Perhaps the single most important thing you can do when you are going to optimize a site for search engines is to properly research the keywords and know how your audience is searching for your site. This will then guide you on the best way to optimize your site. There are a few basic steps to getting started.

First, you will want to decide if you are going to target a broad based keyword, more on point and refined keywords or both. For example, a broad based keyword might be something like “web hosting.” That is a very broad search term and could be very hard to optimize successfully for. You could give it a try, and you might get some ranking, but it is probably better to go after a bunch of smaller, less searched and more targeted keywords like “seo web hosting.” If someone types the word “hosting” into Google you never know what they could be looking for. When they type in “seo web hosting” it is pretty specific. If you sell an SEO web hosting package on your web hosting site you will probably want to target that keyword.

Aaron Wall has actually suggested that you optimize like an upside down pyramid where you focus on some big broad keywords then as you get further into your site you optimize parts of it for more refined keywords and narrow down the keywords until you are targeting very specific and on point keywords. This allows you to cover a wide range and get targeted customers as well as some more broad based customers.

As you start to narrow down the list of keywords you want to optimize, doing research really can help you determine which words/terms to use. You may find people are searching for variations on your term that you had never even thought of. One of the best keyword research tools you will find is free and on Google’s website.

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

This tool allows you to type in a keyword and it will kick back to you all the most commonly searched for variations of that word/term as well as how many monthly searches it gets and how competitive of a keyword it is. It will also suggest other options. For “web hosting” it also suggests “good web hosting,” “best web hosting service,” and “buy web hosting” (among more than 145 others) as keywords I might want to try. Using this tool alone I could optimize myself for 145 different variations of the keyword “web hosting,” many of which are not very competitive.

You always want to do heavy keyword research on any site you optimize to make sure you are getting the best keywords for your site as well as making sure you are focusing on keywords that you have a chance to compete and rank well within. The better your research the more likely you are to get targeted viewers to your site that will convert into paying customers.

Talk to the best web hosting company to buy web hosting and many times get free good SEO consulting advice with your web hosting package. (This would be an example of a sentence that might be considered “keyword stuffing.” Having too many keywords in the same sentence or paragraph.)