Search Engine Optimization

Keywords are the words used by Internet users when searching for something in particular using a search engine, an example of this is someone looking for property in Bulgaria,they would probably use search strings (keywords) like

Bulgarian property
Bulgarian real estate
Real estate in Bulgaria

By using these keywords the search engine will return the most relevant, high search ranking website.

How to select Keywords

The best way to choose your keywords is to research the most used keyword phrases for your business area.

I suggest trying variations on the keywords of your chosen business area, for example if you search Bulgaria it will show you different results than searching the keyword Bulgarian.

When using keywords it is the best practice to use keyword phrases because when someone is searching for something in particular they do not use single words, they use phrases specific to what they want.

How do I use keywords

Preferably have your main keyword included in your domain name for the best possible optimization.

Only focus on two or three keywords per page as this gives the search engines clear guidelines on what the page is about.

Keyword Density

The keyword density is the amount of times your keyword appears on the page in comparison to the rest of the content.

The guidelines for keyword density is to keep the keyword density to between one and seven percent (used between 1 and 7 times for every 100 words) otherwise your content could be considered Spam and appear like a page trying to climb the search engines causing a ranking filter to be enabled.

When writing the content remember a visitor will also want to read your information so don't overload your content to the point it doesn't read well, you don't have to include your keyword in every sentence.

Keyword Distribution

A minimum of 200 to 300 words should be used as content on a page with keyword rich text.

Keywords should always be used in the main content on the page as this indicates to the search engines what a page is about.

Keywords should be used at the start of sentences and preferably in the first sentence of the first paragraph as this is giving extra strength by the search engines.

Headings and Subheadings

Headings are very important as they reinforce your keyword phrases, an example for the keyword car insurance would be

Heading - Discover cheap car insurance

Subheading - Get a free car insurance quote today

Title Tags

Title tags are a short sentence of HTML that sits in the head of your web page (between the header tags, and at the top section of your site's HTML) and creates the words that appear in the top bar of your web browser.

The title tag is a valuable tool for search engine optimization so you should ensure that your keyword phrase is included in its exact form within the title tag.

Your title tag should be no longer than 70 characters (including spaces) or 10 to 11 words long.

Meta Description Tag

The Meta description tag does not affect your search engine ranking but can help in the page description in your search engine listing. Within your description tag you should limit the amount of characters to 180 (including spaces).

Meta Keyword Tag

Again this tag is not used for search engine ranking but can be useful for page description in search engine listing. This tag should be limited to 180 characters (including spaces)

Alt Tags

Imagine you have a picture of tiger woods in England entitled tiger, you would put the alt tag as tiger woods in England. Alt tags do not affect search engine rankings but should be used to describe images so they can be found by Google images.

Link building is important to improve the page rankings within Google, the better quality the link, t more likely it will rank.

There are many factors you need to take into account with your linking strategies, see a list below to understand what they are

Relevancy - Subject relevant links are important, it's no good having a site on cars linked from a site about children's toys.

Authority - Websites deemed important by the search engines linking to you gives your own site more authority by the search engines.

Anchor Text - Using keyword phrases to link to your site so the search engines know what your site is known for.

This would show as car insurance on the page and would act as a link to your site

Link Placement - The higher the link on a page the more importance the search engines place on it, also it is better to place the link within a block of text than sitting in a lot of other links.

Link Neighborhoods - Don't get links placed from banned or penalized sites for "unethical" (otherwise known as black hat) optimization techniques. Do not get links from link farms; link farms (also known as link exchanges) are sites with a whole page designated to linking to many sites of different topics.