Keywords are how the search engines know what your content is all about and who they should send to your page based on search results.
Below are a few tools to use to research the words our customers use in their searches — we ultimately want to incorporate these keywords into our page content:
There are many keyword research tools — ACF prefers the Google tools:
- Google Trends — view frequency of search queries over time, related topics, related queries (Free & Easy)
- Google Keyword Planner — Keyword Planner is a tool that provides keyword ideas and traffic estimates to help optimize search.
- Google Analytics / Google Webmaster Tools — view and analyze what keywords visitors are using to enter your website, determine popular search queries and crawl statistics.
Tips for Building Keyword List
A very helpful strategy when building a keyword list is to keep track of them in a spreadsheet (complete with number of views per day). Do keyword research for your niche, and find the most valuable keywords (in the right form: plural, singular, etc.)
- Think like a user when you create your list
Write down the main categories and topics for your Program Office, then write down the terms or phrases that might fall under each of those categories. Include terms or phrases your users would use to describe your content or service.
- Select specific keywords to target specific user profiles.
Find the few words that best describe what your content (or blog post) is about. Ideally there are 5-10 keywords that specifically tie into your content.
Examples of keyword strings for Child Support:
- How do I get child support in [state]?
- Pay my child support
- Tax break on child support
- Legal help for child support
- Child support, laws, paying, taxes, tax exemption, etc.
Where to Place Your Keywords
URLs and Filenames
URLs and filenames should be used to describe the site or file to visitors and search engines.
- Use hyphens to separate words (no underscores or special characters)
- /ecd/interagency-projects (correct)
- /ecd/interagency_projects (incorrect)
- Be descriptive and use keywords
Page Title
Title tags appear in two places:
- In the browser as the browser title
- In search engine results page listings
In general, the closer you place the keyword in the beginning of the title tag, the more weight it will have with search engines.
- Should be no more than 70 characters long
- Should contain page-specific keywords
ACF Page
Heading tags (from
to ) are used to define headings on a page.
Use keyword research to write headings.
- Keywords should be used on every page, including the homepage
- Keywords should contain page-specific keywords
Body Copy
Sprinkle your keywords throughout the copy.
But...
- Don't simply repeat your keywords over and over
- Your visitors should not feel that you have deliberately repeated a particular word or phrase throughout the page-make the copy coherent and compelling.
Alt Text with Media
Alt text is text that describes an image or media file. The text appears in an alt tag.
- Should include keywords in the alt tag
- All image or media files should include an alt tag
