Search traffic drives 50%-70% of website visits, said Fran Sales, a copy editor at TechTarget. That means savvy use of keywords can bring more readers to your financial blog. Sales spoke as part of the ASPBE Boston Boot Camp on Sept. 24, 2013.

You’ve probably identified keywords that you can write into your blog posts to help you reach the readers whom you desire. However, your job isn’t over. Use those keywords in the right places in a blog post or web page to get the most benefit.

Sales suggested inserting keywords in the following locations, as she presented on “Thinking in SEO: How to optimize your content while keeping readers in mind”:

• Title
• Early in the content because Google most heavily weights the first 200 words of your content
• Headings and subheadings, although you could use keyword variants here
• Alt text of images

Two more tips:

• Don’t “keyword stuff,” which means using your keyword too frequently and unnaturally 
• Put your readers first or, as others have said, “write for people, not search engines.”

YOUR thoughts on keywords and SEO?

Experts often disagree about what works for SEO (search engine optimization) to boost your ranking by search engines. If you can add tips—or refine the advice given in this post—I’d like to hear from you.

By the way, for a basic explanation of SEO, read “Guest post: Please, Without All That Jargon, What is ‘Search Engine Optimization’?“