If you ask any SEO expert, they will tell you how keywords are the holy grail towards achieving website recognition. Keywords, keywords, keywords! We can’t emphasize their importance enough, couldn’t you tell? Nowadays, you have to be pretty SEO savvy in order to beat your competition to the punch and if you want to do that, it entails doing your own keyword research.
Websites are constantly contending to be ranked first on Google, but if you want to be a step ahead of the competition, strategic keyword implementation is key! See what we did there? Keywords are the main ingredient in the Google ranking process so it’s important to remember that the right keywords steer your website towards success and of course, the most popular landing page for that search. Whatever content you are writing, keywords matter and what propel your content to be the most found and relevant.
Understanding Keywords
There are two basic principles when it comes to fully understanding the utilization of keywords: competition and traffic. Let’s breakdown the definitions for each.
Competition refers to the number of other websites (offering similar services to yours) striving to rank for the same keywords as you.
Traffic means the amount of users searching for those keywords every day.
When it comes to finding the right keywords, you may think using popular keywords is the best way to go, but on the contrary, it gives you poorer results. When you imbed highly searched keywords within your content, those already established businesses are highly ranked on Google making your website fall behind.
If you are only looking to generate keyword traffic, long-tail keywords are the best way to go. Let’s compare the two: “photographers” and “va wedding photographer.” The short keyword phrase of “photographers” is much more general, but highly ranked in comparison to its more detailed specific keyword which offers fewer results because people don’t tend to search for words that are that optimized. However, you have a good chance to rank highly for any long-tail keywords that you use and that are tailored to fit your business’ services.
Finding the Right Keywords
Finding the right keywords comes with strategic planning. Think of your target audience and focus on the type of words they would use to type in the search engine. There are software programs that can facilitate which keywords to use or you can use online applications such as Google’s Keyword Planner. With the right variety and combination of keywords, you can cultivate a good amount of traffic to your site and beat the competition!
The keyword planner below breaks down people’s average monthly searches and the competition level of those keywords used by companies.
Targeting Keywords in Your Content
People may be under the misconception to inundate their content with the chosen keywords, but this is actually a mistake! Google penalizes those sites that spreads keywords within the content over and over again. When it comes to keyword stuffing, it’s categorized as spammy by Google’s standards. It is encouraged to use variations of those keywords and create different combinations in verbiage. This creates a better chance of it to come up organically in the search.
Keywords are just part of the machine that makes it function. Learning and knowing the integral process of keyword usage is essential towards any SEO implementation. Once you understand keywords’ purpose, it makes advertising your business much more effective.
