oshawa, Bowmanville and Port Perry.

Another comment on your titles - do you really think someone will look for Ajax selections? for hardwood flooring? You can't leave out the major keyword you want them to find with Ajax in the title. (I'm now looking at your hardwood page). So a better title here would be Hardwood Floors in Ajax, Pickering, Oshawa, Whitby by Atex Flooring.

You don't want to go over 96 characters - and I haven't done the keyword research, so you might want that to be Hardwood Flooring instead of Hardwood Floors.

I hope what I'm saying is making sense.

You also need to look at your text. I'm not sure, but I don't think you used the word hardwood at all on your hardwood flooring page. That needs to be worked in. And adding the cities in your info on the bottom left of all pages - will help also.

I also suggest you add h1 tags in headlines on these pages. If you are unfamiliar with them - for the Hardwood page, I would simply do this (and you have to enter it as html - I suggest starting the page with it - as it will be the page headline):
<center><h1><font size="4">Hardwood Flooring</font></h1></center>

Let me know if this helps at all.

Hi Beth

WOW. This is awesome info. I REALLY appreciate the time you took to browse my site and to post this info. You're extremely helpful. Thank you So Much.

I believe I understand what you're saying. I thought descriptions had to be in lower case. Thnx for the heads up on that.

I also didn't realize that keywords should be displayed on your pages.
I had originally hired someone who did my brother's site to do my website professionally but than changed my mind when he told me the price and what exactly he's willing to do...that's when I decided to do my own..lol...

anyways..I tried to mimic his style as far as the optimization by going to my brothers site and another site this gentlemen had done. He had really done an extremely good job on the optimization. I noticed that he actually didn't have the keywords in the page and the titles didn't mention the company name, but had the keywords that he used. So that's how I based my optimization.

Reading your post, it makes perfect sense though what you're saying. So now I have to fix all my description, I love the idea of adding the towns at the bottom of the page.

Only thing Ii'm lost with is the h1 tag you mentioned...i don't know what that does???...and should I write it the way you did for all pages, just changing the product name to make it relevant to that particular page?

Thnx again Beth

Mike

H tags date back to the newspaper industry. If you look at a newspaper - the top main headling is the h1 tag - telling everyone that is what the paper considers the most important item. Then they use lesser tags for other headlines (h2-h6).

There are mixed beliefs about how much attention se's pay to h tags, but I've found that they do notice headlines, whether in the tag or not - and a headline at the top of the page gets more emphasis. Since it's easy to put it into an h1 tag, for the se's that do give that more emphasis, you're got it. Some people then think they should put them all over the page. NO - no more than one h1 per page except in very unusually circumstances. That dilutes the value. If you look at my A Child's Palace store - each headline on each page is in h1. What you put there needs to be keywords that are on that page - and that ARE what the page is about. Because you are wanting to get the cities, you could always combine the h1 tag with an h2 and do something like this:
<center><h1><font size="4">Hardwood Flooring</font></h1>
<h2><font size="3">Serving the Durham Area<br>
Ajax, Pickering, Whitby, Courtice, Oshawa, Bowmanville and Port Perry</font></h2></center>
You could go through all your pages and change the h1, leave the rest, if you like it.

BTW, building my own websites is new to me - but I've been working on SEO for awhile.

Thnx Beth

Where do I enter the h1/h2 info please?

In BV I goto view-page html-than in the head of the page??
Am I on the right track??

I checked your site. I saw what you mean, but i see all the h1 in t middle of the page?


Thnx for your help.

Mike

You would have had to look at the text the h1 was surrounding then looked back at the page displaying to see where they are. I put the html box with the h1 at the top of the page. In your case, say on the carpet page - you'd want the h1 with the page's headling to go in the space immediately under the line across under your navigation.

If you look at A Child's Palace, this:

Child, Baby and Toddler Bedroom Decor
Kids Bedding, Rugs, Clocks, Furniture and Accessories

is my h tag for the home page. The others are in the same place on their respective pages. There are times when I'll use h2 tags to head areas on a page. I haven't at this time on that site - but where you could easily do this would be with the different types of flooring within a page. For example, on the same carpet page - you could do an h2 for "Shaw Patterned Carpet" before those pics - then further down before the next - "Plush Carpet Selection" - In fact. I would replace "Pattern Selection" and "Plush Selection" with the headings in h2 - and always remember to use a keyword - right now Pattern Selection doesn't tell me nearly as much as Shaw Pattern (or patterned) Carpet.

Here's a brand new website I've been paid to optimze www.suedonymdesigns.com (sorry Voda - she's not on here) - she has two areas she wanted to reach first. With her first spidering by MSN, I got the first keyword phrase I targeted is on page one of MSN search (crystal ball jewelry). Now, I'm not promising you that - and it takes longer with Yahoo and much longer with Google - but I know that the titles and headlines I put on her site did this. (By the way - look at the title and headline of A Child's Palace - and realize I just got spidered for the first time by MSN this week - then go to MSN and put in Child Bedroom Decor (or Baby Bedroom Decor) in their search.)

This week she added the Breat Cancer Awareness line - and I've got 2 news releases going out on that - one I heard will hit the wires tomorrow - and hopefullly that will get that page indexed and bring some traffic. But this is also a brand new website - so with using the right techniques, you'll get your site up the se's. Just don't expect it to be in a week - or even a month - and always be willing to tweak!

You actually have something good - you can target a very limited market - right near you - and that helps. I suggest you see about exchanging text links with local businesses on the web that work with people who might need your services - realtors would be a good one.

Making a professional website is the start. Remembering it always is the customer (visitor) to your website that you always have to have in the forefront of your mind, you then also have to think about what THEY would like to see. What words are THEY using to search for what you carry? For you to come up on the se's for those words, you have to use the words in your text. And the words that really are what you are all about - should be in headlines on your pages.

Thnx Beth

I understand what you're trying to tell me. I looked at your site and the other one you suggested and I know the root you're trying to take me on. Thank you so much for all the good info.

I'm very new to HTML. I'm still confused about the h1. I understand your explantion and the conept, however I'm not sure how to get the command you did for me to the appropriate place.

Do you do this through BV or do you use an html editor?
If you use an editor. How do u upload it it to your folder? through blue FTP??

I changed few things on my home page. If you wanna have a quick peek, that would be great. Only thing I haven't figured out is the h1 tag yet.

How did you know you were spidered by MSN
I typed your keyword. you're in first place...Very nice job.

Thnx again Beth

Mike

In BV - in the options that run along the left side of the page - the top (I think top) one is the html box - click on it - drag it to where you want it on the page. Unlike a text box, you can't "see" this code - but click on it and you'll be able to write in html code - that's where you can simply copy and paste what I gave you. It'll only be one or maybe two lines - so make the box the length of the type area in the page - and fairly narrow - then preview the page - see if it's where you want it. If you make sure the middle spot on the box lines up with the middle of your page, it will be centered.

Let me know if you need further info.

And you don't HAVE to do h1's - you could simply make these headlines by using the text boxes, which you do understand. It won't give the command to the se's that they are important, but just making a headline in slightly larger type will give some of the same impression for you- as what you just did on your home page. And se's are getting smarter and smarter. (It's why it's not good to fool them - just like it's not good to fool Mother Nature!).

You've definitely got the idea - and the title, etc on hardwood is changed - now follow through with the other pages. You've got a great looking site - just need to do this tweaking to get the right searches and traffic - which will still take some time.

Thnx Beth

I tried the HTML feature from BV tools, however when I previewed it, I could see the text and my page was off. The text also appeared on the top of my page.

I wouldn't mind a tip on how you were able to find out that your site was spidered by MSN if you're willing to share

Never mind. I think I just saw the light at the end of the tunnel


mike

Hi Beth,

Would you mind checking one more time my harwood page. I put the h1 tag. Just need your confirmation if it's right, when you view the page source.

http://www.atexflooring.ca/hardwood.html

Thnx Beth

Mike

You did it just perfectly!

And did you mean you figured out how I new I was spidered? If you didn't - you can find it a few ways - but our stats in the cp are wonderful - and it will show you when a spider was around.

Thnx So Much Beth

I appreciate all your info and patience. Glad to have you around here

Thnx for the tip on the spider. I'll poke around in my CP to find that feature.

Thnx again, now back to doing work on the rest of the pages.


Mike

Thanks, Mike - I'm glad to help. Doing that stuff is what I find fun - it's all the techie stuff (like downloading scripts, etc) that I'm not so fond of.

That's what makes this forum so great, cuz we have so many people with such varied talents. And a great website builder to use them on!

I think knowledge level in the BVforum is becoming very high. Pro's making a living will complain!

Originally Posted by navaldesign

I think knowledge level in the BVforum is becoming very high. Pro's making a living will complain!

I was gonna pay someone lot of $$$$ to do this.
So you're right about them complaining, but I'm defintley pretty happy.

This is a great forum. I haven't ran into a problem that someone here couldn't answer as of yet

Mike

Originally Posted by matrixxxxxx1

I was gonna pay someone lot of $$$$ to do this.
So you're right about them complaining, but I'm defintley pretty happy.

This is a great forum. I haven't ran into a problem that someone here couldn't answer as of yet

Mike

And let's keep it this way! We've got a good thing here. Nope, I'll change that, we've got a great thing here.

Bethers could you maybe look at my site and give me some pointers as I am still confused as to putting the title in and where. In page properties I have Anxiety Home Page and so on with the rest of my pages i.e Anxiety Explained in the next. Should I be putting more in or not and should I also put this in the meta tag?

Thanks for any help my site is below.

Paul

Sorry about that thought I had a link in.

http://www.anxietynomore.co.uk

Originally Posted by ollie35

Bethers could you maybe look at my site and give me some pointers as I am still confused as to putting the title in and where. In page properties I have Anxiety Home Page and so on with the rest of my pages i.e Anxiety Explained in the next. Should I be putting more in or not and should I also put this in the meta tag?

Thanks for any help my site is below.

Paul

Hey Paul

Gees nice site, I've been struggling with anxiety myself for the last few years. Very good info you have.

I hope this helps.

Beth suggested to me to put headlines on all of my pages and tag them at the same time, name your page title the same as your headline.

So in your case on the home page for example you have it called Anxiety Home Page and the title is called the same which is what Beth has said.

So copy this code
<center><h1><font size="4">Anxiety Home Page</font></h1>
thnx to Beth for this code

open your BV and your home page
on the left side choose the html option "first icon on the top left side"
once you choose that, double click and you will get a window, where you can paste this code...which is your page title...

now the page title you have typed up...just erase that and drag the html code that you pasted into the same position as where you had "Anxiety Home Page" typed up...

you can than preview it to make sure it's in the proper place...if it is...you just publish it and you're done...

Do that for the rest of the pages.

If you put Beth's keyword into MSN she's in first place..her knoweldge is pretty imprssive...I owe her big time

Good luck Paul
Awsome site you have

Mike

Since Mike responded and doesn't seem to mind sharing his thread. And, boy he learns fast!

First, for both the title and your headlines - you want them to be what you are - not what the page is. Let me explain a little. I also rarely call my site a site - because mine are stores. You'll say, but you aren't a "real" store. Sure I am - the difference is where I'm located. My store is located on a website. If you drive to the mall, that store is located in a building. But when do you here them saying "Thanks for visiting my building?"

Enough about that.

The title for your home page would be much better if you used the line in your header "Natural Relief from all forms of Anxiety and Panic". Now that says what your site is about right up there in the title.

Your headline want to give the same info - but even shorter and sweeter - so this might work: Natural Relief from Anxiety and Panic".

I'd like to see you make yourself a header - or at least change the text in it to: Anxiety No More - make your name stand out - the url is simple how to reach you - and a great one, by the way.

I'm short of time right now - but hopefully you get some of the ideas here - and I'll be glad to look closer later, if you'd like.

Hi Beth

Would you suggest an ROR site map. I noticed you don't have one for yours.
Is that helpful in any way?


Mike

I do recommend site maps when they are needed. If you don't have links the se's can read from your home page to ALL pages or at least no page more than 2 clicks from the home page then you really need one. If you have 100 or more pages (well actually over 50 I would do it) then it's more important too.

If you look at my Kids Room Themes page - it's working like a site map for me AND is useful to my customers - so, I don't feel the need for another site-map.

What's really important is that all pages can be found easily by your visitors - whether the human variety or the bots.

Thnx Beth

I saw that ROR utility on here. I thought it would be helpful, but I guess my site is too tuny for that by the sounds of it.

I finished my tweaking as per your suggestions. I'm sure I will be tweaking it more in the coming weeks/months.

I found the feature for the spiders in CP. Actually the site had 3 MSN bots and one Inktomi slurp bot visited today. MSN were April 24. but the site didn't have the Beth touch to it yet :(

Do these bots index sites on regular basis? or Do you have to resubmit every month or so?

Mike

You should never have to resubmit to them - they will come back. And if you keep your site content fresh and make changes now and then, they'll come back more often.

Originally Posted by Bethers

You should never have to resubmit to them - they will come back. And if you keep your site content fresh and make changes now and then, they'll come back more often.

That's great. I was wondering what would happen in the event you're adding or tweaking your site. That makes sense now.

Thnx yet again for the info

Now I'm anxious to see if all the headlines...keywords..descriptions..etc work.
The waiting game begins I guess. In the mean time I'm gonna try to get my site linked up to other as you suggested.

mike

Don't rush it - and don't expect miracles - but they will work over time - and keep tweaking your text on the pages - make sure it has the words that you need - but never do it just for se's - remember it has to read and look good for your customers first and foremost

Thank you very much Bethers I would love you to look at my site once it has finished. Your advice on here is always very good and very welcome.

Thanks Matrix for your advice and also for your comments on the site.
I must say your site does look very, very good. It is very clear and ***** and also very easy to navigate. A job very well done!

Hi

Ihave just put in the H1 in the headings and tags, but i have not do the banner.... not quite sure what i am doing to be honest. Could you please take a look and let me know.

Thanks

Sara

Sara,
You could do a simple text banner - with the words Anxiety No More - one place you could look to make one would be - www.cooltext.com - I use that a lot - it's very easy and you just play till you get one you like - just change colors, etc

It's looking good.

Beth you're the SEO Queen

I followed your suggestions and good advice and tweaked my site accordingly. BV submitted my site on the 24th. I finished tweaking the site on the 27th.

Today which is the 2nd I'm able to find my site on MSN with most of my keywords in first place and some keywords on the first page. [IMG]file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CMIKE%7E1%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cm sohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_image001.gif[/IMG]

Yahoo and Google, I have not shown up yet, but none the less I'm really happy with the result, especially the time frame it took to get on MSN.

Whoever reads this thread. You should follow Beth's advice to the last word. She definitely knows her stuff.

Thnx again Beth

Mike

Originally Posted by matrixxxxxx1

Beth you're the SEO Queen

I followed your suggestions and good advice and tweaked my site accordingly. BV submitted my site on the 24th. I finished tweaking the site on the 27th.

Today which is the 2nd I'm able to find my site on MSN with most of my keywords in first place and some keywords on the first page. [IMG]file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5CMIKE%7E1%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cm sohtml1%5C01%5Cclip_image001.gif[/IMG]

Yahoo and Google, I have not shown up yet, but none the less I'm really happy with the result, especially the time frame it took to get on MSN.

Whoever reads this thread. You should follow Beth's advice to the last word. She definitely knows her stuff.

Thnx again Beth

Mike

I dunno why the above post showed up like that....grrrr

Mike

Thank you, Mike <blushing>. I'm so glad you're getting results with MSN. Yahoo will follow - and eventuallly, and I do mean eventually, so will Google.

Make sure you make some sort of changes to your text occasionally - but don't fool with the headlines unless you want to target different words! The se's like to see fresh content. One way is to add a little section to the page - maybe a snippet of info - and change it weekly or at least monthly. For a store - it can be specials, etc. but something that you can write and change.

Originally Posted by Bethers

Thank you, Mike <blushing>. I'm so glad you're getting results with MSN. Yahoo will follow - and eventuallly, and I do mean eventually, so will Google.

Make sure you make some sort of changes to your text occasionally - but don't fool with the headlines unless you want to target different words! The se's like to see fresh content. One way is to add a little section to the page - maybe a snippet of info - and change it weekly or at least monthly. For a store - it can be specials, etc. but something that you can write and change.

Thnx Beth.

Should I do this for few pages or I have to do this on all my pages?
I do have the promotion page which I will change every month. but there's not much text there.

Today I'm showing up on yahoo and google as far as the company name, which I'm very happy with, again conseidering the time frame.

Question about page names.
Would it be helpful to incoporate the page name with a keyword?
I.E My carpet page right now is www.atexflooring.ca/carpet.html
If I were to name it www.atexflooring.ca/ajax_carpet.html....Ajax being my town name. Is that helpful or just plain waste of time?
"Ajax carpet is one of my keywords"


Mike

I wouldn't bother changing the page name - you have your company name and carpet in it - just make sure the page title and description are accurate.

I suggest you make a change to the home page at least monthly - as that's where the se's come to first. If they see the change, they'll come more often and delve deeper. Changes to other pages are good, but not as vital. Of course, all new material, additions, etc is good as long as it's good copy and relevant to the page.

Originally Posted by Bethers

I wouldn't bother changing the page name - you have your company name and carpet in it - just make sure the page title and description are accurate.

I suggest you make a change to the home page at least monthly - as that's where the se's come to first. If they see the change, they'll come more often and delve deeper. Changes to other pages are good, but not as vital. Of course, all new material, additions, etc is good as long as it's good copy and relevant to the page.

Thnx Beth

It's weird how the SE's operate. On MSN I have all my keywords coming up first or at least in the top 8.

Some keywords are Ajax carpet, Pickering Carpet, etc...however on Yahoo, if I type one of those phrases. I get nothing. If I combine them and type " Ajax Pickering Carpet " I come up first. Same thing on Allweb and Altavista. Not what I was trying to do...lol, but better than nothing

I noticed that Yahoo Allweb and Altavista used the description vs the titles and the h1 tags.

Having said that, MSN has indexed my site over 50 times "hard working bot" vs google and the rest of the SE's only indedxed 1-6 times.

I know Patience-patience right

Mike

Originally Posted by Bethers

Sara,
You could do a simple text banner - with the words Anxiety No More - one place you could look to make one would be - www.cooltext.com - I use that a lot - it's very easy and you just play till you get one you like - just change colors, etc

It's looking good.

Ooooohhh...
What fun. I wish I had seen this post at the begining of the week. Any more neat sites.

Shelly,
Here's where I posted a bunch of websites I use:
http://www.vodahost.com/vodatalk/int...ing-tools.html