Factsheet: Keywords and Search Text
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A few years ago, when search engines were not very sophisticated, it was possible to add 'keywords' into the definition of a web page (the 'meta-tags'), and these were then used by the search engines to classify the page. This was easy to do and worked well.
However there was always the possibility that these keywords didn't really represent the content of the site, either by accident or because the website designer had tried to trick the search engines. So nowadays most search engines ignore these meta-tag keywords.
The exact way that search engines look through the words in your site is a closely guarded secret, and frequently changing, but there are certain generally accepted conventions. They scan through your site as a whole, and decide for themselves what is important. Very clever. But it does mean that it is important to choose the wording for text very carefully.
Put simply, you need to choose a few words that you believe people will enter into a search engine when looking for a property like yours, and focus on these words. These might be, for example 'villa in Brittany'. You then focus on this phrase, trying to repeat it reasonably often, while keeping your text sensible!
It is especially important to choose carefully the words in the Title of the page (the text that appears at the top of the browser window), the description of the page, and the Header (the main heading of the page). Thus, you should choose a heading such as 'Villa in Brittany' rather than 'Welcome to our website'.
The same words should also appear a few times in the text, possibly highlighted in bold or italics. But don't overdo it. Google can strike you off their search results if they think you are cheating by overemphasising various words. The text still needs to read clearly and be interesting.
Each page in your site can focus on a different phrase.
Problem is, there are a lot of people trying to do the same, especially for a phrase that is often searched on. Chances are, if you choose a phrase like 'villa in Brittany' it will still be difficult to come high in the search engine results. So you need to choose a phrase that some people will still look for, but less often than the key phrases. 'Cottage near Dinan', 'villa with pool in Brittany', etc.
In summary, the keywords that are defined as keywords in the head of the file (invisible to the site visitor) are no longer very important. Keywords within the text itself, the headings and titles, are important.
This site is listed in the big tangle free directory, among others. It is a good idea to add your new site to a few directories to 'get the ball rolling' with your chosen search phrase.