In terms of SEO, one of the most often asked questions is what are keywords?
In simple terms keywords are ideas and/or topics that the content on your webpage or blogpost is about.
A keyword (or keywords) can be a single word, or several words to form a ‘keyword phrase’ (sometimes called long-tail keywords).
Keywords are the words or phrases that searchers type into search engines, also called ‘search queries’, to find information about the stuff they are looking for, for example, ‘dog collars’, ‘dog collars for large dogs’, ‘dog collars for large dogs with lights’ or ‘red dog collars for large dogs with lights’.
Why Are Keywords Important?
Keywords are important because, as alluded to above, keywords are the connection between what people (your potential customers) are searching for online – the ‘search queries’ they type in to search engines such as Google – and the content that you are providing on your webpage.
If you are selling ‘dog collars for large dogs with lights’ you want your webpage selling those ‘dog collars for large dogs with lights’ to rank highly on the search engine results page (SERPS). To help your webpage rank highly in the SERPS – you would use ‘dog collars for large dogs with lights’ as the keyword phrase for that webpage, and make sure that your keyword phrase is included in the content and ‘hidden coding’ of your webpage.
Using the right keywords will ensure you get the right kind of traffic to your webpage. For example, if you were a tool shop selling woodworking tools you might want to rank for a keyword such as ‘new plane’ – however, you might attract searchers looking for a new Boeing 777 jet – a bit extreme but I hope you get the idea that choosing the right keyword(s) to rank for is important.
To a large extent, the keywords you target on your webpage are ‘determined’ by your potential customers. You want your webpage to rank well for what they are looking for (what they are typing into Google to find what they want) – they may be looking for ‘dog collars for large dogs with lights’ or they might be searching more for ‘large dog collars with lights’ – these are two different ‘keyword phrases’.
You want your webpages to rank well for the keywords or keyword phrases that your potential clients are looking for, you want to rank for the keywords that they search more for (more searches = more customers), and you want to rank for keywords that show buyer intent – ranking well for ‘new features on iPhone 14’ is good, ranking for ‘where to buy iPhone 14 near me’ might be more profitable – the potential client is looking to buy his or her new iPhone 14!
What are ‘longtail keywords’ or ‘keyword phrases’?
Singular keywords such as ‘painter’ might seem to be the ideal words to rank well for, however, they can be fairly broad terms and have several meanings – if someone types painter into Google are they looking for someone to paint their house or paint a picture of them?
Often singular keywords are also very hard to rank for, without a lot of ‘resources’ (time and money) being used to do so.
Longtail keywords or keyword phrases are combinations of works or several terms, that have a more clearly defined intent and are easier to rank for – for example, ‘best external painter and decorator in Sittingbourne’.
using longtail keywords or keyword phrases is usually the best way for most businesses.
What keywords should I use?
Good question, well presented and deserves a good answer!
You should use the keywords or keyword phrases that your potential customers will type into Google when searching for that product or service.
What are those keywords? If you have been in business for some time then you will most probably have a good idea of what people are likely to type in to find your business – ‘plumber in Sittingbourne’.
However there may well be other, possibly better or more profitable keywords they may be using – ‘burst pipe repair in Sittingbourne’ ‘Who can replace my boiler?’ terms that you might not have thought of – Joe Public searches in a different way for things than you, Tony The Qualified Plumber does!
How do I find the keywords I should use?
To find the keywords you can /should use, you will have to do some keyword research.
Why do you have to do keyword research?
If you do not know the words potential customers type in to Google, you are
- not going to be able to structure your content
- you will not be able to get into the searcher’s brain to find out what they actually want from your content when they are searching
- you will not be able to correctly target your marketing, which will mean your competitors will be getting the search traffic – visits to their website – that you want to your website.
If your competitors are using the words that people are searching for, and you are optimising for other words that not many people are searching for, or are much more difficult to rank for, then they will be more successful than you in getting traffic to their website (sales) – and you don’t want that do you?
Keyword research helps to understand what people are searching for, how many are searching for it etc so that you can optimise your content to get the most SEO benefit from it.
Keyword research can help you compile a list of search terms that you can optimise for and rank for those terms in SERPS (search engine results pages) – the keyword is actually used, how much, and is there much competition for it – is it easy for you to rank for!
Keyword research can help you prioritise the content you want to put out – publishing the most important items with the best return on your investment first – you don’t want to spend money on ranking for a keyword if a better one is more profitable.
Having a list of specific keywords allows you to check that your content (webpages and posts) covers all the bases – and reveals where there may be gaps in your content – gaps that you can fill by issuing new content.
If you have pages with keywords that are not ranking too well, then you can better optimise those pages to rank better.
With a list of possibly suitable keywords to hand, you need to consider the volume of traffic (how many times it is searched for), the competition for that keyword (how difficult it will be to rank for it), the value of that keyword to your business (for example for a plumber does boiler replacement make you more money than tap replacement) – with these factors in mind you can prioritise the keywords you want to rank for.
Using keywords on your webpage or posts.
Just randomly using keywords on a page will most probably not get you the results you want.
There are some basic guidelines to follow:
Each webpage should target a specific keyword or keyword phrase – if you target several pages with ‘plumber in Sittingbourne’ Google will not know which one you want to rank first – you will confuse Google – you do not want to do that.
You should try and use the keyword in
- the page URL
- the page title tag
- the page meta description
- the H1 tag of the page
- a subheading on your page
- the alt tag of an image on the page
- in the opening paragraph of the content
- in the closing paragraph of the content
- lightly sprinkled throughout the content – maybe once every 250 words
- use other semantic keywords lightly sprinkled throughout the content – words that relate to your keyword topic – for example, if trying to rank for ice hockey – hockey skates, hockey stick, puck could be semantic keywords to use
Conclusion
We hope this help to explain what keywords are, why they are important, what keywords you should use, how to find your keywords and how you should use keywords in your content.
If you any queries or need any more help with keywords, with web design, SEO or anything to do with internet marketing to get the results that you want, click on the button below to contact us – we are happy to help:)
