Developing your list of keywords

Keywords are another important aspect of your Web pages, since many search engines will use these to rank your Web site in their listings. Keywords should be used in your title, description, and between the HTML META tags. Keywords convey what your business does, your product and service benefits, and can determine how your site will be found by prospects.

Start by making a list of about 50 keywords, and then rank them in order of importance. Make sure that you clearly identify your top 5 keywords, since you will want to include these in you title and description. For instance, if you were starting an online travel agency, then your top five keywords might be: travel, agency, airfares, hotels, and vacation. After you have made your list, check your keywords with as many search engines as possible, and see what sites are listed at the top of the results. You may also want to see how these sites are using your keywords by checking their META description and keyword tags (use Source from the View menu in your browser).

Once you have completed your list, you will want to include them between the keyword	Use Inktomi Search/Submit to get your web site listed right-away.
META tags of the document.  The format for this tag is <meta name="keywords" content="your Web site keywords are inserted here">.

In the past, some Web site developers were successful at getting high rankings on search engines by repeating keywords as often as possible. This method worked because rankings were determined by keyword density, or by the number of times a word was repeated on the document. Higher search engine rankings were given to Web sites that had multiple occurrences of the same keyword. However, search engine administrators are now wise to this practice and may penalize sites if a certain keyword is repeated too many times.