OVERVIEW
Your profile keywords can be thought of as a custom set of search terms that you, as a Maine Made member with a profile on Mainemade.com, are responsible for developing and maintaining. These keywords are not displayed publicly to site visitors but they are very important toward ensuring that the site’s search functionality will accurately catalog your profile and that your profile will appear in relevant site search results when a user searches for a particular keyword or keyword phrase. A well-thought-out and comprehensive list of keywords will ensure that your profile is indexed properly within the site.
We suggest that you start by making a list of keywords and phrases that you envision site visitors using when interested in your product line(s) in order to find your businesses along with other similar businesses on Mainemade.com.
Your keywords can relate to a wide variety of descriptors or phrases that relate to your business. These might include; product name, product type, category, ingredients, materials, production process, special features, elements that make your products unique, distinctions (awards) or differentiators (i.e.: handmade, organic, etc.), geographic location, region, etc.. If the specific names of your products (or most popular products) are potentially known and used during the search process by visitors, then including the names in your profile keyword list will be beneficial.
Our system will accept a keyword list with a maximum of 1,500 characters (including spaces and punctuation) or between 225 and 250 words. Common word processing applications like Microsoft Word have helpful word count and character count tools that can aid you when developing your list.
In order to perform a word or character count in Microsoft Word, open your list of keywords and go to the Tools menu. Then choose Word Count. The following screen will provide a tally of words and characters with and without spaces. Please note that the “character with spaces” total will be your most accurate tally since words naturally vary in length.
If you don’t use Microsoft Word, there are a variety of online tools that allow you to paste text into a field and push a simple button in order to perform a character or word count.
Word Counter is a popular and intuitive example:
KEYWORD LIST EXAMPLE
We are providing a sample keyword list from one of our long standing program members, Mother’s Mountain of Falmouth, Maine. Mother’s Mountain is one of our Specialty & Gourmet Food members. The sample list below represents a well-thought-out range of keywords that will help interested site visitors find the member’s profile efficiently:
(Please note: while the list below uses a capital letter for the first letter of each word, this is not a requirement. The site search is not case sensitive so you may use your choice of capital or lower case for the keyword list).
Mustard, Jam, Jelly, Marinade, Dressing, Sauce, Honey, Hot Sauce, Hot Sauces, Mustards, Honey Mustard, Jams & Jellies, Maine Marinades & Dressings, Elegant Sauces, Pepper Sauces, Honeys, Gifts, Gluten Free, By The Case, Fat Free, Salt Free, Tasty Two Gift Box, Spicy Three Gift Box, Mustard Mix & Match, Hot Lovers’ Gift Box, Crab Cakes, Cappy’s Famous Crab Cakes, Pepper Jelly, Classic Honey Mustard, Peppercorn Dijon Mustard, Portland Beer Mustard, Classic Honey Mustard, Peppercorn Dijon Mustard, Portland Beer Mustard, Blackberry Port Jam, Wild Blueberry Ginger Jam, Cranberry Apple Jam, Blackberry Port Jam, Wild Blueberry Ginger Jam, Cranberry Apple Jam, Cranberry Peach Jam, Green Lightning Jelly, Raspberry Apricot Jam, Cranberry Peach Jam, Green Lightning Jelly, Raspberry Apricot Jam, Homemade, Family Recipe, Natural, Fire Eater Hot Pepper Sauce, Habanero Heaven Deadly Pepper Sauce, Condiments, Family Business, Falmouth, Maine, Mustard Hollow, Mother’s, Mother’s Mountain, Free Recipes, Healthy, Hand Packed, Gift Box
ADDING YOUR KEYWORDS TO YOUR PROFILE
All existing Maine Made program members have been asked to complete the Member Profile Update Form in advance of the launch of Maine Made 3.0. You will find the Profile Keywords field on this form. You can enter your keywords into this field directly or by cutting and pasting them from another document. Please make sure that words and phrases are separated by commas.
If you would prefer to add a partial list of keywords to the application for the time being and then add a more comprehensive list at a later time, this is also acceptable. All members will receive a username and password as we approach the launch of Maine Made 3.0 that will allow you to verify and edit your information via a browser-based administrative tool. Your full keyword list can be revised and added prior to launch.
KEYWORD LIST ABUSE
Mainemade.com employs an honor system to program members with regard to all content displayed on profile pages and to all keywords used to index these pages. We trust and assume that ethical behavior will be employed during this process. While we encourage creativity when drafting your keywords, we strongly prohibit flagrant abuse and misuse of the search functionality in order to gain higher or more frequent rankings. This site will be closely monitored by system administrators. Any members who are discovered using irrelevant keywords to their core business/products or inapplicable keywords that will allow them to be found in a wider variety of categories will face potential removal from the site and program. Member abuse of the search functionality is misleading and makes the site less useful to the general public. Please respect these guidelines.
QUESTIONS?
If you have questions with regard to keywords or any of the subject matter covered above, please feel free to contact us at: