| What are Keywords ? |
What are Keywords ?Keywords are the words and phrases, in their most compact form, that best describe your business, and are the terms that searchers type into the text box in a search engine to find resources such as yours.For that reason, keywords should feature prominently on your website. In other words if your website is about ecommerce software, and you are selling ecommerce software or a service in connection with it, then you must have common phrases associated with that subject both in page headings and liberally sprinkled throughout your website. If you don't, then two things result:
So it's fairly simple: if you are an ecommerce implementer you need to say so - a lot. The web works in a large part due to text references to subjects. Things are found due entirely to keywords - text mentions of various topics. Not pictures, not film, not Flash - but text references. When these refer to any subject of interest to anyone anywhere - they are keywords. Keyword phrasesA 'keyword', by the way, means a word or words, and in fact it is far more likely to mean a short phrase than a single word. Most commonly, a keyword means a phrase of two or three words; and keywords means several such phrases.This is because most businesses or even most topics are better defined by a short phrase than a single word. If you think about your own business, you will see that this applies to your own area of expertise or products. A single word can often be used to describe the wide market area you are in, but it is a poor choice for use, and especially promotion, on a website. This is for two main reasons:
On point one, you may not think this is important. If so, you would be entirely wrong. Successful websites help people, and some of those people return and become customers. In order to help people you have to choose a niche of some kind, you can't help the world. Once you have your niche, you must specialise in a part of it, and then present useful resources in that particular area. Internet commerce is about efficiency and targeting, and therefore even if you simply want to help people, it is best done in an efficient manner. Choose a small area and help people in that area alone. Point two just states the obvious: if you choose to compete on a one-word term, such as 'software', then you will be up against giants like Microsoft. You would have little chance of capturing any of the market unless you have a budget of millions. But if you try for 'ecommerce software' or 'ecommerce software implementer' then that is another story entirely - so be realistic. Keywording or namingThe use of keywords is best described by the term naming and not keywording. This is because the term naming can correctly describe all possible uses of keywords, and all interpretations of that use.For example you should consider, in your naming strategy: - page titles - page URLs - page metadata - main headings - subheadings - text content - image filenames - image URLs - image captions - image titles - link siting - link anchors ...and so on. There are many opportunities for correct or incorrect naming. What is camelcase, intercaps, underscores ?Delving into the minutiae of keywords, there are correct and incorrect practices. For example when writing filenames or page addresses (URLs), several words must be joined in a way that leaves no space in the filename. There are 4 methods that could be used, only one of which is correct. For example an underscore can be used to join words (like_this), or camelcase, aka intercaps, can be used (LikeThis). Or the words can just be run together (likethis) - or they can be joined with a dash / hyphen (like-this).If a new website page needs to be called 'ecommerce software.html' or similar, then how can this be done best? There are right and wrong ways to do this. We never use an underscore on a website, for any purpose whatsoever. It has no use or relevance to web use, was not designed for web use, and should never be used on the web - it is used by the operating system (Windows) on a PC, to remove accidental spaces in filenames. It assigns a hard-coded instruction to any computer reading those words, 'Do not split these words or interpret them as separate words in any way - they are to be read as one entire word'. In other words they cannot be parsed, ie understood as independent information. Is that what you want? Probably not - despite the fact you will see this usage advised. It's amazing how little technical knowledge many people have who are advising others. For the same reasons we never use joined-together domain names, whether for a doamin name or any other purpose (like ecommerceimplementers.com), since once again it is far more difficult for search engines to parse these terms. In fact Google just recently had to tell people this clearly, as so much false information has been spread by people with no technical knowledge. In case you didn't see it, here is their list of preferred word joining formats, in order of preference: 1. Words separated by dashes / hyphens (like-this) 2. Words separated by underscores (like_this) 3. Words all joined together (likethis) And remember that they are by far the most sophisticated of the search engines - many search engines cannot parse words at all unless they are in format 1 above. We could probably insert camelcase at position [2a], in the above list. On a PC it is also acceptable to use camelcase, aka intercaps, likeThis. It follows a common trend in computer authoring that means a title written like this, EcommerceSoftware Plc is accepted. However, it should not be used on the web for keywords. Always join words by using hyphens, as in format 1, like-this. Never use any other method on a website, for any purpose whatsoever. We have been telling people this for many years - shouting it from the rooftops almost - but only very recently have other SEO or web advisors come round to our way of thinking. It helps to have a little technical knowledge before you advise people on technical subjects... |