Keywords - what they are and how they function

Welcome to Blog Like the Experts.

Thanks for dropping by Blog Like the Experts. Another little section on the world wide web, where I talk about how to blog, and blogging basics - how and why certain things work, and some that don't.

Lesson Two: Keywords - what are they, and how do they function.

What are keywords.

Most people have a rough idea of how keywords work. Keywords have been around a lot longer then the web in many ways. If you think about libraries, and book indexes, these have contained keywords as long as either has been around. A keyword is simply a single word or small phrase that allows you to find a longer article, book, or document that pertains to those words. Don't let the crazy people fool you, it really is that simple.

How do they work?
In relation to the web, that is. Keywords do work in basically the same manner as the index of a gigantic book. You type in what you are looking for, and various search engines look at it and then conveniently spit out a bunch of suggestions, hopefully one of those is what you are actually looking for.

So how do search engines find those articles with the association keywords. Therein lies the tricks.

Places in a blog to put keywords.

I will be doing a another lesson showing this more fully, but for now a small introduction.

URL and Title
On the internet there are a few places your keywords need to exist - its a rule, like indenting a paragraph in an essay is.

Your keyword should be in your URL
-for example this blog is called Blog Like the Experts. The url is http://blogliketheexperts.blogspot.com

This gives me both a title and an address with the same keywords. Another helpful part of following this formula is if people know the title of this blog, they can also have an easier time guessing what the URL is to just type it into the link bar.

In your content.

Search engines have become more sophisticated over the past 15 years, as the vast amount of information they need to index and qualify has grown exponentially. Search engines will also go through the content on a site. Ideally, in a post, a keyword should appear 2-3%. So if I type a 200 word article, I should get my keyword in there twice at least. As an example, scroll back up and see how many times Blog Like the Experts has appeared so far. I'm not keeping a strict accounting as I type this, but I'm going to guess at least 3 or 4 times already.

Keyword Traps

Traps to not fall into. Don't write your content thinking how to get your keywords worked into it the entire time. That's what editing is for. If you are shy, go back, rework a sentence or two to toss it in. If you spend your whole time working around just that keyword count, your writing becomes very artificial and frankly - boring to read.

Keyword Spam is another bad one. I'm sure you've seen them without realizing it. It's like reading a bad car commercial from the 1970s. Where a keyword or keyword phrase is repeated so much you are getting thwacked over the head with it. Search engines also don't take kindly to this particular style either, and may even punish a poster for doing so- especially if its extremely obvious.


Thanks for visiting Blog Like the Experts. Hope to see you again!