Using keywords and phrases effectively on a website might be considered a mix of art and science. The HTML of a website should use key words in the title tag and each page of the website should contain sentences using the key words or phrases.

The highest ranking key words should be used in the home page title and as many times as possible but the title needs to make sense.

Meta tags are important as well. Put all of the relevant key words into your Meta tags. Meta tags should never be longer than twenty-five words long.

They should contain key words and phrases repeated two or three times. Don’t forget that they still need to make sense.

Single key words are usually very competitive so key phrases are often more effective than single words. Over use of key words and phrases can actually hurt you.

Always use either a comma or a space to separate key words and phrases…one OR the other, though….not both. It is important to include common misspellings of key words, as well.

This is important! It is well known that search engines consider the first 250 words on a website to be the most important.

They consider relevancy and density of key words and phrases. Anything more than a five to seven percent density, however, is considered spamming by search engines.

Every single one of the millions of people who are surfing the Internet as we speak are using the search engines to find the "stuff" they want or need.

If they don’t find our business in their search results, we don’t have a prayer of making them into our customers. Search engine optimization (SEO) is key to our very survival.

The key to search engine optimization is the use of key words and phrases in the content on our websites. If we use them wisely and to our best advantage we get listed in the results when people use our key words in their searches. If we use them poorly, we won’t be found.

Key words and phrases need to be in the title of our home page….more than one time. They need to be included in our Meta tags, as well.

The density key words in the first 250 words on the home page needs to be between five and seven percent. If we use less, we won’t be listed and if we use more, we will be seen by the search engines as spamming.

It’s a fine line. This means that out of the first 250 words on a home page and including the title, the key words and phrases should be used between 12 and 17 times. No less than 12 and no more than 17 is about right and don’t forget this includes the title.

It is important that key words are used on every page of a website. They should not be as dense as they are in the first 250 words but they do need to be used.

Blatant and unrelated use of key words is not a good idea. That will be seen by the search engine as spamming.