Keywords contained within a Web page are the most important element to achieving high search engine rankings. Keywords are by no means the only relevant factor in how search engines rank a Web page. Other factors also count. But the majority of SEO strategies involve a Web page's keywords in one form or another. Therefore, it's fair to say that keywords are the most important element to achieving top search engine rankings. After all, if a page had no text at all, there is nothing for a search engine to index!

and most frequently used by the target audience

Fortunately, there are tools to help you find out what those all important keywords are. You can find keyword marketing tools in the Marketing Tools Directory of my Mike's Marketing Tools web site. There is also a free list of the top 500 frequently searched internet keywords extracted from various popular meta search engines.

Keyword frequency refers to the number of times a keyword phrase appears within a page. The theory is that the more times a keyword/s appears within a Web page, the more relevant the page is likely to be for someone searching those keywords. But do not abuse the system by repeating the same keywords over and over again.

Keyword density is the ratio (percentage) of keywords contained within the total number of indexable words within a Web page. In general, I suggest using a keyword density ratio in the range of 2-8%. Personally worry about it too much about it.

Keyword prominence is about improving the prominence of keywords by placing important keywords at the top of a Web page. Basically, the closer your important keywords are to the start of a page, a sentence, title or meta tag, the better.

Keyword proximity refers to the closeness between two or more keywords. In general, the closer the keywords are, the better.

If someone searched for "keyword marketing," a Web page containing the first sentence is likely to rank higher than the second, because the two keywords are closer together.

Word stemming is a concept used by some search engines to return search results that include keywords that extend beyond what you searched for. For example, a search with the keyword "optimize" might return results for, "optimizes," "optimizer," and "optimizers." In general, always try to use the longer version of a keyword, especially plurals.

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Ignoring stop words helps to reduce the amount of storage needed to index the billions of pages of data, and enhance the speed and relevancy of the search results. Only full-text search engines, such as Alta Vista, index every single word on a Web page. As such, always try to use keywords instead of stop words as much as possible. Admittedly, it maybe a bit more difficult to read, but I think it is worth the sacrifice, in the cause of trying to achieve higher search engine rankings. You'll find a huge list of almost 300 stop words in my SEO book.

You see how the #1 ranked domain is made up of the exact keywords I searched for? This is why I generally recommend registering keyword rich domain names for search engine optimization campaigns. By the way, if you're looking to register a domain name for your search engine optimization campaign, or for any other reason, please give my cheap domain registration service a try. Prices start from only US$5.95 for one year, which is extremely cheap! Even at that low price, you will still receive great service. ;o)

Did you also notice that the domain name used a hyphen to separate the keywords? I have yet to find conclusive proof that separating keywords in a domain name improves rankings. But I do suggest that you do use this format, just to be on the safe side. After all, you wouldn't want a search engine to index the wrong keywords.

For example, what are the keywords in this domain name, "indiatours.com?" Are they "india" and "tours," or "india" and "tours?" You can see how a search engine can easily index different keywords from those you had in mind. If the domain name is, "india-tour.com," it would be clear to a search engine exactly what the keywords are.

Take a look at the #2 ranked listings in the above illustration. Notice how they named the directory part of the web site address with the keywords I searched for, as highlighted in bold? So not only is it a good idea to register keyword rich domain names, it's also a good idea to name directories and file names after the keywords you're targeting.