Using Keyword Density to Get a High Ranking in Search Engines

By Avril Harper
Posted Thursday, August 26, 2004

(Low cost, no cost ways to rank your site high on search engine listings using key words and phrases)

Generating high traffic to your web site can be costly, or not, depending on time and effort you commit to the business.

One of the easiest, least expensive and most effective ways to get visitors is via a concept called ‘Keyword Density’.

Mini Site Profits by Phil Wiley was my first and most valuable introduction to keyword density and would eventually become the focus of my online marketing campaigns.

Wiley tells how many search engines spider the Internet for sites containing keywords similar to those someone has just keyed into a search engine. The more times those words appear on your site - conditionally - the more chance you’ll get that high ranking.

But search engines aim for relevance, too, so a site actually bearing little relevance to specific terms might rank high for a short while, until human editors come in, check it out, then abandon the site as irrelevant to their customers.

It’s all about ‘content’ which for our purposes means useful articles, information and advice that search engines consider valuable to their customers, rather than pages packed with advertisements and little else (unless they’re getting paid for it via pay per click promotions, of course!).

For example, ‘sex’ is a hot topic on the Internet and the subject of millions of searches every month. How wonderful for your site to appear to everyone searching for ‘sex’ - (one day I will rephrase that) - who happens upon pages offering discount holidays, printer refill cartridges, golf clubs, pencils, but not sex!

The point is, anyone using specific techniques to lift their own non-sex-related site high on the listings when someone keys ‘sex’ into search engines will soon be exposed and probably banned for life from most search engine listings. By ‘techniques’ I mean pasting the word ‘sex’ all over the background of your site selling lawn mowers, or calling your site ‘Everything to Do with Sex’ when your site bears little or no relevance to the ‘S’ word.

Here are a few ways to use keyword density to increase your chance of a higher ranking over site owners who don’t try quite so hard:

· Choose a domain name containing words and phrases most commonly searched for by your target audience. The site for my mystery shopping book, for example, is (www.mystery-shopping.org.uk). Other examples from my own collection, with titles, articles, domain names based on keyword density: (www.smartbackpacker.com), (www.smartpublisher.net), (www.resell-rights.net).

· Include your best key words and phrases in page titles, for both the home page and all additional pages. My mystery shopping site has pages entitled: Get Paid to Shop or Even Start Your Own Mystery Shopping Business, Travel Free,
Get Paid to Play Golf, and articles entitled: Start Your Own Mystery Shopping Business, Get Paid to Shop and Keep Everything You Buy Without Having to Pay! Those titles came, not surprisingly, because ‘Get Paid to Shop’ and ‘Start Mystery Shopping Business’ are common terms used by people seeking products like mine.

· Keep those key words and phrases coming in the main text sections of your pages. But go easy, for again search engines might consider over-use of certain key words and phrases not only boring and symptomatic of poor vocabulary skills, but additionally an attempt to fool them into ranking your sites high!!! Who would do such a thing?

· Descriptions, keyword entries and metatags used when designing your site should also contain some of the most common terms used by your target audience. For a dating agency, the keywords might be ‘dating’, ‘dating agency’, ‘online dating’, and so on.

· It might be beneficial to use key words in titles for pictures and graphics used on your site. For example, my site (www.boxerdog.biz) has several pictures of cute boxer dogs, all mine, with gifs labelled boxerdog1, boxerdog2, boxerdog3, and so on. Beneath each picture there’s a caption including the phrase ‘boxer dog’. One of my first excursions into keyword analysis showed the term ‘boxer dog’ is keyed into search engines around 46,000 times every month. Not only that, but I love boxer dogs, and can think of nothing more delightful than marketing products for them and their two-legged friends. But, realistically, editors might consider my graphics titles a bit OTT (Over The Top) and this could adversely affect my rankings. I shall just have to wait and see!

· Have articles uploaded to your own and other people’s sites. Search engines love articles and other chunks of useful information to benefit their customers, making articles one of the very best ways to lift your site high in search engine
rankings. Again, use your keywords in page headings and article titles to further increase your chances, as I did for (www.boxerdog.biz) which includes articles entitled The Boxer Dog Who Cheated Death Row and Became a Television Star Instead, The Boxer Dog With the Longest Tongue, The Boxer Dog Who Received Hate Mail. Make sure the articles contain links back to your main web site, the one you want people to visit. Try to get your articles on other people’s sites, again linked back to your main site which might also lift your search engine ranking.

About the Author
Avril Harper is the author of ‘How to Use Keyword Density To Get A Top Listing on Major Search Engines’, your free by emailing avril@publishingcircles.com with subject ‘Keywords Report’.

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