When a web page is edited to add Search Engine Optimization (SEO) features, much of the effort is focused on the Head section tags. While this is a necessary step in developing the web page, it is important to look at the additional SEO opportunities provided by the Body section.
Search engines try to deliver results that are directly relevant to the search query keywords. As part of this process they would expect to find the relevant keywords occurring throughout the web page content. This should reflect a natural pattern of usage and not be construed as an attempt to mislead the search engines. Assuming this is the case, there are a number of different locations and tags where keywords should be placed to promote the web page in search engine rankings. The following overview identifies the most important locations.
Header Tags
Tags such as <H1> and <H2> are used to identify document headers and sub-headers. It is a reasonable assumption that if a web page is relevant to a particular query, keywords will appear in these tags.
Image Tags
Where images are included in a web page they should be identified by keywords to show relevance to a search. Keywords can be used in the image name, the folder it is held in, alternative image text and the image title. The following tag illustrates this point.
<img src=”keyword1/keyword2.jpg” alt=”keyword1 and keyword2″ title=”keyword2 and keyword3″>
Hyperlink Tags
Hyperlinks to the page should include keywords in each element of the link. The following example shows how keywords can be used in naming files and folders and included in the title text.
<a href=”keyword1/keyword2.html” title=”keyword1 and keyword3″>
Bold and Italic Text
Text that appears in a bold or italic style is viewed as being special or different from other surrounding text. Keywords appearing in these styles suggest to search engines that this topic is particularly relevant on this page and the page is worth looking at.
Body Content
Having identified a number of particular tags and styles that demonstrate page relevance, consideration should also be given to the occurrence of keywords throughout the ‘normal’ page text. If a page is directly relevant to a particular topic, keywords on the topic would not be restricted to appear in headings etc. They would appear throughout the body of a document. Keywords near the start have the greatest influence on page relevance, however, they should also occur in the middle and at the bottom of the page.
Keyword Authenticity
While a number of locations have been identified where keywords can be used to demonstrate page relevance to a search engine query, it is important that the keywords are not used unnaturally and the page is not just spam. The overall body of page content should be about the topic identified by the keywords. If you try to force a relationship between keywords and page content that doesn’t exist, search engines will detect the attempt to mislead them. They have spent a lot of money creating algorithms to detect such activity and misuse of keywords may get your website banned from the search engine.
The use of keywords on a web page should be strong but unforced. Where keywords are used naturally they can be a positive contribution to search engine ranking for a page. Good keyword distribution should be the goal of all competent website developers.
photo credit: harry_nl BMW i3 Carbon Body via photopin (license)
