I have been receiving a lot of email lately concerning keyword placement. One thing that I always try to stress to affiliate marketers trying to optimize their website is that search engine spiders have been programmed by humans. The point of that statement is that search engine spiders will read a document similar to how an actual human will read a document. Many of the sites that I personally review fail to keep this knowledge in mind.

Here are some things you should keep in mind when optimizing your websites keywords. Remember though, no one really knows how the search engines work for sure, but we have come up with some great ideas that have worked in the past.

If you are like most people, you start reading a document from top to bottom, left to right. When you need to know what the document will outline where do you look? You look at the top of the document to find the title and the first paragraph in hopes for a “glimpse” of what information the document will contain. Actually, I am somewhat guilty of reading the last paragraph of a document to find the “outcome” or “stand-point” quickly.

A search engine is no different. It is programmed with these basic principles in mind. It looks at the title, description of the document, the first couple of words of the document in hopes of getting a “glimpse” of what the document is about and it likes to read the end of the document – as it knows there is key relevant information in these areas. The footer is very important. Think about it this way, you read an ad in the paper – where are the terms and conditions (the important stuff). Yep – in the footer. Unfortunately, many website designers fail to put much effort into these key areas.

Well we already know that the title, description, first paragraph, last paragraph and footer are important and should contain the keyword and keyword phrases that you are optimizing your website for. However, what about left and right? Do the sides of a document matter? Yes!

What part of a webpage could tell you the most important information about “all” the information that website contains? The left side navigation! Think about it, most website have a navigation menu on the left side that contains keyword links the main departments in that website. I like to think of this left side navigation as the table of contents. Yes, it is that important!

The importance of this left side navigation is incredible, yet I see many websites that contain useless information here! Things like testimonials that have not one single keyword in them, graphics that are unrelated or that do not contain ALT tags with keyword rich descriptions and things of that nature.

I like to think that the search engine places massive amounts of weight in these areas in this order:

Title, Description, Left side navigation from top to bottom, First paragraph, Footer and finally the main body “filler” of the document.

I have had great success with many of my websites that have been keyword optimized in those key areas. Remember, the devil is in the details and ultimately every word on a website should be “optimized” and hand selected to appeal to your target audience. Since search engines are programmed to think like humans, you will see benefits in the search engines by just optimizing for human behavior.

Robert Loyst
Website: RCLWebMarketing

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