Definition of Keywords
“Keywords” is a popular term that we’ve all heard, but if you’re new to SEO you might be confused as to what keywords actually are and why they’re so important. A keyword is a word that people enter into a search engine like Google or Bing or Safari, to find the information or website they are looking for. A key word could be one word, but it could also be a phrase or string of words. These longer keywords are often called long-tail keywords.
Significance
Keywords are important to those creating online content because they tell these search engines about what topics your content covers for the consumer. If a user searches for keywords that match the ones attached to your content, the search engine will place your content in the consumer’s search results. In a nutshell, keywords are the way the public will find your content!
How Keywords Impact Search Results of Your Consumers
When a user receives the search results from their search, the results are listed in a rank order. You want your content to come up on top! The ranking of the search results depends on several factors:
- Relevance to the keywords search
- Dependability of the information on the site
- Performance of the site for users
- The authority of the site’s owners and/or content creators.
Google and other search engines have a formula for calculating these rankings, but the bottom line, if your information does not match what the users are looking for, it will not show up in their search results.
Determining the Best Keywords
There are many factors to consider in choosing keywords for your content.
Content
Consider your content. What are the big ideas your content is about? What is the main idea(s)? Your titles and subtitles are also a good place to look. The keywords should give a picture of what your content is portraying for the consumer. If your keywords do not match your content well, then your content will show up on the wrong search result lists.
Audience
Consider your audience. What kind of people are you hoping will search for your content? Think about what things a consumer might be looking for when they search for content like yours. Put yourself in their shoes. If you wanted information about your content, what would you search for? You know your content well and can probably generate a list very easily, but it is also a good idea to talk to some people and actually ask them what they are searching for.
Research
Research will also help you to determine the best keywords for your content. You can begin with your own list created based on your considerations of the content and the audience. You should do your own search of those terms on your search engine and see what comes up in the results. Are the sites recommended similar to your content? As you begin typing a keyword in the search bar of your search engine, also look to see what other suggestions the search engine offers. Be sure to try more than one search engine. Each search engine has its own formulas for ranking content.
Once you have a list of keywords that you think you would like to use, it’s time to see which ones are worth using. You can use many different tools for this, but one free option is the Google AdWords Keyword Planner. The Keyword Planner will tell you how many people have searched for those terms in an average month.
Quality & Quantity
When you consider whether or not to use a keyword, you will want to consider the quality of the results over the quantity. Just because the research shows that a keyword has many searches and traffic, it doesn’t mean it is best quality for your content. Consider if the keyword will get you the searchers that you are actually wanting. For example, if you sell tile and your research suggests that glass tile has a lot of hits, but you do not offer glass tile, then tile is not a keyword you want to use.
Incorporation
Once you have your keywords that you want to use, you need to be sure you incorporate them into your content. Include the key words in the titles and subtitles of the content. Using the keyword at the beginning of title is most effective. Also include the keyword in the URL. Of course, be sure your keyword appears often in the content, but naturally.
Assessment
Once you incorporate the keywords, it is important to continue to keep track of how well it is working. There are many tools that can track keywords and report how their results vary on a regular basis. Here at NuMedia Marketing we use tools that do not measure analytics for every aspect of online marketing.
At NuMedia we can help you identify top keywords in your industry and help you to incorporate them into your content. Contact us today at 317-563-7235 for all your needs in web design and development as well as digital marketing!
