Keyword Density And How To Use It To Keep Traffic Flowing To Your Site!

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 no relevance at all 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 
http://www.mystery-shopping.org.uk. Other examples from my own 
  collection, with titles, articles, domain names based on 
  keyword density: http://www.fiveminutewriter.com, 
http://www.propertyfront.net, http://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.

· 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 
http://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 
http://www.boxerdog.biz which includes articles called 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, and 
  try to include those same articles on other sites to increase 
  links to your main site that might also attract visitors to 
  your site.

Avril Harper is the author of 'Keyword Density and How to Get A Top Listing on Major Search Engines'. Get your copy free by emailing mailto:avril@publishingcircles.com with subject 'Keywords Report'. More copyright-free articles and ebooks are available at http://www.publishingcircles.com