I analyze on average about 10 websites a day. I look them over for various things, (look, keywords, optimization etc..) but I am amazed at how most of the websites lose me when it comes to content. I guess if someone reads post on Search Engine Optimization it makes them an expert or worse they think they are now an SEO.

Somewhere in between the keyword analysis and the offsite marketing a grave mistake is being made by internet business owners. They are starting to pay for it lately with loss of rankings and credibility on major search engines like Google.

What are they doing that is so wrong you say? When you look at their content (or try to read it) they have so many keywords stuffed in places where they do not make sense, and they have so many words used on a page that should not be used. They think they are "optimizing" their site when all they are doing is "creating spam" for the search engines and their potential customers. You will lose in both areas if you keep this practice up.

See, what they are doing is creating content with only the search engines in mind, and not the humans. You need to make sure you when creating content to make it "readable" as if you were writing something that was going to show up in Time magazine.

How to set your SEO tactics right.

I am not saying that you should not use keywords, or focus on certain topics on your pages. However, you should use some common sense and focus on keywords that really relate to the content, or purpose of the page at hand. I usually try to focus on 4-5 keywords per page, and they are the main keywords I really am trying to be found for (for that page). (How to find those keywords I will blog about later, if you don't already know.)

Where you should use the keywords:

  • inside your title tag
  • in your meta tag description
  • in meta tag keywords
  • in your header tags
  • in site anchor text
  • in your alt tags
  • inside your content. (this one is the most important)

Again, do not use words that really don't relate to the main point of the page. You should always have someone else read your content and make sure they can read it and understand it. Believe it or not, using these simple practices (rather than keyword stuffing or spamming) will help you climb the rankings faster than anything else out there.