Understanding
& Using Keywords
 Have you wondered what it is that puts one artist's website above another in a search engine's search results? As you begin to promote your Artopium profie page, you may want to consider how the search engines will view and display your information. Of course, the key to understanding which words to use has already been thought out for you through the concept of keywords!
All search engines use keywords (the words you type in to do a search)
to find and display search results. The number of times these words
appear in the text of your profile
page is one of the determining factors in how high your page will
appear in those search results. How close certain keywords appear together
in a sentence or paragraph is called "keyword density". For
instance, suppose you find that you want to use the keywords "improv",
"jazz-fusion", "upbeat", and "trumpet". The sentence: "An improv, jazz-fusion band with an upbeat trumpet lead," would have a much higher keyword density
than: "As a jazz-fusion band we have developed an upbeat sound that is
highlighted by a lead trumpet and a pure improv style." Notice that in
the second sentence the keywords are farther apart than the first and thus has a lower keyword
density. You should strive for as high a keyword density as possible.
Be aware though that search
engines also look for fraudulent or spam type pages and excludes those
pages from ever appearing on their engine again. Things that search engines
look for include keywords that are repeated more than 6 or 7 times, keywords
that are repeated with no other words between them (e.g. music, music,
music), invisible text (i.e. text that is the same color as the background
of the page), or an excessive number of links and/or pictures.
When choosing the keywords you will be using, try to stay away from keywords
that are general, broad or ambiguous such as "music", "art", "band", "album",
etc. as these words are so popular that to try to compete with the millions
of other websites that use them would either take lots of money or be
completely fruitless. Don't get me wrong, using them will not hurt your
ranking either. Just be sure that the words you really want to use appear
more often and higher up on (closer to the top of) your Artopium profile.
Some good keywords to use are
words that closely describe your work, that are unique yet not too unused
or unpopular. For example, if you are a rock band from Seattle that
is just starting to play out, try to stay away from the words "rock
and roll", "music", or "brand new". Do use the words "Seattle", "loud
and heavy", "unsigned", "underground", names of other bands that are
similar in style to your music, etc. A good rule of thumb is: if you
think that a  word or combination of words describes a thousand different
bands, try to find words that describe only a hundred. Specifying your
region or locale is very good as it helps narrow down search results.
Stay away from word combinations you think no one will use for a search.
The best method for finding good keywords is to do a search yourself using
the keywords that you think others will use to find your page, and see
what type of sites come up. If the sites that come up are similar to your work, then those are good keywords. Take
the time to look at the pages that come up in those results and see how
the authors of that site used the keywords on their pages. This will help give you an idea of how they appeared
at the top of the results. You can then use this information to place your keywords in a similar way on your page.
For more information about keywords and how they are used, please visit
the following links to other useful sites that I have found on the Web.
Each link opens in a new window.
Continue to the next section: Submit Your URL to the Search Engines & Directories.
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