The use of keywords is a significant factor in the success of most websites through search engine optimization (SEO). If a website mostly relies on organic search results rather than paid advertising, then using the correct keywords becomes increasingly important.
If so, this guide is for you.
In short, there are 20 places you can put your keyword phrases on a website to get the most out of your SEO value and rankings. In this blog post, I’ll show you where all of those secret spots are in HTML documents.
How to Add Keywords to a Website for SEO
Meta Title
Adding keyword phrases to your website’s meta title is the most important HTML step you need to take for SEO.
The title of a webpage is what appears first in the search engine results page for a user to click on. Therefore, search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing put a lot of SEO value on this HTML meta field.
For example, I want this page to rank for these two keyword phrases:
- how to add keywords to a website for SEO
- how to add keywords to website HTML
Meta Description
Meta descriptions do not have a direct impact on a website’s Google ranking. However, they are the second part of a search result entry for a website, and they make the keywords people are searching for more relevant.
The meta description is the text that appears under your website listing on a search engine. This text influences whether someone will click on your listing or not. It is best to include a keyword from the user’s search query in the meta description so that they will consider your listing to be relevant to what they are looking for.
Meta Keywords
Meta keywords are not used by major search engines, but some on-page SEO plugins still include them.
Google stated that keyword meta tags were often abused by people stuffing in irrelevant keywords that typical visitors would never see. Because of this, Google began disregarding the keyword meta tag many years ago.
This means that the meta keyword tag is not important to Google and many SEOs do not bother filling it out.
URL
URLs that are descriptive and give visitors and search engines an idea about the website’s content and where the page is located in the site’s structure are the best.
Your website’s URL is one of the top locations for HTML keywords that can improve your website’s SEO ranking. There are several places within the URL where you can include your keywords.
Here are the four components of a URL that you can put keywords:
- Domain Name: Your website domain name can include your main target keyword like this: keywordphrase.com.
- Subdomain Name: If you have subdomains set up on your website, then you can include keywords here like this: keyword-phrase.companyname.com.
- Folder Name: If the content on your website is organized into folders, then the folder names can include your keywords like this: companyname.com/keyword-phrase/pagename
- Page Name: The actual page name can include your keywords like this: companyname.com/foldername/keyword-phrase.
Header Tags
The header tags in an HTML document help to organize the content by creating structure and breaking up blocks of text. This makes the document easier to skim and read.
Page Optimizer Pro verified that header tags are important for on-page search engine optimization, with H1 to H4 tags being the most important.
Here’s how use and add keywords properly in a website’s header tags:
- H1: The H1 is considered to be the main header tag for the page. It should only appear once and be at the top of the content.
- H2-H4: You can include as many H2 to H4 tags as you want on the webpage. However, the best practice here is to use H2s to break up the main topics on the page and put H3s under the H2s (where necessary) as the sub-headers.
Body Content
The body content of a page is a important factor in SEO rankings. This is because without proper optimization, it can be difficult for search engines to understand what keywords you want a webpage to rank for.
There are three key areas in which you want to put your keyword phrases:
- Introduction: Put your keywords within the first 100 words of the page.
- Main Content: Put your keywords at least 2-4 times in the main content of the page (evenly spread out).
- Summary: Put your keywords within the last 100 words of the page.
Images
Images are a great place to add your keywords to a website. Adding your keywords to the “alt text” of an image can help search engines scan and identify your site.
- ALT Tag: The ALT tag is an HTML element that describes an image to a screen reader. ALT tags help blind people understand what the visual elements are on a page. Remember, the ALT tag is mainly used to aid people with disabilities.
- Image Title: You can put your keywords in the image title attribute. Its purpose is to specify extra information about an element but can also be used for SEO purposes.
- Filename: You can add your keywords to the image filenames for added SEO value. Just use dashes between the words like this: keyword-phrase.jpg.
- Image Meta Information: If you use an image editing software like Photoshop, you can manipulate the meta information that’s attached to the image. Often, these meta details are used to credit the photographer or graphic artist as well as provide searchable information for photo archives and databases.
DIV Tags
A tag is like a container in an HTML document that you can use to style elements with CSS or to manipulate them with JavaScript.
For example, you add a <div> on the page that contains your target keyword by coding it in the following ways:
- <div class = “keyword-phrase”>
- <div id = “keyword-phrase”>
HTML Title Attribute
Extra information about an HTML element can be specified using the title attribute. This attribute is also used for the text that appears when you hover your mouse over the element.
Here are the most basic elements you can use:
- Paragraphs: <p>
- Headings: <h1> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6>
- Horizontal Ruler: <hr>
- Anchor Tag: <a>
- Unorder and Ordered Lists: <ul> <ol>
- List Elements: <li>
- Images: <img>
- Dividers: <div>
- Spans: <span>
Link Anchor Text
Anchor text is the visible, clickable text in an HTML hyperlink. It is a good opportunity to add keywords that you want the target page to rank for.
An example of optimizing your anchor text for keywords would be to chose a phrase like “how many keywords per page” as your link text.
Places to Insert Keywords on Your Website
In your header
1. Title tags
Title tags are one of the most important places to use keywords because they are the first places that the search engines will scan. The title tag on each page should use the most important keywords.
The title tag is the text that appears in the title area of a web browser and on tabs (if the user is browsing with tabs). This is one of the areas where it is important to remember that SEO is not just about optimizing for search engines, but also for humans.
2. META description tag
The META description tag is a hidden tag within your header that only the search engines will see. The META description tag generally appears as a chunk of text underneath the link on the search engine results page.
When writing your META description tag, it’s important to be concise so that the search engines can see your keywords.
3. META keywords tag
Websites used to try and stuff this tag full of any and all keywords in the hopes that the search engines would chose something.
Most search engines use the META keywords tag differently than they did in the past, taking into account how well the keywords relate to the content on the website. It is important to use keywords that are relevant to both the website in general and the specific page being targeted.
In your content
4. Headers and Sub-headers
If you want to improve your titles and sub-headers, put keywords at the beginning. This will help people who are scanning your website quickly. Keep the titles clear, concise, and relevant.
5. Page content
So creating great content is a solid strategy in and of itself. The content on your website is the most important part of your website, and everything else on your website is secondary to it. People link to your content, and it is what will draw people to your website in the first place, so it is important to create great content.
Keyword density is an important thing to consider when writing your content. You want to try to use your target keyword phrase as often as possible, but be careful not to overdo it. The point is to sell your product to people, not to search engines, and if your content sounds unnatural it can turn people away and decrease your chances of making a sale.
As long as you’re aware of the phrase you’re targeting, you’ll probably have an adequate keyword density in the 3-5% range. It’s okay if the targeted keywords are more noticeable when you read through your content; that’s what the person was searching for and seeing it emphasized will let them know they’ve found the info they need to make their decision.
6. Link text
I try to avoid using “click here” in link text because it doesn’t help with search engine optimization. Links that use keywords in the link text are considered stronger by search engines, which contributes to their algorithm.
If you use specific keywords in your link text, search engines will be able to estimate how relevant those links are. This also helps build the relevancy of a particular page for a certain keyword phrase.
Bonus places
7. Breadcrumbs
Breadcrumbs are a common navigation tool on websites that can help people determine their location on the site and how to return to where they were previously. You can use keywords in your breadcrumbs as well as any other text on your website. Just make sure the breadcrumb links are brief and descriptive.
8. ALT and TITLE attributes
The attributes that were created for usability can also be used for SEO purposes by incorporating additional text that contains the desired keywords.
Make sure your element descriptions are relevant to the element they are describing, and don’t use them to duplicate content elsewhere on the page or stuff them full of keywords to the point that they become unreadable. Always prioritize usability over SEO when it comes to element descriptions.
9. Embedded file names
File names should be label specific and not generic to ensure people can easily identify what the page is about. This becomes increasingly important when using WordPress as the file name becomes visible when people hover over a link.
Instead of naming your image files something vague like “image01.jpg,” you can include a keyword in the name. This won’t be seen by anyone, but it’s another opportunity to get a keyword onto the page for the search engines.