Starting an Online Business All-in-One For Dummies®, 3rd Edition

Placing Keywords in Key Spots on Your Web Site

You can use different methods to incorporate on your Web pages the keywords that will be viewed as the most relevant and important words that represent your page. The keywords must appear in multiple locations so that the search engine bots know that those keywords represent the content of your page.

The most important factor is, as they say in real estate, location, location, location. Sure, you can write a Web page about the hundred greatest uses for a ball-peen hammer and use the words ball-peen hammer repeatedly in the body of the Web page. You can find much better locations, however, than the body of the Web page, to attract the attention of search engine bots more reliably and consistently. Some locations are invisible to the Web browser, and others are hiding in plain sight.

Keywords that are invisible

Web pages are built on HyperText Markup Language, or HTML. Commands aplenty identify the information contained in a Web page. For keyword purposes, the most important tag to use in your Web page is <META>. It defines the name, purpose, author, and date of a Web page. Search engines read this tag to catalog Web pages more efficiently.

Because of this command's purpose, search engine bots are interested in knowing what information is assigned to <META> tags. They take that information with a grain of salt, however, because they know that the <META> tag info is being written by a biased source — the author of the page. Nevertheless, ...