Optimizing a website

[simpson7647]

Hi all,

We'll be looking to add our page titles, metatags shortly but first of all, we need to add some descriptions of our products.

We're aware the descriptions obviously have to be importative and easy to read for the reader we also need to keep it computer / search engine friendly in terms of keywords.

How many keywords would you recommend to add to the description to avoid being penalised for keyword stuffing.

Should these keywords also appear in your page title or metags or both?

Is it best to pick some middle of the range keywords and stay awway from those that are over popular with competitions etc.

Many thanks,

 

[webgeek]

The combination of domain name mention of keywords, categories on page, category and product urls with keywords, plus page title, meta description, h1 tag and body mentions, as well as image alt/title's - ALL go into determining the saturation.

Of course you don't want to mention the same keyword over and over in each of these, multiple times. But, the extent to which you optimise must be influenced by multiple factors. Yes, use some synonyms for goodness sake. Stop stuffing keywords and start writing more naturally. Everyone will appreciate it.

The rules for ratios of saturation vary based on whether you have an EMD or not, bigtime. This wasn't the case a year ago, but wow have times changed!

 

[jamesosix]

write for users not search engines. There are so many different ranking factors and meta descriptions only play a very small role in the grand scheme of things.

Think of each page/product as having a "focus keyword" this is the main keyword for that particular page. So say its about lemon cupcakes for example, your FKW would be "lemon cupcakes". So that would be in your page title, your meta description and within the content of that page.

Make sure your meta descriptions describe the product, are not keyword stuffed and have a clear call to action in them.

Best of luck

 

[sophiesearch]

Agree with both of these comments. Definitely use a more natural approach and try and write engaging descriptions and content for your users rather than Google. There's a useful article on the Moz blog about optimising your page (6th July 2013)
Also you can still mention the highly competitive keywords as long as they are relevant as Google will recognise the topic of your site and what its about.

 

[michelle222]

Write the product description as what it should suppose to be. You can optimize and use your keywords in your blog section or articles instead. This is probably the best way to avoid keyword stuffing.

 

[web-design-stories]

Yes write more natural, of course add single keyword for each product, but remember that spamming keywords isn't good.
You should have item's title, it's keyword or both in your website title. This is very easy to do and so good to have =)

As Google advises - write short, include 1 keyword and mention what user will achieve by *clicking / buying* All this should be in your description.

 

[seowise]

How many keywords would you recommend to add to the description to avoid being penalised for keyword stuffing.

Focus on writing a copy that will resonate with your users. Use keywords when natural. I'm not a big fan of calculating keyword density, but sth up to 3% is probably safe.

Should these keywords also appear in your page title or metags or both?

According to most SEO experts, page title is still a ranking signal. So you might want including keywords into your title. Just make sure the whole phrase sounds natural and appealing to humans because that's the phrase they'll see in their search results and decide whether they want clicking it or not.

As for other tags (description, keywords, alt tags), it doesn't matter much if you include those or not. Write description to engage Google users. Write alt tags to help those who have their images off and to rank in Google images (if it makes sense as part of your strategy). Ignore keyword tag. It'll be no more than a hint to your competitors to see what keywords you're targeting.

Is it best to pick some middle of the range keywords and stay awway from those that are over popular with competitions etc.

Use all ranges that make sense. Sometimes you'd hear advice that the more keywords you have, the better. I short clarification is the more keywords that make sense (i.e. that are likely to be used by your target audience you have), the better.

 

[simpson7647]

Thank you very much for the info, much appreciated.