The content of your website is its heart and soul. It is from this collected information that search engines rate, index and determine the value of your website.

Graphics, color schemes and layout are there for the benefit of your visitors but are insignificant to the search engines. It is the things you say (i.e. keywords) and the way that you say them that matter.

Two areas of a website where keywords play a part are in your meta tags and content.

Meta Tags

There are only two "Meta Tags" that you need to consider when developing a webpage. They appear in your source code as;

<meta name="description"> - This should be a short description of the content of the webpage. Be sure to use your primary keywords when composing your description but don't over do it. One or two sentences that are written clearly and to the point will do.
<meta name="keywords"> - Your input here is exactly what the name implies. A list of keywords that provide an outline of your webpage content, used by search engines, to rank your position in search results.

Don't think that stuffing a lot of keywords into this tag will help position you better in the search engine rankings. Multiple occurrences of words will look like spam to the search engine spiders and may actually hurt your chances for a top spot in the search results.

An effective use of the "keyword meta tag" is to list the most important keywords on the webpage from top to bottom. Keep them simple and exactly as they appear in your content.

First focus on your keywords and keyword density but don't sacrifice your message. Write your content like you were writing to a friend. Let your creativity take over and write from your heart. Focus on what you want to say and don't worry about optimizing your web page content until you are completely satisfied with your message.

Once you have nailed down your content then utilize the meta tags keywords, description and title. Use your keywords when naming your pages and also for paragraph headings. Not all search engines operate exactly the same. But, if you follow the optimization tips provided here you will do just fine on most of them.

Keyword Phrases and Internet Searches

When people do a search on the Internet they usually type in more than just one word. They will more than likely enter a phrase, composed of two or three words or sometimes more, in order to narrow down the search results. Keep this in mind when composing your content. Don't limit yourself to single words as keywords. Think in terms of the phrases that a visitor might use to find your website and include them in your content.

Keywords and Webpage Content

When a search engine spiders your webpages it is looking at the body or content text more than anything. Even though you have included your keywords in your "Meta Tags" it is the bulk of the text that the spider encounters on the document that will actually determine how the page is ranked in the organic search results. "Meta Tags" play a secondary role in how your webpage is indexed.

Keyword Placement

Page Title - When naming your webpage include your keywords for that page in the title. Express the essence of your webpage with a brief phrase (e.g. usually five to seven words) containing your keyword or keywords as they appear on the page. This is the first thing that a search engine will see.

Links - You have probably heard of something called "anchor text". It means that any hyperlinks that you have on your webpage should be worded the same as the link to which you are jumping. For example; if you link to a page on your website titled "sitemap" be sure to type the link from your page exactly as it is in the title of the page you are linking to (i.e. sitemap). Search engines give this type of link a high priority when crawling your site so use your keywords in your anchor text as much as possible.

Headings - The proper use of headings (i.e. H1, H2, H3> can be a spotlight for your keywords. As you move through the content of your page be sure to provide an outline of the text by using headings to break down the main points of your copy. When doing this be sure to include your keywords.

Search engines analyse the whole of a web page to determine which keywords are relevant but the text within certain areas of a page are given more weight. The areas below are listed in a rough order of importance, but remember no one knows exactly how search engines rank pages.

1. The title meta tag.

2. The content on the page (within p tags).

3. The anchor text of internal links.

4. The anchor text of external links.

5. The description meta tag.

6. The alt tags of images.

7. The H1 tag (and other heading tags).

8. The filenames of pages.

9. The filenames of images.

10. The title tags of links.

Keyword Density

Search engines retrieve keywords from your page contents and rank your web page based on its keyword density. Keyword density is the number of times a word or phrase appears on a web page. But, if you try to repeat them too often it will be considered spamming by the search engines and will penalize your positioning in the search results. The best rule of thumb that I know of is to have your keywords appear at the top of the page content, somewhere in the middle of the page and in the last paragraph.