For Which Keyword(s) Is Your Article Optimized?
Posted on March 5, 2010
Filed Under SEO
If you ever wondered whether you should optimize your article for “green widget” or for “green widget accessories” because “green widget accessories” has less competition, you need to know what it actually means to “optimize” an article.
Most people believe that Google can read their mind. 
Well, it cannot; and Google doesn’t think that your page is optimized for the same keyword (s) as YOU think it’s being optimized for.
Most people think the first keyword in their META Keywords tag is the keyword that they are optimizing their article for.
And that adding a few keywords as secondary keywords will help them in some way.
So first, follow the link to see for yourself that Google doesn’t read the meta keywords field.
Whatever you write in there doesn’t matter to Google.
So What Does Matter to Google?
It is the keywords in the title and the link text of incoming links that matter.
Your page is actually optimized for ALL keywords in the title.
The keywords that you use in the title of the page are the main “filter” that will tell Google for which keywords to rank your page.
Other ranking factors will then determine how well that pages ranks against the competition – like link popularity, page rank, website authority, etc.
So the answer to the question whether to optimize the page for “green widget” or for “green widget accessories” is this:
If your title will say: Green Widget Accessories – Coolest Gadgets In Town
Then your article is optimized for:
- Green Widget Accessories – Coolest Gadgets In Town
- Green Widget Accessories – Coolest Gadgets In
- Green Widget Accessories – Coolest Gadgets
- Green Widget Accessories – Coolest
- Green Widget Accessories
- Green Widget
- Green
And it’s also optimized (not perfectly, but still) for:
- Green Widget Accessories – Gadgets In Town
- Green Widget – Coolest Gadgets In Town
- Green Accessories – Coolest Gadgets In Town
- Green Town
- and all the zillion other word combos for every keyword in that title.
Your article is optimized for ALL these keywords and keyword combos; and Google WILL rank it for all of these searches.
The difference in ranking of course comes from competition!
You’ll probably rank #1 for the keyword search “Green Widget Accessories – Coolest Gadgets In Town”, maybe #5 for “Green Widget Accessories – Coolest Gadgets”, maybe #30 for “Green Widget Accessories” and maybe around 9,876,486 for “Green”.
If you then get more links to your page (external and / or internal) with the link text that includes “Green Widget Accessories – Coolest Gadgets In Town” and other combos of these keywords, you will start to rank better and better.
Are There Important And Not So Important Keywords In The Title?
One more example to help you understand this:
A lady asked me whether she should optimize the page for “Green Widget” or “Green Widget Accessories.”
I asked her what the title of her article would be if she optimized just for “Green Widget.”
She replied: “Green Widget – Finding The Right Widget For Your PC.”
And if she would have optimized for “Green Widget Accessories” her title would say:
“Green Widget Accessories – Coolest Gadgets In Town”
Her assumption is that Google will know and rank her article optimized for “Green Widget” for that keyword (green widget) and that the rest of the keywords in the title are just some kind of fill – and that Google will disregard those words.
Then her assumption is that if she optimizes for “Green Widget Accessories,” Google will rank her for that keyword (but not Green Widget!) and won’t pay much attention to the rest of the keywords – since Google can read her mind and knows which keyword is really important to the lady and which keywords are not that important to her.
Funny, isn’t it? And yet most of us think that way – at least I did for some time until I figured this out.
The fact is simple: Google ranks your page according to ALL KEYWORDS in the title and doesn’t know which keywords are important to you.
Remember the title: “Green Widget – Finding The Right Widget For Your PC?”
You may think that Google will know and rank you for “Green Widget” but not really for “Finding The Right?”
If you do a search for “Finding The Right” you’ll see that sites rank accordingly to their keywords in the title, link popularity and all other factors that affect the ranking.
No one searches just for “Finding The Right” keyword and yet Google has a ranking for that search and of course for any keyword search you type.
It’s a computer algorithm and not a smart human.
This tells you that Google doesn’t know for which keywords you want to rank. It WILL rank you for ALL keywords in the title.
The competition and links and other factors will then determines how HIGH you will rank.
The Importance Of Keywords In The Title
One more thing: let’s say that you don’t use “Finding The Right” keyword in the title but you use it on the page in content.
Will you rank for this keyword? Yes, but not in the main index. You’ll almost surely be dumped into the secondary index and will never get found for this keyword search.
(See my previous post about the real competition to understand what I mean by main and secondary index.)
If you look at your keyword stats for a page (for which keywords that page was found in the last month for example), you’ll see that almost all searches for which your page was found include one or more keywords that you used in the title.
It is almost impossible to be found for a keyword search when NONE of the searched keywords is in the title!
In other words, your page can only be found for keywords that you used in the title. (Not 100%, but very close.)
This includes correct order of words, inverted order or some keywords missing or added in between.
Example: My page on where to book hotels and flights with PayPal is being found quite often.
Look at the top keywords:
They ALWAYS include a few keywords that were used in the title.
And if I check the keywords that brought just an occasional visitor, you can still see that at least one of the keywords from the title (Book Cheap Flights and Hotels With Paypal) is always used.
That article has quite a lot of other words but it gets found ONLY for keywords when one or more were used in the title!
For example, there’s a sentence with “If you’re travelling in the USA” – but I will NEVER be found for “travelling in the USA” or any other keyword combos.
That’s because I theoretically rank for that keyword search but since none of the keywords is in the title, I probably rank on page 98754.
You can also test this claim by simply doing a search on Google for something; and then checking on which page of results do you see the first site ranked that DOESN’T HAVE AT LEAST ONE KEYWORD in the title.
If I do this for “Finding The Right”, I find the first site without any of the keywords in the title at #48 – and even that site has a keyword “right” in the domain name.
And as you probably know, most of the clicks on search results happen on the first page.
How To Efficiently Optimize Your Articles
The next time you wonder which keyword to optimize for your article, know that in reality you will optimize your article for ALL keywords that are in the title.
Google will not read your mind and know that some are important to you and that some aren’t.
So how can you use this knowledge to your advantage?
Always optimize the page for multiple keywords that you know are being searched.
Optimize for long tail – and you will automatically optimize for “short tail” too.
If you optimize the article for “Green Widget Accessories” (and all these keywords are in the title), you will automatically optimize it for “Green Widget.”
The difference in rankings between “Green Widget Accessories” and “Green Widget” is because of the competition. (there are more pages writing just about green widgets than there are pages writing about green widget accessories!)
You’ll need more links (to the page and / or to the whole website) to rank high for a shorter keyword than you will need for a longer keyword.
And if you cannot decide between two keywords that you’d like to use and are not sure which one is better (Green Widget or Coolest Gadgets), then use BOTH in the title.
Then just make sure that incoming links to that page have these keywords in the link text and you’ll rank better for all keywords that are included in the title and link text.
You can link to the page with “Green Widget – One of The Coolest Gadgets” in the link text and it will help both keywords. Or you can sometimes just link with “Green Widget” and sometimes with “Coolest Gadgets” in the link text.
One more thing: if you look closely at Google’s results, you’ll see that the searched keyword is typically at the beginning of the title for highest ranked sites.
So the keywords near the beginning of the title have more weight than those later in the title.
Book Cheap Flights and Hotels With Paypal
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Comments
45 Responses to “For Which Keyword(s) Is Your Article Optimized?”
Leave a Reply
Great post – and something that I have found to be true myself. Thank you for your awesome tips.
[Reply]
Incredibly helpful post! ( It seems to me that I have met this green widget lady somewhere…
)
I hadn’t realized how much more important the page title was than the keyword field. This is critical information to have. Thanks a lot for explaining this.
One question I have been wondering about: is it useful to try to incorporate a very profitable keyword into the title of *multiple* pages? Does this increase the site’s overall optimization for that keyword? Or is it better to use different keywords each time in order to optimize for as many different words as possible?
In general — does optimizing more than one page for the same keyword have a benefit? Or is it redundant?
Thanks again!
[Reply]
Tomaz Reply:
March 7th, 2010 at 4:33 am
Hi Nancy,
It only makes sense to optimize maximum 2 pages for a good keyword. That’s because Google can give you a double listing for a keyword search but that’s the best you can get.
I have never seen 3 or more listings of the same website for a search query in Google.
[Reply]
Thanks a lot for the response Tomaz. Wow, I really have to rethink my strategy — I have been wasting a LOT of page space and effort sprinkling the same keywords everywhere… I’m very glad I asked this before building more pages!
Thanks again!
[Reply]
Tomaz Reply:
March 7th, 2010 at 7:51 am
Well, if you have been sprinkling them in the content, than that’s no problem. But if you have been optimizing more than 2 articles with the same keyword in the title, then you have probably been wasting some time.
Just optimize every article for each separate main keyword and occasionally use a secondary keyword in the title which has been used before as a primary.
[Reply]
Thanks a lot, Tomaz.
Unfortunately, I think the keyword sprinkling in the content has also involved considerable waste, because I have put in a lot of effort, time, and “stylistic acrobatics
” to fit in the most important keywords everywhere that I could (both in my last website and the new one I am starting now).
But I am aware that I am a beginner at this, and there is always a steep learning curve. So I am deeply grateful for your help and very glad that I have learned this for the future.
So now I will go back to my websites, optimize the page titles better, and remove the redundant keyword optimization in the places where it sounds weirdest
Thanks so much again.
[Reply]
Hi Tomaz-
I really appreciate all of the information you share on this site and in the SBI forums. I’m new to this whole process and still in the planning stages for my first SBI site, and I’m still working my way through this site – there are lots of gems in here!
Thanks again,
Kurt
[Reply]
In my experience, a little bit longer title with richly optimized keywords works the best.
All my titles now are often quite long – around 60 characters and I found them work very well – being found for lots of long tail keywords.
I too agree with you Tomaz, that google ranks better keyword phrases in exact order match, but if you can make it sound natural, then insert all the keywords you think will be of value anyway, and google will still bring in keyword combo results.
Another good practice I have learned is to link out to other external websites with anchor text you want to be found.
I usually link back to homepage with main keyword, and link out to one or two external sites with secondary keyword phrases.
[Reply]
Thanks for highlighting the importance of Title tag….I had read its important but you have done such a good job of letting us know how important that is…I will have to go through a lot of my pages and see if I can optimize them better
Thanks again for spending so much time on your blog to write such useful posts
[Reply]
This is just an amazing post!
One question… SBI!’s Analyze it tool seems to rely on the first keyword in the meta keywords tag on the page when doing it’s analysis. It will complain if you don’t sprinkle the keyword at different places with the right density.
I know one of your guidelines was to always make sure Analyze it passes for any page. But based on this analysis it seems like it’s not so important. Any thoughts on this?
I usually get it to pass anyways but sometimes have a difficult time because it’s tough to work in the main keyword the way Analyze it expects.
Thanks again for a great lesson in SEO!
[Reply]
Tomaz Reply:
March 11th, 2010 at 9:34 pm
On the contrary, Nisheth!
Your goal is to pass Analyze It for your primary keyword AND ADD additional keywords – especially in the TITLE – which you know are either long tail of your primary keyword or synonyms or related keywords.
The Analyze It gives you the level of importance for each section that it analyzes. Listen to it – that also means to pass Analyze It.
If it gives a level of importance only 5 for the number of keywords in the text and you’re missing one, you can of course IGNORE that since Analyze it tells you that you can do that!
But the level of importance of a keyword in title is 9 (or maybe even 10, I forgot) – so obviously you cannot miss the keyword there.
Passing the Analyze It means understanding the level of importance of keywords in each section and applying the “allowed” deviations (tolerance) when needed.
[Reply]
I see. Thanks for the clarification, Tomaz.
[Reply]
Hi Tomaz !
Outstanding explanation as always! You must the the Matrix in person.
One more question though.
Is the plural of a single word also optimized for the singular version ?
ex: is conversions also optimized for conversion ?
[Reply]
Hey Miki,
I am quite sure that the plural version optimizes for the singular – although realize that I don’t know Google’s algorithm.
The rankings for singular and plural are not exactly the same – test some keywords on Google.
But in most cases the rankings are very similar.
[Reply]
Hello Tom,
I noticed that on your product sites you dont write pages for the keywords from MKL, you pick your t twos and then the T 3s are the different model numbers for that brand.
Please can you confirm this?
[Reply]
Hey Frank,
The models are searched for too. I find models from the MKL, from the brand’s website and check their demand in Google Adwords and free WT.
If I see some demand, I review the model. I wrote before how I find keywords for product based sites.
So to answer your Q: I DO write articles based on keywords from MKL – some are more general like Dyson canister vacuums (typical MKL keyword) and some are very specific which a regular Brainstorm doesn’t find – and I have to use my own “brainstorm”
to find models that are being searched for.
[Reply]
Thanks a lot Tom.
But how do you write these reviews. I know you dont own all the brands of vacuum cleaners. Where do you source for info to writer user specific details?
Thanks again
[Reply]
On the WWW.
Features can be found on brand’s sites, reviews are found on Amazon, Epinions and other consumer review sites.
The writer only has to gather all the info and rewrite it and organize it into an article / review.
[Reply]
Thanks for being a guardian angel
[Reply]
Tomaz,
A question about the description when you are building a page.
Do you recommend making your description your opening paragraph or headline on the page?
I noticed on vacuumwizard, sometimes its in your headline, sometimes it is further down or sometimes not on your page at all?
Thanks:)
[Reply]
Usually an opening paragraph – so that I just copy / paste and keep things simple and not time consuming.
What you’re asking about will have 0,00032% difference in the long term.
What matters are keywords in the title (as explained above) and links to the page.
[Reply]
So can I go ahead and change my titles and keywords for pages that should be optimized better? This won’t have a negative affect on my site from a search engine standpoint?
I ask because I recently changed some of my page’s file names only to find out that this is a major “no, no” regarding the search engines.
Thanks,
Nick
[Reply]
Nick,
There are no penalties for changing your titles. Your pages will rank according to how you optimize them.
When you changed file names, you basically deleted old pages from the index and wrote new pages with the exact same content – from Google’s view.
And that can’t be good…
[Reply]
Thanks Tomaz,
I really appreciate your help with this. Just so I completely understand:
If my page has to do with the key word “American Cocker Spaniel” and I find other keywords such as American Cocker Spaniel Pictures, American Cocker Spaniel puppies, and American Cocker Spaniel breeders.
Should my title then read something like:
American Cocker Spaniel, Picures, Puppy, Breeders
?
[Reply]
Exactly.
Or you can sneak in another Cocker Spaniel keyword for example: American Cocker Spaniel Puppies And Breeders – Cool Cocker Spaniel Pictures
Or something like that. Aim for titles less than 65 characters (including spaces).
[Reply]
Tomaz, do you take google adsense cpc rate into consideration when picking a product based niche or you just interested in shop affiliate commissions?
What criteria do you look for in picking a product based niche?
[Reply]
Tomaz Reply:
April 15th, 2010 at 12:32 am
Spaniel,
I mainly look at the demand / supply numbers and assess whether I can get lots of traffic. If I have lots of traffic, I can surely find a way to monetize decently. The Adsense CPC is not the main factor – but I do check it to see what is going on.
Most niches with high CPC are very competitive…
[Reply]
Ok, I am well on my way to optimizing my titles. Is there anything I need to do regarding the headline? In other words, is there any secret to optimizing the headline within each page as well or is that not as big of a deal?
Thanks so much,
Nick
[Reply]
Tomaz Reply:
April 15th, 2010 at 12:33 am
Nick,
The headline is EXACTLY the same as the title. Copy & paste.
[Reply]
Tomaz,
What do you consider decent demand / supply numbers for a product niche?
I dnot know if you have a post on your blog on the right criteria on picking product based niches.
If you dont can you do an article on that?
Regards
[Reply]
Spaniel,
It already makes me sick when I come across product based sites using my idea. You have no idea how many clones are out there already.
Very few of those are really good (if they are, then I am glad I shared my ideas) and I definitely do not want to encourage people even more to go that route.
Of the zillion possibilities on which a site can be made, all those people just blindly, uncreatively and without any confidence in their own approach copy my product based idea.
There are wedding sites, car sites, sports sites, medical advice sites, movie sites, gardening sites, recipe sites – you NAME IT! – they all can and DO make tons of money.
But no…
“Just because Tomaz makes a product based site, I will too. I don’t think I am smart enough or creative enough or resourceful enough to just get the gist of what he’s talking about and go my own way – the way that is really ME. No, I am too scared to do that so I’ll just copy.”
That’s what most people are thinking and it’s really sad to see such lack of self-esteem and lack of trust in own abilities.
How do you grow then? How do you become authentic, happy with yourself and feel fulfilled – if you’re just a clone?
Lincoln Six Echo and Jordan Two Delta in the movie The Island were willing to die if needed in their mission to stop being clones and becoming free people. How about you?
Are you happy being a clone? Is that really it?
So to answer your questions what the criteria is: it’s the same as for any other niche. Get enough keywords with the right demand / supply ratio and build a site around them. There are no magic tricks.
[Reply]
Tomaz, you sound very offended. I have never cloned any site. I dont even own a site? I am just considering buying sbi. Thanks for answering me.
[Reply]
I thought of doing Product website because my gym instructor owns a sbi site and told me the benefits of owning a product focused website. Again i am sorry people copy you. I personally would not to do that. Maybe its just my pride. My apologies again.
[Reply]
Spaniel,
I wasn’t talking directly to you but to anyone reading. Also, I couldn’t care less if someone makes a site like I did. I don’t own a patent on product sites so anyone can make them.
But it’s just so sad to see those sites pop up all over the place and all done in the exact same format. I see sad and frightened and non-confident people behind that and I feel their pain and it’s just sad.
I wish people would take it a level higher. Make a much better product site than I did. Add some of the brain power behind it and not be so damn lazy and not invest at least 10 minutes of brainstorming trying to figure out how to make a different site.
I looked at one SBI site before I started my vacuum site and you’ll NEVER guess which one it is. I took some ideas and changed them so much that there is almost no sign that that site was my model. That’s the right way of doing it.
But since no does a quality job of learning from a successful site, then I really don’t want to encourage people putting up crappy same looking boring product review sites.
Yes, do them if it’s an OUTSTANDING site. Otherwise, I really wish people wouldn’t go this way.
But since this is out my control, things will go their way regardless of what I think. So I really don’t care…
[Reply]
Hey Tomaz,
Ok, I optimized a good portion of my titles and headlines according to your directions. Now, is there anything else you think I should do in order to generate more traffic?
I was reading on here that it is imperative to have links going to these pages with the same words used within the title. Is it better to make these links internal rather than external? It is not easy to find links to tier 3 pages from other websites. What are your thoughts?
Thanks,
Nick
[Reply]
Nick,
External links are better – but I rarely build them for T3 pages. Usually for homepage and most of the T2 pages.
Build links according to your needs and not according to what or someone else says.
Are you happy with your traffic and income? If yes, no need to work on links – other people will contact you for link exchanges or you can submit an occasional article.
If no, build links. Build links and content until you’re happy with your results.
So the questions whether you should build links to T3 pages or not is not really the right one. The question is whether you are happy with the rankings of those T3 pages.
If not, build links to them. The easiest way is with article submissions.
Also, if this was easy, everyone would have a 10K website. That’s the whole point of success online (and everywhere else): are you willing to do the hard work?
[Reply]
Please tomaz how long do you usually wait before you monetize a product based site. I use Sbi. Thank a lot
[Reply]
Tomaz Reply:
May 26th, 2010 at 6:03 am
Hi Franks,
I explained in one of the previous articles when you should monetize a website.
[Reply]
Hi Tomaz,
Thank you so much for sharing this bit of information. I have an SBI site and have used keywords that are far too competitive because I really didn’t understand what I was doing. Now I’m in the process of trying to use as much of the title tag space as possible, since you’ve indicated that Google optimizes all the words in the title tag to some degree. However, I’ve chosen to keep my initial keywords, but add more winnable ones to them. The reason being is because I sometimes get some nice payouts from Adsense when an Adsense ad is clicked on a page with a very competitive keyword.
I’ve been working on this for probably a month now, but I really haven’t seen an increase in traffic. What are your thoughts on this? Will my traffic improve by doing what I am doing?
Thanks so much for your input, Tomaz!
[Reply]
Tomaz Reply:
August 19th, 2010 at 4:12 pm
Hi Paul,
I personally think that your keywords in the title have nothing to with Adsense unless Adsense ads are directly below the title. You also don’t know which ads get clicked and whether they were really related to your keyword in the title.
Why you’re not getting more traffic is too complex question to ask. Maybe you simply don’t have enough links and those small changes that you do with title tags really don’t mean anything to Google (yet).
[Reply]
Thank you for your quick reply, Tomaz. I am wondering if you have a draft of the email you use that you send to other webmasters in related sites to secure a link that you could send to me. I haven’t tried this yet, but am interested. This is probably the most valuable way to get links. I just don’t know where to begin.
Thanks so much for your willingness to help, Tomaz. You’re one of the few.
[Reply]
Thanks, Paul. See the comments on the link building system post where I mention what I approach I take.
[Reply]
Thanks Tomaz!
[Reply]
Tomaz,
What about singular and plural keywords?
Let’s say you build a page around the keyword “ACME lawnmowers” and your title tag is “Repairs for ACME lawnmowers”. We’ll assume the page and internal/external links contains the keyword ACME lawnmowers.
Is that page is also automatically optimized for the singular version, ACME lawnmower?
[Reply]
Hey AG,
Don’t ask me, check the facts on Google.
Do searches on plural keywords and see if there are singular versions boldened in the title and text in the results and if they rank well.
I know as much as you do when looking at these facts.
[Reply]