Early wisdom on keyword optimization was simple – make sure you had good keywords in your meta tags. While that still holds true, it is but one link in a long chain, or one level in the keyword hierarchy as I like to call it.

For every keyword you are optimizing your website, or individual page for, there are multiple levels at which that keyword needs to appear. While no one has completely figured out Google’s shell game yet, we know Google needs to see your keywords throughout the hierarchy that appears on each web page. You can think of the hierarchy from the top down, starting from the top of the page.

At the top of your browser screen, you will see the page title. Depending on your browser, it is likely a blue bar at the top with white text. The page title’s purpose is to summarize the content on the page with a descriptive title. Since this is what shows in someones favorites list if they were to bookmark the page, it should clearly define the page in one short sentence. Of equal, or more importance, the page title should contain your primary keywords that are on the page. These are the keywords that are most relevant to the content on your site and important words or phrases that a potential customer would use to find your website. If a page title cannot convey both relevancy to the page content and contain a searchable phrase a customer would use to find you on the search engines, then you don’t have a good page title. Sadly, this is commonly the case as a site owner will give their pages titles such as “Welcome to our website” or “Welcome to ABC Company, serving you since 1979″.

Important point – “Welcome” is not a keyword, not relevant to any content on your website (unless you sell welcome mats) and is not descriptive to a site visitor. Strike this word from your website keywords and description, including it’s use in the page title description – it is draining value from your real keywords. Do the same with other fluff words that don’t describe anything meaningful about your company.

Since page titles are at the top of our hierarchy, I like to think of a webpage’s title as its mission statement. If you were to share your company’s mission statement, I guarantee it does not say “Our goal is to welcome customers to our store” or “Our mission is be in business for a long period of time”.  Think about what the mission of that particular page is, and then summarize it into one short sentence – that is your page title.

This is a repost from my January 2008 eNewsletter:

“Picking the right keywords for your website does not necessarily mean what best describes your company and products/services or even what necessarily brings you the most traffic. Picking the right keywords means optimizing your website for the keywords and keyword phrases that will bring you the most customers to your site – customers that are ready and willing to spend money with you.

The first key is being specific. If you sell televisions, for example, using “television” or “tv” as a keyword will not likely do much for you. Instead, gather as much information on your televisions as possible to create more specific keywords. Do you only sell flat-screen televisions? How about plasma or LCD? Do you sell HD-ready televisions? Wide-screen? Used televisions? Once you have gathered all this data, you may find that a good keyword for your website is “used plasma hdtv” or “refurbished flat-screen tv”.

The keyword phrase of “used plasma hdtv” will be an easier keyword to optimize your website for than “television” and will bring customers who are specifically searching for what you are offering. Studies show that when someone is searching on a more specific keyword or keyword phrase they are closer to a buying decision than if they just use a general keyword term. Having ten visitors to your site that are ready to buy beats 100 visitors that are just looking around.

After you have picked your keywords, make sure your site is optimized for these keywords. Don’t try to optimize your entire site or home page for all your keywords. You might have 10 pages on your site, but only one geared towards used plasma HD televisions – optimize this page for that keyword. Yes, this means having separate keywords for different pages on your site as opposed to a blanket list of keywords for your site as a whole. It’s a bit more work, but the results will be worth it.

After your site is live, review what keywords are working and which are not. View the traffic stats provided by your hosting company to see which keyword terms visitors are typing into search engines to get to your site. If certain product or service pages are not getting much traffic, make improvements to the keyword optimization or brainstorm on new keywords that you are not using yet. Find out your rankings for your keywords and track their movement on a monthly basis. If you have a top ranking for a keyword, but little to no traffic to your site for that keyword, then it is pretty safe to determine that a different keyword or keywords are needed to capture the attention of potential customers.

By constantly analyzing your keywords performance you will be able to make the needed changes to maximize potential customers to your website.”