How Keywords Help Drive Traffic

It is possible to achieve a higher ranking in search engines (like Google) by using keywords in various ways on your site. Keywords are the special phrases that are most likely to be typed into search engines as people seek out a particular topic. (To find popular keyword phrases related to your Wetpaint site, visit SEO Tools).

Hierarchy of Keyword Importance

Not all keywords are created equal. Search engines will give greater weight to certain keywords based on where they are found on the page. While there are no hard and fast rules about this--it's a science and an art!--think about keywords in the following general order of importance:

Page titles
Remember, this includes the home page! Because page titles appear at the very top of every page in the browser's title bar, it's the first thing a crawler will see.

Headers:
For more on headers, see Where to Use Keyword Tags.

Subheads
For more on subheaders, seeWhere to Use Keyword Tags.

Body text:

Use keywords in the first sentence of the first paragraph in the body text.
Keywords at the top of your page carry more weight than those at the bottom of the page.
Text in bold is more important to crawlers (though don't overdo it and put all your text in bold.)
Use your desired phrase at least four times in your article. However, any more than twelve is pushing it--search engines are smart and know when people are stuffing keywords into pages for the purpose of a higher ranking.
Hint: The ideal number of times your keyword(s) should appear in a 750-word article is five or six.

Linked text:
Keywords that are linked also are meaningful to search engine crawlers. For example, when you're sending readers to a related page, don't use "For more information, click here." Instead, try: "For more information, visit Pregnancy Tips."

Names on photos:

When you place an image, always include an image name and always be sure to use keywords in the name. This will also be what the visitor sees when they hover their cursor over the photo.