What Is a Keyword? « BUTCH HAMILTON PODCASTS

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What Is A Keyword?

An index term, subject term, subject heading, or descriptor, in information retrieval, is a term that captures the essence of the topic of a document. Index terms make up a controlled vocabulary for use in bibliographic records. They are an integral part of bibliographic control, which is the function by which libraries collect, organize and disseminate documents. They are used as keywords to retrieve documents in an information system, for instance, a catalog or a search engine. A popular form of keywords on the web are tags which are directly visible and can be assigned by non-experts also. Index terms can consist of a word, phrase, or alphanumerical term. They are created by analyzing the document either manually with subject indexing or automatically with automatic indexing or more sophisticated methods of keyword extraction. Index terms can either come from a controlled vocabulary or be freely assigned.

Keywords are stored in a search index. Common words like articles (a, an, the) and conjunctions (and, or, but) are not treated as keywords because it is inefficient to do so. Almost every English-language site on the Internet has the article “the”, and so it makes no sense to search for it. The most popular search engine, Google removed stop words such as “the” and “a” from its indexes for several years, but then re-introduced them, making certain types of precise search possible again.

Following along the same path as last week, How Do You Search on Google, it is of the utmost importance first to understand what a keyword is, and then how to find and utilize that keyword to the distinct advantage of the business owner.

The Google Keyword Selector Tool is designed to give a guideline, but only that. Following up with research on Alexa.com, and visiting and evaluating top sites for relevant keyword terms for one’s own use, is the perfect way to gain recognition, draw site visitors and the possibility of making sales gets even greater. It is also advised to download the Alexa toolbar while on the site. This will help in the process of learning more about keyword research, and site evaluation as well.

Never be too hasty in choosing keywords. This is an art and science that takes time, research, evaluation and determination to learn. If one does it correctly, positive results will be seen. If not, the opposite is most likely the situation that will take place.

Always remember that the TITLE of the site is where it will land on Google!

Butch Hamilton-Director of Marketing Veretekk

Veretekk, Inc

The Warrior Training Course

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Published: Sunday, October 30th, 2011

Category: Butch Hamilton Podcasts

Tags: how to find keywords, how to research keywords, keyword, keyword reseeach, keywords, THEWARRIORTRAININGCOURSE.COM, veretekk.com, what is a keyword