So how DO you choose the right search terms and then come up high in search engine results pages (SERPs) for your keywords?

You have to think like a search engine.

That’s right. You have to think like a search engine.

That means you have to clearly spell out what each page is about. Thinking like a search engine means you shouldn’t make your visitors read between the lines to figure out what your content is about.

For instance, if a particular web page is about “dog training”, then the search engines should be able to clearly see that and then put that in their database: “This page is about ‘dog training’.”

So then, when somebody does a search for “dog training” your page has a good chance of coming up in the search results.

Anticipation is important

That makes it important to anticipate what search terms people will use when searching for your product or service - and then use those exact terms in the text of your pages.

There are important ways to focus your content so the search engines recognize the theme of each page. But to keep it simple, the more you say about your target search term, the more likely you are to score well for it.

Common sense, right? Optimizing a page means focusing on a specific term and going out of your way to emphasize that search term in the text of your page.

It isn’t magic. It is common sense. If a page has lots of content focused on a specific keyword it will score well for that term.