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Search Engine Optimization Techniques


Title Optimization


The TITLE of your web page (found within the <HEAD> tags of yourweb pages) is very important, especially for Google and should be optimised for a small number of keywords or keyword phrases.

The exact number of keywords and their placement is dependent on a number of SEO factors. As a rule of thumb fewer keywords are generally better than more as it concentrates the SEO benefit over less keywords.


Example - If a web page is optimized primarily for the keyword phrase Search Engine Optimization and a lot of related SEO terms including Economical Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Optimization Service, Search Engine Optimization Company and various phrases including the keywords Search Engine Optimization.


The TITLE could have been stuffed with all of these keyword phrases i.e. -
Economical Search Engine Optimization Company Service
instead you could just use "Search Engine Optimization".

The reason is this keyword phrase receives far more search engine traffic than "Economical Search Engine Optimization", "Search Engine Optimization Service" and "Search Engine Optimization Company" put together and more importantly there are a lot of professional search engine optimization specialists and firms going after the main SEO phrase Search Engine Optimization


Results from Overtures Search Engine Tool
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/


Search Engine Optimization - 84154 searches in November 2004 (as a side note this figure has risen significantly from 56947 in September 2003 47391 in May 2003).
Search Engine Optimization Services - 12072 searches in November 2004 (8514 searches in September 2003).
Search Engine Optimization Company - 11340 searches in November 2004 (8211 searches performed in September 2003)Had I of used the combined keyword phrases in the TITLE this would have 'watered down' the effect of each keyword, making it much more difficult to get a good search engine ranking with any one (or combination) of them.
The first TITLE below contains 5 keywords, (all unique keywords) with the following weighting-

Search Engine Optimization Company Services
Search - 1/5
Engine - 1/5
Optimization - 1/5
Company - 1/5
Services - 1/5
Whilst this second TITLE contains 3 keywords, (all unique keywords) with the following weighting-

Search Engine Optimization
Search - 1/3
Engine - 1/3
Optimization - 1/3

If you do a search at Overtures Keyword Search Engine Tool (web site link above) it gives the following search results for phrases related to Search Engine Optimization performed on Overture in November 2004 -
84154 search engine optimization
12072 search engine optimization services
11340 search engine optimization company
7175 search engine optimization web site
6819 search engine optimization service
6605 search engine optimization firm
6235 affordable search engine optimization
6131 search engine optimization expert
4165 search engine optimization software
3422 economical search engine optimization
2915 search engine optimization specalist
2727 effective search engine optimization
2635 search engine optimization tool
2627 search engine optimization certification
2536 ethical search engine optimization
2492 guaranteed search engine optimization
2483 google search engine optimization
2453 search engine optimization help
2267 search engine optimization specialist
2214 search engine optimization consulting
2091 web search engine optimization
1958 search engine optimization tip
1902 high search engine ranking optimization
1861 search engine optimization training
1789 search engine optimization trick
1776 search engine optimization seo
1742 search engine optimization yahoo
1730 search engine optimization program
1695 search engine optimization search engine placement
1608 search engine optimization msn search
1451 search engine optimization web site design
1447 search engine optimization web design
1407 search engine optimization page design
1374 search engine optimization project
1367 search engine optimization leader
1359 search engine optimization campaign
1339 search engine optimization canada

A lot of the keyword phrases above aren't relevant to this web site (particularly the the ones with a location) so I wouldn't generally go after them all. Looking through them I see some good ones for an information site like this, top 10 I'd go for are-


Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization Services
Search Engine Optimization Company
Search Engine Optimization Firm
Search Engine Optimization Service
Search Engine Ranking Optimization
Search Engine Submission And Optimization
Web Site Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization Strategy
UK Search Engine Optimisation (low traffic, but I'm from the UK)

I'd try to include these in the body text. This might be directly by including the exact phrase on the page or indirectly by including the single words when ever I can.

This optimization strategy is very effective since the search engine Google can combine keywords not located as an exact phrase match on a web page. Optimization like this does take some time and thought, but it can make a big difference to your search engine ranking without making a web site appear overly "spammy" to it's visitors.

There are other SEO phrases in the top list that's worth going after, so if you can slip them into a web page you might be lucky and get a top Search Engine Rankings for a low/medium traffic phrase just by adding a word a or two.