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Search Engine Optimization Step-by-Step

By , About.com Guide

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Find a keyword phrase.

Starting search engine optimization.

Search engine optimization starts with picking potential keyword phrases.

Copyright Srinivasan

Good search engine optimization depends on choosing good keyword phrases. The trick is to use only one keyword phrase per page.

A good keyword phrase:

  • is a word or phrase that people are actually searching for
  • has two to three words (as most people search for phrases of this size)
  • provides the best opportunity for a high page ranking. (There’s not already a huge number of pages existing for the phrase.)

Start the search engine optimization process by rereading the page you’ve chosen to optimize and picking some potential keyword phrases of two to three words that you think people will actually search for. (We’ll have a look at the third attribute of a good keyword phrase in a later step.)

For instance, this page is an introduction to optimizing existing Web pages. However, that’s not a phrase that people are likely to type into a search engine. Potential keyword phrases for this page might be:

  • Optimize a page
  • Optimizing a page
  • Page optimization
  • Search engine optimization
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