Whether you own an online business or not, you know that a business cannot survive without Search Engine Optimisation. It is extremely important for the health and survival of business online.
You can always get traffic through various paid methods but nothing can beat the power of organic traffic. The organic traffic that you get, determines your search engine rankings and your visibility as a brand.
The most important aspect of SEO is understanding the keywords that you should use.
In fact, keywords are the ones that determine the SEO of a website or blog. In this article, we are going to tell you all you need to know about keywords.
But first, let us understand what these keywords are.
What are Keywords?
Every time you type something into a search box of any search engine, you get certain results, right?
The words that you are typing to look for something are called keywords.
When you type these words, you get all the necessary and relevant information in the form of images, videos or blog posts.
So, keywords are terms or phrases that users send to a search engine when they are looking for some information on something.
When we are talking about SEO, keywords have a very important purpose. They tell the search engine what exactly users are looking for.
The search engine then sends the query and looks for answers in its database and then delivers the most useful web pages that contain that information.
You know that organic traffic is very important to build your brand image. That is why every business wants to have a high rank for the specific search words or phrases that the audience is using, to search the products that the particular business is offering.
To get high ranks, you have to send a signal to the search engine and inform them that your website has the kind of high-quality content, that users are looking for.
You have to strategically place those keywords in your content, both on your web pages and blog posts. When you mention those keywords, you are telling the search engine, what your page is about.
Make sure you do not stuff the content with keywords, otherwise it will get repetitive. Instead, use these keywords in a way that your page is completely optimized for various search engines.
Importance of Keywords in SEO:
So now you know how important keywords are in determining the SEO and search engine rankings of the website.
But do you know the other reasons, why keywords are so important in SEO?
Let us analyze the importance of keywords in the SEO of a website.
1. Keywords let your website get featured on various search engines:
The way in which keywords function in SEO is very easy to comprehend and understand.
A user opens a search engine and types a word or a phrase in the search box and then gets the relevant content.
In a matter of a few seconds, the search shows the user all the necessary and relevant information related to that keyword.
How this works is that the website that has the most relevant content and follows the guidelines of Google is featured at the top.
The user will obviously click on the first few results on the search engine page. This is how keywords, when optimized, help a website to get listed and get featured on the top.
2. Different types of keywords have different utilities:
In SEO, there are different types of keywords that you can add to your articles or blog posts in order to add quality.
You can use different keyword tools to generate targeted keywords for that topic.
There are 2 kinds of keywords that you can use in an article, namely:
1. Short tail keywords, which will include a maximum of 3 words.
For example, “ trending red hats”
2. Long tail keywords, which are longer in length. They are more widely used as they are more specific. They are also called targeted keywords.
For example, “Kinds of red hats trending this season”.
3. Keywords generate huge traffic to your website:
Most users generally type longer sentences for searching for something as these longer sentences mean more targeted and specific search results. That does not mean that short tail keywords are not useful.
Short tail keywords are great when you are searching for titles. Whether you are using short tail or long tail keywords, they will bring high traffic to your site if you have utilized them properly.
At all times, you have to make sure that you are not stuffing keywords in your content unnecessarily to get higher rankings.
If you have identified the targeted keywords and have optimized them in your content, you are bound to get a massive amount of traffic to your website.
4. Optimized and targeted keywords also enhance your domain authority:
Domain authority is the score that determines how the website performs and what its rank is, on various search engines.
Targeted keywords are important because they enhance the visibility of your websites across search engines.
When you invest time and efforts in keyword research, you will constantly rank high for various sets of targeted keywords.
When Google will see that you are constantly getting high page rankings, it will strengthen your domain and you will be established as an authority in your niche.
How Many Keywords Should You Target?
This is a very valid question when it comes to using keywords in an article.
While you should make sure that you do not stuff keywords in your article, you also have to determine how many keywords you should target in an article.
But before going into that, there is something you should understand about Google.
Google always prefers articles that contain relevant information and are well structured. So, the first thing you should do is write the articles keeping your target audience in mind.
Else, the posts will not get any engagement from users. Nor there will be any backlinks or shares on social media.
Here are a few things you need to keep in mind to determine how many keywords you should be targeting.
The subject of your page:
Before determining keywords, you should analyze the subject of the page that you are searching the keywords for. For example, you on an eCommerce store that sells dresses.
You know that the subject of the page is dresses but you do not know what to call them. So, you do the research for yourself by trying various keyword combinations like, ‘skater dresses’, ‘shirt dresses’, ‘maxi dresses’ etc.
Consider the variations of the subject:
When you have decided the keyword of your choice, you have to then take into consideration the variations of the subject.
Like, you can go for ‘Cotton skater dresses’, ‘red skater dresses’, ‘blue skater dresses’ etc.
You can also use all of these and list them on one page. Like that, ‘skater dresses’ will fit in everything that users will be searching for, and you can gradually keep adding links to the more specific pages slowly.
Organize those variations:
The next most important thing to do is to organize those variations on your website so that they are understandable to search engines and users. This means that you provide information for all the subtypes of the target keyword.
So, on your ‘skater dresses’ page, users should find a link that should be about ‘cotton skater dresses’ only. These pages can contain more targeted and specific information to add strength to that keyword.
This brings us back to the original question, how many keywords should you target?
So, for every page, target One keyword and then try to create variations of that keyword.
Create specific pages for each of the variations and offer all the relevant information about those variations to the users.
But make sure that you create variations of a keyword only if it makes sense. When you are that specific, you will cover all the necessary information about a certain product.
This also helps you to establish authority among your competitors because your users and Google will see how knowledgeable you are about the topics in your niche.
How to Pick Your First SEO Keywords?
You might know everything about keywords but picking the first set of SEO keywords can be a little tricky. This is how you can determine the initial SEO keywords for your business.
Set the overall goals:
Before you decide on the keywords to use, you need to have a clear idea about your overall SEO goals.
Determine how early you want to see the results, how flexible you are with your audience, what do you want from the traffic that comes to your site etc.
Choose the combo of short tail and long tail keywords:
Once you know your goals, you can choose your keywords accordingly. But the selected keywords should be a combination of short and long tail keywords.
These combined will lead you to optimize traffic while minimizing competition.
Do the necessary primary research:
For this, you can start with a rough idea of what people are going to search for, that is related to your business. Then use the online tools to generate keywords for the body and the headline of the article, based on that idea.
After you have come up with all the possible keywords, set them on a list.
Do the necessary filtering and narrow it down:
From that master list, filter out the keywords based on volume, the level of competition, their relevance and your current rankings for all the keywords.
The first ever blend of long and short tail keywords is never going to be perfect or give you the desired results.
But it is going to be a lesson for you where you are going to learn better blends and how to get higher traffic and all other important lessons.
Types of Keywords to Boost Your SEO Strategy:
While you never know what might work for your company and what not, there are a few types of keywords you can definitely consider to boost your SEO.
1. Market-defining:
These are the keywords and phrases that your audience uses while searching for your business and industry.
They are mostly long tail and quite generic, so it becomes difficult to rank for these kinds of keywords. But they are important to optimize your page.
2. Customer defining:
These are the terms or phrases that are used by customers to talk about themselves. These kinds of keywords are important because it helps you to find others who are related to your target audience.
These keywords will help you understand what entices your audience and they will start interacting on your website.
3. Product keywords:
These keywords are extremely important because they describe your product and what you sell. You have to be very specific while researching for these terms.
For example, if you are selling phones, you have to mention out the brands that you are selling too. Product based keywords are great when you are looking to create targeted content.
4. Names of competing companies:
You won’t be needing the names of your competitors for optimizing your web pages. But these are important when you will want to see who all have covered your competitors on other platforms like the news sites, blogs, and discussion forums.
You can then check out their reviews to understand where you are lacking and work on it.
Wrapping Up:
Keywords are an indispensable part of SEO, without which the entire SEO of a website will come crashing down. Keywords can make or break the fortune of a website.
So, do your research properly before starting to implement various SEO strategies. As we already said, it is going to be a bumpy ride initially, where your keyword combinations might or might not work. But you learn lessons of a lifetime.