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When someone is searching for information on the web, they will usually visit a search engine and type in some words describing what they are looking for. The search engine then checks its database and returns the results listing pages that meet the words submitted.

These words used by people searching can be called keywords or search terms. If you have done a search using the search engines, you will know that a single word will generate results that are very broad and frequently irrelevant. To fine-tune your search, you need to use a number of words or a phrase. This often gives you a more relevant search result.

Why are they important?
Keywords are important as they can be used successfully in conjunction with the search engines to provide you with a free source of targeted traffic to your web site. They enable people who need your product, service or information to find you. Appropriate keywords are like a telephone number for your business and the search engine is like the telephone book – it lists your name and number.

What is a keyword phrase?
This is the combination of 2 or 3 keywords to form a phrase. For example, 'search', 'engine', and 'placement' could be considered as 3 individual entities, but when they are combined to create 'search engine placement' , it forms a very powerful 'keyword phrase' .

How to choose your keywords
Choosing the right keywords is the first step to better search engine positioning. Analyze your business carefully and think of all the words that relate to your company or product. Let's say you sell sheet metal . What words would you search for when looking for the same product? Ask your colleagues and friends to think about the same question. It is important to think like a customer rather than an industry insider.

As you think about keywords, consider the following:

Who needs your products?
Think about who will use your products, then target them with keywords. For example, if you know that people in the fabrication industry need sheet metal, add words like "sheet metal fabrication" and "custom sheet metal" to your list.

Include variations of your keywords
People will search for your site using all sorts of keywords. Making your site easy to find means including misspelled, capitalized and plural keywords. Always include the longer forms of keywords too.

Avoid wrong keywords
Do not use "stop words" -- particles like "and" and "the" and common words like "industry." Remember, the more specific your keywords are, the better the chance that people who find your site through search engines will actually benefit from its content.

Look at your competition
If you have any competitors that are doing well online, look at what terms they're advertising and ranking for. You can get ideas for your own terms by doing competitive research.

Knowing where and how you can use your keywords will greatly improve the efficiency of your search engine optimization.

There are 5 places in a web page where you can use keywords:

The Title Tag
The Keyword Meta Tag
The Description Meta Tag
Alt Tags for images
Body copy on the page

Of these the page Body Copy, the readable text on the page, is the single most important place for your keywords. More about this later.

Let's first take a look at the Title Tag. This is one of the tags in the head section of the html code of your web page and lists the title that is displayed in the web browser. For instance, Internet Explorer displays this tag in the top bar of the browser window. But there are other uses for the Title Tag as well. Most search engines will index this tag for information about your site and many search engines will use this tag as the title of your listing.

In general you can use from 60 to 115 characters in a Title Tag. The Tag can include the company name, especially if it is a well known company, and should include your most important keywords. Consider this a short description of your web page. One more thing, the Title Tag is also used as the link when the URL is saved into a web browser favorites list.

The Keyword Meta Tag used to be the main way search engines indexed your page. Now-a-days many search engines will simply ignore this tag, but that may not always stay the case. Some search engines still take s look at this tag to help categorize your site. There is no reason not to have this tag on your page, just in case. You are not penalized for including a Keyword Meta Tag.

The keywords should be separated by a comma. Put more specific keywords first then put the less important and general keywords later on. Search engines no longer pay attention to the case of a keyword, so the keywords can all be lower case. I have seen recommendations of 25 keywords or 1000 characters in the list. In general Keyword pairs or triplets are better than single keywords. I try to have one or two lines of keywords if I use this tag.

The Description Meta Tag is slowly joining the Keywords Meta Tag on the lack of support list. But right now it is still a valuable place to use your keywords. Many search engines will look at the description Meta tag for keywords to compare against your body copy. Yahoo goes one step further and will use your description tag as the description of your site in their listings. Consider the description tag just like it is named, a concise description of your site. Keep it to a short paragraph, under 50 words.

Alt tags are text descriptions that are included with the code used to display images on a page. Basically an Alt tag is the Alternate Text version of the image in case the image is not displayed. Alt tags are important for creating a fully accessible site for people who use screen reader technology that reads the page out loud through their computer speakers. Obviously an image cannot be read aloud, but the Alt tag can. Alt tags are also displayed as a quick popup when you "hover" your mouse pointer over an image. Many search engines, including Google, will index the Alt tags along with the rest of the body copy, making these ideal places to slip in a few more keywords. Just keep in mind that the text should accurately reflect the content of the image. Plus don't use Alt tags on images that would not normally be read out loud, such as separator lines or bullets.

This brings us to the main place to use your keywords, the body copy on the page, the text that your visitors are reading when they visit your site. The major search engines will no longer give you a top placement just for having the most instances of a particular keyword on your page. They will give top listing to what they believe is the most relevant page on a topic. Your job is to work your keyword into the text frequently, but appropriately. Select one or two keywords and make the page specifically about those keywords. Think of yourself giving a PowerPoint presentation to an audience of your best customers. Your PowerPoint slides will be your paragraphs. They should be concise and to the point, using your keywords to drive home your point. And, just like in a PowerPoint presentation, you can use bulleted lists to call out the several benefits of your site or product, each time relating it to your selected keyword.

So use your keywords appropriately on your site and use them where you can. This will greatly increase your search engine effectiveness.