Choosing Keywords: Some Tips
November 9, 1998
Most search engines are case insensitive, with the exception of Altavista and
Infoseek.
There is no need to capitalize every keyword. Some people like
to, but you really only need to capitalize those terms that would
naturally be that way, ie place names, etc. Also, include the
capitalized abbreviated terms such as
CSS (short for Cascading Style
Sheets) where again, naturally you might expect the term to be
capitalized, along with the term in lower case.
The same goes for plural forms of words. If you would naturally expect
them to be plural, then use that form.
Also, don't feel the need to enter misspelled words into your
keywords. The various misspelling of words could waste up to 10 words.
It seems likely that the searcher, upon discovering the spelling
error, would search again with the proper spelling. Besides, there's
already poor enough spelling on the web. The only exception would be
for keywords that are very difficult to spell.
Some Online Help
Using a thesaurus might help you come up with some terms you might
not have thought of. Try
Roget Thesaurus.
Have a look at what keywords are actually being used. Sites like
Search Voyeur at Magellan and
MetaCrawler's Metaspy can tell you what words are being
searched for at that exact moment, and more importantly, how searches
are done. Searchers are still for the large part, using only one or
two terms for each search.
Dog Pile - Top 200 Search Words
from the popular Metasearch engine, offered by EyeScream Interactive.
Yahoo! Top 200 Search Words
This list is from October 1996, but I fear, for the most part, it's
still a reasonably accurate reflection on what people are searching
for.
WordSpot - Advanced Detection Center
A weekly listing of top ten keywords and ten key phrases; you can have
the report emailed to you. They also offer a customized report based
on your keywords.
Searchterms.com
Top 100 Search terms each month.
After you have your keyword list, send your list to all of your
buddies, business associates etc., and listen to their opinion.
Everyone has their own techniques for searching online, they might
think of some you've missed.
Choosing Keywords: Finding the Perfect Keywords
Choosing Keywords
Choosing Keywords: Using Your Keywords
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