SEO Mistake - Like First Time
Golfers
When you start getting into Search Engine Optimization (SEO), a
website marketing strategy designed to increase your visibility in
search engines, you’ll learn that one of the best things that you can do
is to put good key words into your content.
Because it is easy to do, however, you can easily do it wrong.
You may start jamming keywords into your pages wherever you can,
thinking “the more the merrier.” You want higher rankings, but what
happens is the opposite – your rankings get worse.
It’s like watching a first-time golfer at a driving range.
He wants to hit that ball like the pros – smack it hundreds of yards.
He winds up and gives it all he’s got. But because of sloppy form, he
misses the ball or shanks it to the left or right.
He went gusto on the ball and made a mess.
Just the same, if you go gusto on your web pages - stuffing in too
many keywords in a sloppy way, you will create a mess.
The mess is two-fold.
First, putting too many keywords in your web pages can hurt your
search engine rankings – it can actually make them go down.
Search engines “know” that in well-written web pages, a keyword
phrase can occur only so often, generally five percent of the page’s
content.
Search engines also know that any one web page usually covers a
specific topic, so it can only realistically contain a few related
keywords.
For example, if you create a web page on how to swing a golf club for
beginners, it might contain some phrases like “golf swing”, “golf swing
instruction”, “golf tips.”
Imagine the same page had information about golf putting, getting out
of sand traps, golf etiquette, the difference between clubs, teeing off,
using wood, using irons, etc.
That would be way too much information on the page – an overload.
The second problem is that a page overloaded with keywords will scare
away visitors.
You’ve probably seen this before - a website that is so loaded with
keywords that it looks like someone spilled the dictionary on it.
Using our same scenario, imagine that you were learning to swing your
golf club for the first time. You did a search on “golf swing tips” and
hey, you saw a listing entitled “Golf Tips – How to Swing Like a Pro.”
When you clicked to the page, you started reading this:
“Golf swing tips – Use these golf swing tips to help you swing your golf
club like the pros. Begin your golf swing by placing your left hand on
the golf club. Then, as shown in golf swing diagram 1, place your right
hand over the golf club. This will stabilize your golf grip – a good
golf swing tip for beginning golfers.”
Yikes! You can’t read that without going insane!
Don’t jeopardize the readability of your pages in pursuit of high
search engine rankings.
Here are some tips to help you in the swing of writing good keyword
rich pages that search engines like:
- Use three to five keyword phrases on any one page. Do this for
pages that have a decent amount of content, like articles and service
descriptions.
- Put your keywords in your page headings, subheadings and bulleted
points.
- Write a page summary at the top of the page with has important
keywords in it.
- Replace generic terms with your specific keywords, but don't over
do it.
As an example of the last point, if you had a sentence like:
“Classes begin at 1pm every day including Saturdays and Sundays.”
You could write:
“Golf lessons begin at 1 PM every day including Saturday and Sunday.”
This gets the phrase “golf lessons” into the page which is more
likely to be searched on than “classes” or even “golf classes.”
In conclusion, use finesse and good form when put-ting keywords into
your web pages. Your readers will read more of your content and search
engines will give you higher rankings.
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