With the recent announcement from Google and Yahoo, stating that the importance (and weight) that they put on keyword meta tags is non-existent (read our previous blog post for this story), one is to wonder if not there, then where should keywords and phrases go on a website to be seen by the search engines?

A recent study about search engine ranking factors, highlights where keywords are most effective on a website. The study results were gathered from a 2009 poll taken by a panel of 72 SEO experts. The top ranking on-page (keyword-specific) ranking factor was using the keyword in the title tag on the page.

Summarizing methods that we already knew and what these findings supported, here are tips on where to place your keywords on your site:

• Title Tags. Get your keyword into the first couple of words in the title tag if possible.
• Domain Name and URL. This one’s more difficult we know. Many of us don’t have a site devoted to just one topic, rather a collection of topics. So if your keyword can’t be in the root domain name, consider adding it to the subdomain name or page name URL.
• Headings On The Page.  Get your keyword into the H1 tag/main headline on your page. 
• Copy On The Page. Include your keyword in the copy of the page. This will let Search Engines find the content on your site that does relate to the keyword searched on.
• Internal and External Linking. Include your keyword in any internal cross-linking or external linking to your site. Include this method in your internal SEO practices. When possible, request external sites that are linking to your site to include the specific keyword in their link.
• Description Meta Tag. Include your keyword in the description meta tag. Google will pull the description meta tag and display it in the search results, if the keyword is included.
• Image Alt Text. Include your keyword in your brief descriptive image alt tags.

And, of course, always make your page and/or website relevant to your keyword with rich, supporting content, videos and images. Remember, keywords are still important, it’s just a matter of how you use them.