Choosing the right keywords 'essential for SEO'

Successful search engine optimisation (SEO) depends on choosing the correct keywords, according to an industry commentator.

Writing for technology blog Tech Leader, Shaun Oakes said that the key phrases selected for SEO should be frequently searched for, relevant to the content of a website, and not too common.

He recommended looking for the most commonly-searched phrases using Keyword Discovery, WordTracker or the Google Adword Tool and selecting which ones to focus on.

The pages should be optimised for one or two of these phrases, Mr Oakes advised, adding that it is important to have a title tag focused on these keywords.

Keywords and phrases should be mentioned near the beginning, near the middle and near the end of the copy on a webpage for the most successful SEO, he added.

Nevertheless, according to Mr Oakes, copy should read clearly as there is "nothing worse" than text clearly written for search engine spiders.

According to Google, stuffing pages with too many keywords can lead to "a negative user experience" and cause a site to go down in the search ranking results.

The Google webmaster help area recommends eliminating misused keywords which can be found in hidden text, lists, or randomly repeated throughout a page.