We’ve looked at all the various ways you can use the keywords you’ve determined are good keywords to help you rank in the search engine results page (SERP). Now that your website is ranking in the SERP why would somebody click on your link? How will they know if your site has what they want? Here’s where the old Meta Description Tag comes into play.

Although Google made an announcement back in 2009 that they would no longer be using the Meta description tag in their ranking algorithm, the tag can still be useful. In fact after the Title Tag the Meta description will most likely be the first impression people will get from your website. This is because in the majority of results Google will display the Meta Description under your Title Tag.  This is where people get a glimpse of what your page is all about.

You want to make sure potential visitors get a good first impression.  To do this the Meta description should accurately describe the page in about 160 characters – - this includes the spaces. You will want to use your keywords in the description as Google will highlight in bold the keywords found in your description that were used in the search.  Because these are the keywords the potential visitor was looking for, your click through rate should increase.  That means more people should click on your site.

As I’ve mentioned in the past Google doesn’t like spam. So the Meta description for each page should be a unique and accurate description of that page. If Google doesn’t like your description, or thinks it’s spammy, it may pull snippets of your on page content to display or it may just decide not to index your page.

Because we want people to click through to your site, you really want to get a call to action in the Meta description. Something along the lines of: Get Your Quote Today, For More Information, etc. This will encourage potential visitors to click on your site to get what they need.

Now you know that even though the Meta description is not necessarily important to your SEO ranking strategy, it is important to your overall strategy and is your sites invitation to potential visitors to come on in and check you out.

If you read my previous post You’ve picked your keywords..now what? you would know that the most important place for your keywords is in the title tag. The title tag is usually the first part of your site people will see. It represents your site in the search engine results and its text becomes the link back to your site on the results page. So, how do we go about building a good title tag? Let’s take a look.

First you want to review your good keywords and choose the top and secondary keywords for each page.  Because the search engines give more weight to the words at the beginning of the title tag, your top keyword for the page should go first; followed by the lesser keywords.  If you have a strong brand or are trying to rank for your brand name you would want to build your title tag like this: Brand | Top Keyword and Secondary Keyword.  Your brand name will be the strongest part of the title tag.  Alternately, if you are focusing on a product you would want to set it up with the main product keyword first: Top Keyword and Secondary Keyword | Name.

Ideally you would like to keep the title tag short enough so that it shows completely in the search engine results page.  This usually means around 75 characters or less. Again this would be the ideal length. It is not a hard and fast rule. And don’t clutter it up with useless words like homepage or page 1.

In addition to putting your top keyword first it needs to be relevant to the page. When Google crawls your page it likes to see that the keywords in the title tags are relevant to the content. If not, pages with more relevance for that term will rank above your site. Also, the point is to drive traffic that will convert for you.  If you are not providing what the title tag implies your visitors will bounce off of your site without filling out any forms.

The title tag isn’t just for your brand website.  If you are blogging, and you should be, most blogging platforms allow you to adjust your title tags.  Optimize your blog title tags and give your brand another chance to appear in the search engine results. Hey, there’s nothing wrong with both your blog and your main site ranking for the same terms.

Once all the content and title tags have been optimized with good keywords you are done. Right? Not so fast. If you have images on your page you have another opportunity for your keywords. Alternate text or Alt Text is used behind the scene to describe the images on your site.

When Google crawls your site or blog post it reads all the text but it cannot read images. How will it know what to index? The alt text of course! So here is a great opportunity to help boost your site without adding or forcing your keywords into the content making it look spammy.

The same rules apply however, in that you do not want the alt text to look spammy to Google. You want to keep a short and simple sentence structure that sounds natural. If your keyword is Texas Home Insurance you could use:

alt text=”Quotes on affordable Texas home insurance.”

Rather than

alt text=”Texas Home Insurance Homeowner Insurance Insurance for Texas”

Listing your keywords and using the same keywords for all of your images can be a red flag to Google. We want to stay on Googles good side.

Another use for the alt text is as anchor text for your links. Let’s say you are linking back to your home insurance page with the image of a blue house. If you link back to that page with the alt text as “blue house” you are basically giving your site a vote for the keyword blue house. Now if you use the keywords “Texas home insurance from My Company” you are getting some value here. Your keyword is now part of the anchor text.

You can also use this for images of your logo that may appear on someone else’s website. For example, you are sponsoring an event and your logo will appear on their website; ask them to include your name in the alt text.

Properly using the alt text, combined with your other SEO keyword efforts will improve your chances of moving your site up in the rankings.

We’ve all seen it, “Click Here” for more information.  This is the anchor text for the hyperlink to the page you want people to go to. The anchor text is the visible part of the link. It is usually highlighted or underlined to help it stand out and let people know that if you “click here” you will be taken to another page or site.  People have been conditioned to recognize a hyperlink when they see specific words underlined or in a different font color from the rest of the text.  “Click Here” might have been a good choice when the internet was new but it doesn’t really do anything for your site.

The anchor text should tell your reader what the page or site is about that you want them to go to.  So, anchor text would be a great place for your good keywords when you are blogging, posting articles, press releases or whenever you are linking back to your website. A link back to your site is like a vote for your site.  When you are using the correct keywords in the anchor text and linking back from a relevant site it’s like your website or page is getting a vote for that particular keyword.  “This site is an authority for this keyword.” This will help you move up the ranks as your site gets more quality “votes”.

Do you see why “click here” wouldn’t be a great choice for anchor text? I’m sure you don’t want to be the authority for “click here”.

Good anchor text is more than just using your keywords.  You want your anchor text to look natural.  It should flow with the rest of your sentence.  Google is smart and they like to see natural language. If your anchor text looks spammy it will be noticed, but not in a good way. It is better to link back to your page with “…auto insurance in Memphis” instead of “…auto insurance Memphis” which is not natural. You will gain more by writing naturally than by trying to use the exact phrase and looking spammy.

If you want your insurance marketing campaign to be a success, keep reading.  See how “insurance marketing” is naturally part of the sentence, this blog is about insurance marketing and it is pointing to our site which is optimized for insurance marketing.

You should always be linking back to your website.  So, remember to use good keywords in your anchor text when linking back to your site.  Whether you are working on your social media, posting a press release or writing an article, using the proper anchor text to link back to your website will help your site gain authority and move up the rankings.

You’ve picked your keywords.  These are keywords that match what you sell and people are actually using them in their searches. But what do you do with them? How do you deploy these good keywords so they help drive relevant traffic to your site?

Well, to start, you want to write good content that uses your keywords throughout.  The trick here is not to overuse your keywords and look spammy.  Google is really working to cut the spammy pages from their results.   Try spreading your words out in the content.  Start with having the keyword you’re focusing on in the first sentence of the page.  Hopefully you have enough good content that your keywords can be mentioned a couple of times in the body without looking like spam.    Finally, it is good practice to close with the chosen keyword in the last sentence of the page.  I like to add it in to the call to action whenever possible.

In addition to placing them throughout the content, you should add the keywords to the on page title. This lets the search engines and potential clients know what the page is about.  Also, emphasizing or bolding your particular keywords tells your potential customers and the search engines that these are important and your page has what they want. “Hello! Look over here.  This is the keyword you’re looking for.”

Of course the most important place for your keywords is in the title tag.  The title tag labels your page in the browser, this appears at the very top of your browser window, and is what shows up as the title for your page in the search results. So it is important to write good title tags for both the search engines and the people searching for your specific keywords.  A bad title tag can be just as bad as not having one at all.

You now know that it is important not only to have good keywords, but to strategically place them throughout the pages of your site.  Your keywords will appear important enough to the search engines to rank your site and relevant enough to potential clients who see these results and will click on your page.  But alas, keywords are only one part of the picture. To move your site to the top of the results you still need more. But enough of my blibber blabbering…until next time…have an Astonishing day!

You’ve heard it before. You need to have good keywords on your site.  But what exactly is a good keyword you ask?  Well for starters, a good keyword or keyword phrase is one people are actually using in their searches.  There is no reason to optimize your website around words not searched for by potential customers. If everyone is searching for ice cream and you are optimized for frozen milk, how well will your site do? You might rank #1 for frozen milk, but you probably won’t be seeing any traffic.  And isn’t the whole point to drive good traffic to your site?

People can also run into a problem with wanting to use their professional or industry buzz words as keywords.  Just because you think you know what potential clients are searching for doesn’t make it so. Most potential customers probably won’t know those specific terms so their search would be a bit broader. Therefore, it is important to do the research and find the keywords that will actually bring the customers to you.

Another key ingredient to a good keyword is for it to be relevant to what your website is about. Your goal is to not only bring in visitors, but visitors that will find what they are looking for and on an e-commerce site, fill out a form.  If your website sells blue cars and you optimized for red cars, when visitors see that most will “bounce” from your site without filling out a form or visiting additional pages.  Obviously “red cars” was not a good keyword for your site even though it brought in visitors.

As an SEO specialist, part of the job is to research what people are searching for in relationship to what you are selling and find the best keywords to bring in conversions through your site.  Of course finding the right keywords is only the beginning.  How they are deployed is just as important. But that is for another day…