Search engines like keywords, keywords that are balanced, not overused, not underused. Both copy writers and site designers need to be involved in optimization of keywords and phrases. Once appropriate keywords and phrases have been determined (more about this in another entery), copy writers need to work them into the text of the website. In addition, the keywords and phrases can be incorporated into meta-tags of the page, but I've heard that you can't overboard here, nor can you rely only on meta-tags to carry the day.
Another trick is to incorporate the keywords into web site structure and navigation. For
example, on one my pages I discuss a set of HD-600 headphones by Sennheiser. The page references the word
AudioPhonics and the directory structure in which the article rests has that word as part of
the path.
That article has a Google rank of 7 or 8. It has reached that rank within a few weeks of
posting. However, that page is actually about the Sennheiser HD 600 headphones, and if I do
a search on that phrase, page rank is very very low. It is somewhere between 140
and 745,000. So, in effect, people will land on that page due to a search of the nebulous
topic of AudioPhonics rather than the more specific topic of Sennheiser HD 600 Headphones
about which I wrote.
Because there are so many other pages out there that have Sennheiser HD 600 in the title
bar, which my page doesn't (I'm going to have to move to different blogging software to make
that happen), they probably enjoy higher rankings. However, an appropriate title is only
one of many attributes a search engine will use to compute a page rank.
Those other pages also probably use meta-tags.
Those other pages may also have inbound links of one form or another to gain
them extra visibility.
Those other sites may also have related content that helps a search engine's related
content matchers. (I'm still finding out about this one to see how true it is).
But you'll also note that when doing a search on the phrase 'Sennheiser HD 600', a bunch
of other kind of related pages show up: ones that have a portion of the phrase repeatedly,
ones that include the phrase in passing but related to similar equipment, and ones that have
them in the url somewhere.
So, after having mentioned what search engines like, we'll see what happens with this
page in the page rankings in a few weeks for the search topic 'Sennheiser HD 600'. I've
mentioned the product multiple times within the
text of this document, which is what Search Engines seem to like. I'm still missing the
text in meta-tags, the title, and the url, but we'll see how things go. It will be form of
double irony that people come here because they searched for 'Sennheiser HD 600' when in
fact this page is actually is about Search Engine Optimization, in another form:
Optimzation for Search Engine Findability.
In summary, if you are looking for visibility and findability, each page you write needs
to be hand crafted with these various techniques in mind. And even if you've crafted a page
for a certain phrase, you may find a search engine likes it differently based upon user's
search patterns and preferences. But if you watch these patterns, you can use them to your
benefit to further enhance your findability.