Where do I put keywords for google searches?

[VisHorizons]

A competitor went out of business, and my boss wants me to add their name to our site. What is the best way of going about this?

[Dan - Glendale Designs]

Re: Where do I put keywords for google searches?

First, don't go stuffing your site/store with the terms of an out of business competitor. I suspect your boss is thinking that adding all of these terms to a keyword meta tag or something will have some sort of benefit, not so.

Where it would be appropriate is if the competitor had a specific brand, and you offer said brand or compatible, in which case some simple wording on the specific product and/or category landing pages would most likely suffice, ie. "this item compatible with brand #1234". From there, you could create a landing page stating that the competitor has gone out of business, and what your store(s) offer to fill those needs. Throw in a coupon or discount offer on the visitors first order, to further entise visitors to purchase from you and not other competitors in the market.

[nottheusual1]

Re: Where do I put keywords for google searches?

You could create a category using their name and put what you figure were their best sellers in it with some text about how it's awful they are gone but you're here to pick up the slack. That'll get indexed pretty quickly if you include it in your other navigation.

Also nothing wrong with advertising using their name as a keyword - it's not like they'll complain to Google anymore.

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Re: Where do I put keywords for google searches?

...though you might want to look into why they went out of business first...just in case it was because of customer complaints, credit problems, etc ...in which case, you might not want to be associated in any way with them.

[VisHorizons]

Re: Where do I put keywords for google searches?

Thanks for all the advice. I'll take that all into consideration!

[koala]

Re: Where do I put keywords for google searches?

One other tidbit I'll mention is that you do not want to use the meta keywords tag. Search engines no longer rely on this signal and so using it really is just a way for your competitors to see which keywords you're trying to rank for.

[VisHorizons]

Re: Where do I put keywords for google searches?

Ha ha, yeah, I had heard that meta keywords didn't really work for search engines any more. That's why I came here to ask! :)

I hadn't heard of competitors fishing around though keywords though. That's good to know.