Getting traffic to your website with organic search marketing is all about developing content that attracts search queries and gets your webpages pages listed on the search engine results pages of the major search engines like Google.

What keywords should you target to get website traffic?

One of your first steps when you sit down to create a new web page should always be to know in advance what are the terms, words,  and phrases your customers/searches are actually using to find answers on the web.

Often, we are so close to our own business that we forget that not everyone is as intimate with our products and or services as we are. We tend to develop and use in-house jargon. This can serve as a useful form of verbal shorthand when talking to co-workers. Unfortunately, we allow that in-house jargon to find its way into our marketing copy, emails, and worst of all our web pages. In-house jargon words are usually not targeted keywords (unless you are targeting your peers).

Your customers do not use jargon. They are generally not looking for products. They are looking for answers to their questions.

Do your keyword research first!

So, if you have not already done your keyword research stop right here. Forget about writing content for your web pages. Go back and do your keyword research.  Find out what kinds of words and phrases are actually being used to search. Use keywords research tools.

How to use targeted keywords to drive website traffic

When you know the actual keywords your customers are searching on you are ready to start creating keyword targeted web pages. Read this handy checklist, it will walk you through the how to add targeted keywords to your web page content and get traffic to your website.

1. Use your targeted keyword or keyword phrase in your web page title. This requires clarification: using your keyword in your web page title means it should show up in your title tag. It should look something like this in the underlying HTML code <Title>targeted keywords etc.</title>. If you can use your keyword twice that’s even better but once is usually enough.
2. Use your targeted keyword or key word phrase in your meta description tag. The content of your meta description tag is going to have a prominent place on your listing on the search engine results pages. The meta tag should look something like this in the underlying HTML code <meta name="description" content=" learn how to add targeted keywords to your web pages!  Drive more traffic and business to your website." />
3. Use your targeted keyword in your page headline. That means you should style the keyword or key word phrase using H1 tags <h1>.
   1. Limit yourself to only one H1 headline per page.
   2. Make sure you use different keywords for the headline for each new web page.
4. Try the same technique with your subheads using H2 tags. This may be a good spot for your other targeted keywords. Effective use of H2 subheads is also good design practice. It gives readers a quick way for them to scan your page in a glance.
5. The amount of body text on your page can vary but try to include your keywords within the text several times, let say 4 minimum. And work them into the very first sentence if possible. Caution: Don’t overdo this step or else the messaging on your web page will will appear phony and may not even make sense. You have to write for both human and search engine readers. Use restraint and go for sensible copy.
6. If you are using images on your page try working your targeted keywords into the alt text description for the image.
7. If you are using images on the page try adding your targeted keyword to the image title. But it does make a small difference to search engine spiders and only takes a few keystrokes to accomplish. It should look something like this in the underlying HTML code <img src="image.jpg" alt="keyword phrase" title="keyword phrase" />
8. Finally, create links on other pages that lead to the page you are writing and use your targeted keywords in the anchor text of the links leading to your web page.

These same rules apply for getting targeted keywords into blogs, catalog product descriptions and every other kind of web page. So, now you have your checklist for using targeted keyword writing to get traffc to your website.

Consider yourself armed and dangerous… at least to your competitors!