Keywords are a fundamental part of search engine optimization.
Understanding the concept behind keywords can greatly help you enhance your website’s organic traffic, understand your audience and potential customers, and eventually increase your site’s conversion rates.
Table of contents:
What are Keywords
Keywords, or SEO keywords, keyphrases, or search queries, are the words you are using in Google, Bing, and Yahoo to search for information on the Internet.
If you are like the majority of Internet users, you have already searched the web in this manner – you open your preferred website browser type, in a word or a phrase in a search engine (like Google), and check the results for relevant content you would want to browse.
In more technicality, keywords are the phrases you type in a certain search engine, so it searches its vast index for corresponding website data, which is revealed to you, so you can browse it.
Imagine this scenario:
You are interested in creating a website and want to know how it is done.
To do so, you open your web browser via your laptop, tablet, or phone, open any search engine – Google, Bing, Yahoo and type in the question “How to create a WordPress website”.
This what you have just typed in Google is indeed a keyword (or a key phrase). Once you hit Enter or click on Google Search, the search engine checks its index for content that is relevant to this keyword (or query) and displays it back to you, so you can browse the results and eventually find answers to your question.
Why Are Keywords Important
Keywords are very important for 3 main reasons:
- Keywords establish the connection between the user’s intention to search for information on the Internet and your website via search engines.
- Relevant keywords are a strong ranking factor.
- The right keywords can significantly expand and solidify the online presence of your website.
This all means that If you find out what types of words and phrases your potential website audience uses to search for online content similar to yours, you can use these words and phrases (keywords) on your website, so search engines start to associate the prompted keywords with your website content and therefore placing your pages higher in search engine result pages.
The higher your website appears in search results, the higher the chance for more organic traffic to your pages.
Types of Keywords
As seen from the previous section, keyword checker tools give you detailed information about keywords that can be very useful for the success of your website.
Among others, there are 2 general types of keywords:
- Branded keywords
- Geo-focused keywords
Branded Keywords
Branded keywords, as the name suggests, are words or phrases that contain the name of a certain brand. Such keywords are used by Internet users to find
the official website of a certain brand, search for the brand’s products or services or check for some brand reviews from third-party authors.
Examples of branded keywords include:
- AwardSpace
- AwardSpace hosting plans
- AwardSpace WordPress tutorials
Geo-Focused Keywords
Geo-focused keywords are user queries containing a geographical location, along with other information, all as a part of the keyword.
Usually, such keywords are used by users to find local shops, cafés, restaurants, or services in a specific region.
Examples of geo-focused keywords include:
- Michelin-star restaurants Philadelphia
- Dentist in Ohio
- Top 10 pasta places in Italy
Keyword Features
If you revert to using a keyword rank checker tool, you should then learn more about the different metrics such platforms use and how to select your keywords based on these metrics for best results.
Usually, several terms are used to analyze whether a given keyword is a good fit for your website and growth strategy:
Keyword Search Volume
This metric showcases how many Internet use this keyword in search queries. The higher the volume, the more popular the query is.
In other words, keyword search volume gives you an idea of how big or small the potential of ranking high with such a keyword is. The bigger the keyword volume, the greater the potential for ranking high, as the big volume showcases that more Internet users are using this exact keyword.
Keyword Difficulty
This metric showcases how hard it would be to rank for a particular keyword. The higher the difficulty, the more effort you should put into optimizing your website, to remain competitive.
In the best-case scenario, the perfect keyword has a big search volume and small difficulty.
Keyword Length
Keyword length is a term explaining how many (or how few) elements a given keyword is constructed of.
By this metric, there are two types of keywords:
Short keywords – Single words, or phrases containing 2-3 words.
Long-tail keywords – phrases that contain more than 3 words within themselves.
Examples of short-tail keywords would be:
- “SEO”
- “Bicycle”
- “Lager Beer”
An example of long-tail keywords are:
- Best on-page SEO practices for computer retail website
- Can I learn to play the guitar, if I don’t want to study music theory?
- Best smartphone under $400 for making black-and-white photos
Usually, short keywords contain a broad term and are very hard to use on your website, especially if you want to be competitive in terms of SEO.
On the other hand, long-tail keywords describe something very specific and are oftentimes preferred over short keywords, because of how precise they describe something.
As a rule of thumb, the best-performing queries are high volume, low difficulty, and long-tail keywords.
Keyword Search Intent
Such a metric tells you what is the reason and final goal of the Internet user when using a particular keyword when browsing the web.
Keyword search intent is a very useful metric, as it also shows you where are potential clients in their customer journey and how close (or far) they are from making a purchase.
Keyword search intent shows you:
- Whether a user searches the Internet to make a purchase
- Whether the user is shopping and searching for better prices/options
- Whether the user searches only for information and definitions
Based on this information, the types of search intent can be classified as:
- Buyer (transactional) intent
Transactional intent showcases a behavior and usage of such keywords that showcase that the user has already decided to make a purchase and searches for the best deal online.
Transactional keywords can include:
- Best swimming watch under 300USD
- Dress Summer Discounts
- Matte black gaming keyboard with backlight
- Commercial Intent
The commercial intent means that a given Internet user searches the web for deals, products, and services before shopping. Usually, such users are not yet ready to buy but are likely to start purchasing shortly.
Examples of commercial intent keywords include:
- Best swimming watches
- Best dresses for tourism
- Best gaming keyboards with backlight under 200USD
- Informational intent
Informational intent showcases that the internet user is not explicitly interested in purchasing but searches for answers to various questions.
Informational intent keywords are:
- How many hours do we sleep during our lifetime?
- What is SEO?
- For how long should I boil eggs?
How to do Keyword Research
Finding the right keywords for your website is a daunting task, however, an important one to complete.
There are several ways to find relevant keywords:
- Search websites for keywords
- Find competitors keywords
- Using various keyword tools
Now, let’s get into more detail, to understand how it all works together.
Search Websites for Keywords
This is quite a straightforward process that requires a bit more time and effort, but the results are oftentimes worth it.
Make a list of all popular brands and websites that operate in your industry, and browse them thoroughly.
See how they structure their website content and try to find out what keywords are they using.
To find out exactly which keywords are used, search for prominent terms, words, and phrases that are prominent in this particular industry, and are placed on strategic places on examined websites – page headings, subheadings, meta descriptions, and URLs.
The more often you see a certain word or phrase, the higher the chance is that this is the keyword site owners try to rank for.
Browsing more websites that operate in your industry and filter out the keywords you stumble on.
In the end, you will have a quite bulky list of keywords that you can use on your website.
Later in this article, you will read how to make the best out of them.
Find Competitors Keywords
This approach highly resembles the previous one, but there is a significant difference. When you search for competitor keywords, you browse websites that are direct competitors to yours.
Again, make a list of websites that you compete with (that have very similar content to yours and promote the same products and services) and check for keywords on strategic places – page headings, subheadings, meta descriptions, and URLs.
Again, the more often you stumble on a word or phrase that is used in your niche, the higher the chance that it is a keyword the competitor is trying to rank for.
Make a list of all the gathered keywords and filter out the relevant ones you can use on your website.
Later you will read how to use them most effectively on your website.
Use a Keyword Ranking Checker
Keyword ranking checkers can become your secret weapon for success.
In short, ranking checkers are free or premium tools that give you various data about each keyword you type in their system.
This data can help you decide whether it is worth using certain keywords, or not at all.
Usually, such tools work in a certain way:
You add a keyword that you think might be a good choice for your website and the tool shows you such data:
- How often the keyword is used in search queries.
- How many searches are made with this keyword for a certain period.
- How hard it is to rank higher by using this keyword.
- Keyword variations.
- Other useful information.
Here’s an example:
You decide to create an online blog and write about web hosting.
The first topic you wish to publish would be named “What is web hosting?”. Of course, the heading of the article will become the keyword you wish to rank high in Google.
Now, you decide to see how competitive the keyword “What is web hosting?” is via a keyword ranking checker.
These are the results that one such tool showcases (later in the article you will read how to analyze such data in detail):
Via this information, you can conclude that this keyword is widely used by Google users, and is very competitive to rank for. However, you decide to optimize your website in such a way that you will still achieve a high ranking.
Furthermore, by further analysis of the displayed data, we can see that Google users from India are the majority of people who use this keyword to search in Google. Also, you can notice what intent there is behind using such keywords and some financial details regarding advertising in Google.
Such information might be very helpful in creating website content that is relevant to the most interested group of Internet users, therefore enhancing your chances for better traffic rates.
Also, by analyzing this data, you can come up with a tight and well-focused paid ad strategy in search engines.
Once you get used to the way keyword ranking checker tools showcase information about keywords, they can become quite useful, so consider trying out one.
What to Do After Keyword Research
Once you have collected a fair number of relevant keywords, you should start using them on your website in such a way that the quality of your content doesn’t diminish, and both site visitors and search bots like your content.
Remember that both site visitors and bots love and search for well-structured, informative, and high-quality content.
This means that when you include your relevant keywords on your website, you should make sure that everything makes sense, the information you share flows as smoothly as possible and you are not aggressively using keywords for the sake of including them on your pages.
Now, let’s see how to use the keywords on your website for optimal SEO impact.
Keyword Strategy for Your Website
Now that you know what are keywords and how to find the most suitable for your website, it is time to read how to use them for optimal SEO impact.
In general, here’s what to do:
- Learn about Keyword Placement
- Use keywords naturally
- Use long-tail keywords
- Avoid keyword stuffing
- Avoid keyword cannibalization
Keywords Placement
When adding your selected keywords to your website, you should know exactly where to include them, to benefit optimally:
- Page Title
Always add a keyword to your page title. By doing so, site visitors have a greater chance of opening your website once they see a relevant result suggested by search engines, and bots will have a greater chance of crawling, indexing, and placing your site higher in SERPs.
- Subheadings
Subheadings are a great place to add a keyword. As a rule of thumb, add long-tail keywords that complement the page’s heading and expand on the topic this page is about.
- Text body
When working on your main text for each web page on your website, design your content in such a way that it contains relevant keywords, but also makes it sound natural.
- Meta descriptions
Meta descriptions are small boxes of text that explain what the web page they refer to is all about. It is a great idea to include keywords in these boxes, as they can ensure visitors that the web page contains everything they search for and persuade bots that your website is a good match for the given search query.
For example, for the query of “free web hosting”, this is the meta description of the suggested result:
- Images Alt Text
If you include images to your website, ensure they contain keywords in the alt. text box. This is because search bots can’t “see” the images as we, people do, and therefore the only way of “understanding” what the image is all about is by including an alt text.
- URLs
Make sure that your website’s URL structure includes keywords about the content each URL leads to. By doing so, search engines would have more reasons to include your website in search positions and rank it higher in SERPs.
Use Keywords Naturally
We can’t stress enough how important it is to make your website content sound natural for both readers and search bots.
This is why, you should put more effort into blending relevant keywords and a natural flow of information, as this would ensure a great user experience on your website, and would send signals to crawling bots that you focus on keeping your content of high quality, so to suggest it in search results.
Use Long-Tail-Keywords
As a rule of thumb, focus on using long-tail keywords, as they have a greater chance of ranking high in search results.
This is because short keywords are so broad that for the majority of the time, it can become hard for search engines to suggest relevant results.
Also, in many cases, users search for something precise, so adding such long-tail keywords to your content enhances your chances of appearing in search results.
Avoid Keyword Stuffing
When adding keywords to your website, avoid using the same keyword too many times. This would only lead to a bad user experience and negative reaction and also can send negative signals to crawlers.
Instead, use your main keyword for the page several times and then sprinkle various keyword synonyms – this would add dynamics to your content and also would please search engines, as they like synonyms and diversity in keywords.
Avoid Keyword Cannibalization
Keyword cannibalization is a term that describes a certain specific situation:
You have used the same keyword on different pages or posts, and therefore the search engine doesn’t know which page/post to index and rank. In such situations, the search engine can rank higher not the web page you meant to rank in search results.
As a rule of thumb, to avoid keyword cannibalization, always follow this formula:
One Page – One Topic – One Main Keyword.
In other words, this means that each of your website pages and publications should focus on a different topic, and for each topic, you should include only one main keyword (that you can use several times, but be careful of stuffing) and several synonyms.
Conclusion
Keywords are very important for your website traffic, and should always be used when possible, however with caution and plan in mind.
Read also:
- 9 Ways to Start Monetizing Your Website
- What are Keywords
- How to Optimize Images for Web (7 Key Tips)
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- Why Your Site Speed Matters and How to Measure It
- 6 Reasons Why Social Media Matters for Your Website
- How to Set Up Google Analytics 4
- What Are Web Analytics and Why Do They Matter?
- How to Navigate Google Analytics 4
- What are the Most Important Website Metrics to Track in Google Analytics 4
- What Is PageRank? A Quick History Lesson
- How to Get Started with Affiliate Marketing
