Keywords

Sandy Paluzzi
The Bead Peddler

Some of you have web sites, other have stores on ebay, etsy or artfire.   If you have any online presence you should have a good understanding of key words. 

First of all a keyword is used to get you noticed by search engines so you show up in the search results.  A keyword can be 1 word or many - e.g. 'beaded jewelry' could be a keyword. 

The first step is to determine what keywords you want to use.  First of all, they should be representative of what you sell.  They also should be words or phrases that others use to look for what you sell.  You can get help in choosing your keywords.  Several sites offer tools that show you frequency of searches on different keyword phrases.  The site I always use is https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal .  This site will take the phrase you enter, generate synonyms and give you both the local and global usage for these terms.  For example, I just typed in beaded necklace.  The google tool showed me that bead necklace is used much more frequently than beaded necklace.  It also showed me that necklace is used more often than bead necklace.  But the term necklace is very general and very competitive.  If the decision were mine, I would opt for bead necklace. 

This is not to say that you can only have one keyword for your webpage.  You can have multiple keywords.  While you can have as many keywords as you like, I would suggest that less is more.  I would go for 3 or 4 keywords per page.  The keywords can be different on different pages, e.g. bead necklace on a necklace page and bead bracelet on a page of bracelets.

Once you have chosen your keywords, you will place them on your webpage.  If you administer your own website, you will make meta tags to hold your keywords.  If you have a storefront on ebay or etsy, you will be prompted to put your keywords into an input box.

Once you input your keywords into the header information, you will also include them in the visible text on your page.  Now, how often to use a keyword in your text is an often asked question.  I have never found a definitive number.  If you don't use the keywords often enough in your text, you will be overlooked by the search engine.  However, if you overuse them, you will also be ignored by the search engines.  I would say this is a matter of trial and error.  When planning for the search engine keywords, it is also important to realize your final goal is to sell your products to the customers who will be reading the text.  You don't want to use the keywords so often that they interfere with a human's understanding of your text. 

Maintaining keywords to please both your customers and the search engines requires trial and error.  It is a time consuming, long term project as it takes the search engines weeks to respond to your page changes.  However, this is time well spent.  After all, a website does not exist in a vacuum.  Customers must first be able to find your site, then they must be able to enjoy reading the information on the webpage. 

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