From my last 2 posts, you learned how to find keywords and got 47 blog topics for your small business. The next step is to insert your keywords into your CityMax site or blog post.
Before you start inserting your keywords, just a reminder that people will be reading what you write so make sure you don’t sacrifice writing flow to insert your keywords. Your end goal after all is to provide useful information so people will make a purchase and keep coming back to your website.
Here are the different places you can insert keywords:
1. Page content
Put your keywords into your writing. In particular, try to include them into your page headings and subheadings as experts believe putting them there gives them extra weight to the search engines. Generally, you want keywords to appear in 3% of the words on your page — this is called keyword density. You can use a free tool like KeywordDensity.com to analyze your page.
2. Image filenames and ALT tags
When you post an image, put keywords into the filename, but remember to put underscores or dashes between words. For example, if your keyword is “broadway musical” you might use filename broadway_musical.jpg. Additionally, put your keywords into your ALT tags (alternate text that appears when you mouse over an image) for your images. Since this text shows, make sure the text is relevant to your image.
On CityMax, click on the 
button. Select an image and make sure to fill out the box under “Alternative Text” (this is your ALT tag information). Here I’ve targeted “chess strategy” as a keyword:
Put keywords into your image's ALT (alternative) text
3. Links to your page
Put keywords into link text that is going to your page. For example, at the top of this post, I’ve posted link 47 blog topics for your small business. One of the keywords for the page I linked to is “blog topics” so I made sure to include that text in my link.
4. Title tags, meta description and meta keywords
When title tags are inserted in the coding for a page, your title tag information appears at the top of your browser window and/or browser tab.
Insert keywords into title tags
Your meta description and meta keywords are also in your page’s coding. They’re not visible on your page. They tell search engines that review your page what your page is about. The meta description is a description in sentence form of your page content. The meta keywords are a list of keywords describing your page.
Generally, meta tags don’t carry much weight with the search engines like they did in the past. This is because people spammed them with their keywords to the point where they weren’t a useful summary of a page anymore. However, it’s still good to include them. To make them more relevant, I recommend only 1 sentence for the meta description and 4 to 6 keywords for your meta keywords for each page.
Another important point about your title tag and meta description is that they appear on Google when someone does a search for a page. For example, I did a search for “music lessons seattle” and the link was drawn from the page’s title tag (highlighted yellow) and the description from the meta description (highlighted pink):
Google Search Result
On CityMax, you can set this up by clicking “Edit Page” and then “Properties.” In the pop-up, click on the “Meta Tags” tab.
Put keywords in your title tags and meta tags
5. Web address (URL)
As part of your web address, insert your keywords. For example, on CityMax you can customize each page’s web address by clicking “Edit Page,” then “Properties” and lastly “Main” tab. If your keyword is “new york walking tours,” you could have web address www.happynewyorkertours.com/new_york_walking_tours.html.
Put keywords in your web address
You now have the tools to write great articles for your site, find relevant keywords for your webpages and insert the keywords into your webpages.
June 2nd, 2011 at 9:18 pm
I’ve always wondered about how to deal with keyword density on my catalogue pages. Let’s say my main keyword is hockey stick and I have 40 different hockey sticks on my catalogue page. By using alt tags on my images (as recommended) for every product, am I not exceeding that key work on this page by a huge margin? Same with my product description ie. hockey stick a, hockey stick b, hockey stick c. Again I am automatically exceeding my key word on this page big time! So, what to do???
June 3rd, 2011 at 3:15 pm
I think it’s fine to use “hockey stick” for all your images but you may want to differentiate them slightly like this:
hockey stick front view
hockey stick close up
Easton Stealth hockey stick
Reebok One-Piece Hockey Stick
It does look odd when every picture only says “hockey stick,” but if you differentiate them in a meaningful way, it works much better. I didn’t mention this in the post, but your ALT text serves a second function too. If images are broken or the visitor has intentionally made it so the images do not automatically show, your ALT text will show. So, having a bit more explanation than “hockey stick” is a good idea from a practical standpoint too.
June 9th, 2011 at 9:57 am
Thank you so much for all this information. These properties are definitely what I have been having problems with. However I just went into one of my images that I linked a page to and put words into the alt-tag. When I saved it and checked by hovering my mouse over the picture nothing comes up. Am I doing this wrong? Thank you in advance. Cindy @ Double Dragon Jewelry.
http://www.silverjewelry-sterling.com
June 10th, 2011 at 9:40 am
Hi Cindy. Which page and which image did you put the ALT information on? Thanks!
June 13th, 2011 at 8:44 am
Hi Emily, I understand what you’re saying, however,many SEO sites talk about not exceeding your key word density by 3%, 5% etc. Are you saying that my site won’t be penalized for repeating the same key word in alt text for 40 products on a page (which would put my page key word density at 80%). I need to be certain of this before I change the alt text in every one of my 500 catalogue items. Can you provide me with some specific references?
Thanks
June 14th, 2011 at 10:14 am
I think you have a good point. 80% keyword density seems like a page that’s spammed.
I do think if you have a high keyword density in your written text (i.e. in your paragraphs, headings), it would look like keyword stuffing and seem unnatural to read. Don’t do that. However, for ALT text and file names if every photo is actually of a hockey stick, it seems reasonable that the word “hockey stick” would be used in part to describe your images. Again, per my earlier comment, just make sure it’s clear you’ve differentiated each image with it’s own description like the examples I gave. As a general rule, descriptions should be short and relevant. If all your images turned to x’s, ask yourself: Would your alt text be a helpful description to someone who wanted to know what the image is?
According to Google’s own guidelines (http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/www.google.com/tl//webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf and go to page 17-18), they concur with my thoughts on alt tags.
If you like, please send me a link to the page you’re thinking of keywording and I’ll try and help you further.
June 14th, 2011 at 5:09 pm
Hi Randy, I asked professional SEO expert and copywriter Elizabeth Southall your question and she had said:
September 9th, 2011 at 3:05 am
Hey there, Could I download that snapshot and use it on my own weblog?
September 9th, 2011 at 9:50 am
As long as you link back to us, you’re welcome to borrow our ideas. Please no re-posts of the entire article as search engines may de-list links to your site for duplicate content.