UPDATE MAR 2010 - Since writing this things have changed regarding keywords and how they get used by search engines. Due to the amount of abuse, keywords really have no relevance to the search engines anymore. So at this point my recommendation is use keywords for your own site's categorization of content. You should not expect to improve search ranking or seo at all by using keywords in the meta tags.

---

A keyword or phrase is nothing more than a category term that succinctly describes your content using single words or a two word phrase. Keywords help make searching for content more effective.

For example if you write an article about how to make a jalapeño pepper sauce then a good set of keywords are: "peppers", "hot sauce" and "jalapeño".

Amazingly keywords continue to be misused and abused. Not knowing how to use keywords can lead to poor search engine raking. Here are a few simple tips to consider.

Derive Keywords From The Content

Don't just stuff keywords into Meta tags which is surly going to get your page penalized.

Write your article and then think of a couple words that you would use to put it into a category. The words you choose should come from the content itself.

Google has a handy little keyword tool to help you find keywords.

n390 sites come with an SEO package that will automatically choose and put keywords into the Meta tag for you.

Keywords in Article Title

Add a word or two into the Title but be sure to keep the title very short yet clear. The article title should be the only <h1> level heading. If you are using an n390 built site, then the Title form field does this, however, be sure not to add more <h1> tags in your body content.

Keywords in the URL and Page Title Bar

Put keywords in the URL and also the page title bar. You'll need to know some HTML and have access to the web server to do this.

Note that n390 sites come with an SEO package that will do this for you automatically based from the article title you supply.

Keywords in the Meta Tag

DO NOT stuff keywords into the page's meta tag. This sort of abuse is bad all day long and will earn your site bad page ranking.

DO choose about 5-10 words to use as keywords. After about five keywords there is a diminishing return because too many keywords becomes less focused and vague.

DO NOT repeat words as doing so looks like you are trying to spam the search engines. For example "hot peppers, peppers, pepper sauce, chili pepper" is bad. Better to do, "peppers, hot, sauce, chili".

DO use keywords that are from the body of your content. If your keywords are not in the content then again this looks like spam.

Keyword in Image Tags

When you add an image to your content, try to give it a three-five word title/description and use a keyword if it makes sense.

Think of an image title that will make sense to someone viewing the page when there are not pictures showing. For example, they have images turned off on their Blackberry or they are blind an using a screen reader.