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.

There really isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer to the question. It depends upon the subject of the article, the length of the article and the purpose of the links in question.

Links can be placed beside an article…usually to the left.

These links usually are for the purpose of directing the reader to related information contained within the article and sometimes leading to sponsored advertisements for products and services that are discussed in the article.

It has been determined that the worst place to put links is at the bottom of an article. They are the least effective and generally overlooked by readers.

Links within an article are considered the most effective placement. Links within an article can be given as an http://www.whatever.com link or embedded within relevant words or phrases and appear as keyword.

It is important that links open in new windows, however, to avoid distracting the reader and also to keep them from surfing away from the site.

Articles that are used for marketing should always contain at least one link in the http:// format because the articles are sometimes used by ezines that are published in plain text and links that are embedded in key words or phrases will not be available to readers to click on.

Writers of articles always want at least one link that can be copied and pasted into an address bar to cover this circumstance of the reproduction of an article.

Links beside or within an article can be helpful to the reader but they should be used with care so as not ever to distract the reader from the article itself.

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.