The Whole Truth About Search Engine Optimization
A Pet Sitter's Guide to Google, Yahoo and DMOZ

Part 3: The Truth About Keywords

For the longest time, website owners have believed that if they stuff their sites with excessive lists of keywords; especially popular search terms (even if they are irrelevant to the topic of the site), that this will improve their search rankings. We've all been to websites with ridiculously long and gaudy lists of keywords in margins, or seen alt tag image descriptions that span half the page. Website owners are obsessed with long lists of keywords that could take up pages and pages in a dictionary. In the beginning you could cram these keywords in various parts of your site, and it would make a difference. Not any more. Google, Yahoo and others have caught on, and you have a better chance of being penalized than benefiting if you over-stuff your page with excessive or irrelevant keywords.

Both Google and Yahoo have taken a different approach to the keyword dilemma. In short, you could say that Google cares more about off-site factors, and Yahoo cares more about on-site factors. But to say that either completely disregards keywords can be a fatal mistake. Both factor them, but Yahoo reportedly gives them more weight. Keywords are an important part of the puzzle. The problem has been, too many web designers thought that they were the entire solution.

When we say keyword, of course we mean the words that internet users (potential customers) type into the text field of a search engine. When you design a website you must put yourself in the shoes of the person using the search engine. The keywords they search for may not necessarily be the first vocabulary words that come to your mind when you talk about your business.

Your most important keywords generally include your business name and/or your personal name, your location (neighborhood, city, state), and words describing your fundamental services. You should emphasize these words as much as possible (within reason) in your site. The key is to use relevant words. Well written text within a site is very important. Off-topic vocabulary and excessive lists of words can count against you. Don't stuff your page with references to "Brittany Spears" and "Harry Potter" just because you hear their names (keywords) are popular.

Put your place in your customers shoes and imagine what words and phrases they will search for. Specific words and phrases are better than general phrases, and will usually get better results. Here's an example: "San Francisco pet sitters" is better than "California pet sitters," and if you can narrow that down to your neighborhood rather than San Francisco, even better. The broader in scope your keywords are, the more competition you will have.

Lets try another example. If you specialize in Newfoundland dogs, try phrases like "Newfoundland pet sitters" and "Boston Newfoundland pet sitters" (if you lived in Boston). Simply using "Newfoundland" or "pet sitter" alone is too broad. You'd have no hope of getting a high ranking. Don't go overboard though. Search engines (Google specifically), has gotten pretty smart. If you enter "pet sitter" into a search, it is going to come up with derivations like "pet sitters" and "pet sitting." You don’t need to concentrate on building up every variation of each word.