Anyone who runs a web site knows that search engine ranking is very important, particularly to business sites. A search engine might pull up hundreds of listings, and visitors may only look at the top ten or twenty.

Using keywords properly can greatly increase the possibility of your site ranking in the top ten listings.

What Words?

The best way to choose your keywords is to ask yourself, "If I wanted to find my site on a search engine, what would I type into the text box?"

When making your list, try to include of as many multiple word keywords as possible. Hundreds of sites may fall under the category of "roofing companies", but there may only be a handful of "Columbus roofing companies".

After you have several key phrases, rearrange and change the tense of several of the words. If you have "Columbus roofing companies" on your list, try "Columbus roofers" and "Columbus roofing company".

Meta Tags

Once you have chosen your keywords, put them in a meta tag on every page of your site. Meta tags are what many search engines use to catalogue web sites. They are used just like any other HTML tags, and are located in the <header> of the page.

Example: <meta name ="keywords" content="roofing, Columbus roofing companies, Columbus roofers, Columbus roofing company, slate roofs, decorative trim">

Content

Due to abuse by many websites in the past, search engines have reduced the importance of the keywords meta tag when ranking a web page for keyword relevance. Although the meta tag is still important, many search engine spiders concentrate more on how many times the word appears in the site's content.

When you develop your content, try to include as many of your key phrases as possible, especially on your home page.

Example: ColRoofs is a Columbus roofing company specializing in slate roofs and decorative trim.

Title

Aside from looking at whether the keywords are in your site's content, search engines also pay attention to where on the page the keywords are located. The most important place is the title. Don't overload the title with keywords, but add the most relevant ones.

Example: ColRoofs - The Best Roofing Company in Columbus.

High on the Page

Search engines also give a better ranking to pages where keywords appear higher on the page. But, the search engine spiders interpret page location differently than the human eye.

You might see the headline on your page as being the highest item. But, the spider sees fifty lines of JavaScript to run the mouseovers, then several lines of header and body tags, then a few lines of table tags, before finally reading your headline. In general it is a good idea to move large chunks of JavaScript down lower on the page.

More about Keywords

In addition to improving your search engine ranking, keywords help a web developer stay focused on the purpose of the site. It's too easy to branch off with cool but totally unrelated links and pages.

Including keywords also helps the website's visitors. Within the first paragraph, they know the purpose of the site and they can determine if you can provide what they are looking for.

As the Internet grows, so does your competition for top search engine ranking. Although the strategies are constantly changing, most search engines still put a lot weight on keywords. If you don't consider them, you can be sure the fifty sites listed before you did