This is a very important question to ask when seeking out a method for marketing products and services online as well as knowing what kind of content to publish. This article gives a fresh perspective into creating user friendly contents that search engines can easily crawl and what search engine spiders enjoy throwing up to users.

Google and yahoo search are the two most common internet search engines with at least 90% of all internet search queries being delivered by both of them combined. It might seem obvious that people who seek information through search engines use keywords to obtain information or data from the World Wide Web but what is missing, actually often overlooked is that ideas is what people often try to communicate to search engines. Information about these ideas is what most search queries try to uncover. With knowledge of this internet marketers can now be able to predict the likely questions, requests and methods that search engine users will always want to pursue to obtain their much desired answers.

What are keywords and how are they determined?

Typically, keywords are verbs and proper nouns although they could also be abstract nouns, adjectives and prepositions. So a keyword phrase should either be a verb phrase or a noun phrase like “Salmon stew preparation” or “cooking salmon stew” for verb phrase or “salmon stew” for noun phrase. People use noun phrase keywords when they are looking for detailed descriptions of objects, people or places but use verb phrase keywords when they want to find out about events, activities or narrations. So if I want to find out how an event like the collapse of the world trade centre occurred my keywords should be “collapse of twin towers”, “how the WTC fell (collapsed)”, “WTC brought down” etc. The more specific a keyword phrase is the more likely it is to draw up relevant Search Engine Result Pages.

What exactly do keyword queries achieve for the end user?

From my research I have come to see that search engine users want high quality information at little or no cost whatsoever. It therefore follows that web publishers seeking to capture a large following would have to provide high quality information at little or no cost to their readers in addition to following the scheme most search engines are ‘in love with’.

Search engines love pages that indicate illustrations, clear and concise descriptions or direct detailing of specific answers to specific questions asked in form of keyword queries. These answers can be in the form of; articles especially “how to” articles, tutorials with visual illustrations, summaries especially comment style summaries and essays.

So in a nutshell most keyword queries are requests or questions people ask search engines to obtain specific information which is what the end user cares about. Therefore to make your webpage or blog searchable by search engines you need to provide specific information which would be answers to questions asked by queries (in addition to being well ranked among other pages or blogs that provide similar answers).

How to structure your web contents for search engines

If you are having articles as your primary content, then it is wise to write your contents with the title answering a specific question and which also has two or more of the common keywords that would naturally show up in queries for that specific information. For instance if I have an article which explains how salmon stew is prepared then it must contain two or more of these keywords; prepare (cook or recipe), salmon and stew (soup or sauce). The reason salmon is constant is because it is the key term in the query and has no synonyms. An ideal title for this topic would be “How to cook salmon stew” or “Recipe for salmon stew”.

The question a typical search engine user would ask on how to prepare salmon stew will go like this;

• Salmon stew preparation
• How to cook salmon stew
• How to prepare salmon soup
• Recipe for salmon stew
• Salmon stew recipe
• Salmon sauce
• How to cook salmon sauce
• Cooking salmon stew
• Cook salmon soup
• Prepare salmon sauce
• Salmon soup cooking
• Salmon soup cooking steps
• Salmon soup recipe

These requests are all saying the same thing which is teach me how to cook salmon stew. The publisher that recognizes this request and optimizes his/her contents as a specific answer to this question is providing useful information that search engines would love to give to end users.

On the other hand if your primary content is visual illustrations such as picture galleries, then every picture or photo in the gallery must have a keyword which describes it as its file name. So let’s say you have a photo of Barack Obama embracing Queen Elizabeth the file name should be something like Barack Obama and Queen Elizabeth.jpg.

All this information is useful only if people are making regular requests for them. It is advisable to use a keyword research tool such as Adwords Keyword Tool or keyword research tool.

Benefits of knowing what search engine users are really looking for

• Knowing what people are asking search engines enables internet marketers, advertisers and publishers know what their niches really want and hence provide greater service
• Saves advertising cost and precious time as irrelevant adverts and marketing campaigns can easily be by passed
• Information exchange between search engine users and publishers becomes more efficient

So the next time you wish to publish an article ask yourself does it answer a question end users ask search engines? Does it also meet the preferred style/standard that search engines see as illustrations, descriptions or specific but detailed answers that queries are seeking?