What are SEO keywords?
Your SEO Keywords are phrases in your web content that help people find your site through search engines. A well-optimized search engine website “speaks the same language” as its base of potential visitors with SEO keywords that help connect searchers to your site. Keywords are one of the main elements of SEO .
In other words, you need to know how people search for the products, services, or information you offer, so that they can easily find you. Otherwise, they’ll land on one of the many other Google result pages. Implementing keyword SEO will help your site rank above your competition.
This is why developing a keyword list is one of the first and most important steps in any search engine optimization initiative . Keywords and SEO are directly linked when it comes to running a winning search marketing campaign. Because keywords are the foundation of all of your other SEO efforts, it’s worth the time and investment to make sure your SEO keywords are highly relevant to your audience and effectively organized for action.
Choosing the right SEO keywords is a delicate process involving both trial and error, but the basics are easy to understand. Here, we’ll walk you through researching what your customers are looking for, uncovering the keywords that will help you rank on a Search Engine Results Page ( SERP ), and implementing them into your online content.
Finding your best keywords for SEO
Most newbie search marketers make the same mistakes when it comes to SEO keyword research:
- Do an SEO keyword research only once,
- Don’t bother to update and expand your SEO keyword list, or
- Targeting keywords that are too popular, which means they are way too competitive.
Basically, SEO keyword research should be an ongoing, ever-evolving part of your job as a marketer. Old keywords need to be re-evaluated periodically, and competitive high volume keywords (or “main” keywords, as opposed to long tail SEO keywords ) can often be usefully replaced or supplemented with longer phrases. and more specific designed not to introduce any SEO keywords.
Visitor, but exactly the right visitors. (Who visits your site – especially if they are people who are actively seeking your services – is at least as important as the number of people who visit it.)
And we have to diversify. Here’s a tongue twister that’s absolutely true: Diversity is a key word in the keyword world. You won’t stand out if you all use the same keywords as your competition.
Not only should you try out new SEO keyword research tools and track the results, but you should also feel free to experiment based on your own research – who else is using your keywords? And how do you stand out? By providing quality content that really answers the questions your potential customers are asking with their keyword research.
Using our free SEO keyword tool
WordStream’s free SEO keyword research tool helps you find your best and most relevant keywords, keywords that will drive continuous web traffic and conversions to your site.
The benefits of using WordStream’s keyword tools, including the Keyword Tool
SEO keywordsfree , for better SEO include:
- More SEO Keywords – Get FREE access to thousands of keywords plus SEO keyword research volume data , right to your inbox.
- SEO Targeted Keywords – Filter your keyword results by industry or country so you can focus on the keywords that will really work for your account.
- SEO Keyword Grouping – Learn how to organize your new SEO keywords into actionable segments using effective keyword grouping .
WordStream’s keyword toolkit is also extremely valuable for PPC marketing – use the Keyword Niche Finder to identify new ad groups for your Google Ads (formerly AdWords) campaigns and use the free Negative Keyword Tool to find negative keywords that will reduce unnecessary clicks and save you money.
Make your SEO keywords work for you
Now that you’ve found the best keywords, you need to implement them in order to get SEO results (search traffic, conversions and all that good stuff).
So: how to proceed? On the one hand, SEO best practices recommend that you include relevant keywords in a number of high-attention areas on your site, everywhere, from titles and body text of your pages to your URLs on the go. by your meta tags and the names of your image files.
On the other hand, successfully optimized websites tend to have thousands or even millions of keywords. You can’t very well create a unique page for each of your keywords; at the same time, you can’t try to put everything on a handful of pages with keyword stuffing and expect to rank for each individual keyword. It just doesn’t work that way.
So how does it work ? The answer is the grouping and organization of keywords . By dividing your keywords into small, manageable groups of related keywords, you will reduce your workload (significantly), while creating targeted and specific pages.
For example, let’s say you operate an online pet store’s website. It might be a good idea to create one keyword group for all your dog related products and then one for all your parakeet related projects etc.
The next step would be to segment each individual group into smaller sub-groups (parakeet cages, parakeet toys, parakeet snacks) and then even smaller groups for each type of product (low fat parakeet snacks, parakeet snacks). luxury with parakeets… you get the idea). Your pet store can now create individual pages optimized for each small group of keywords.
A marketer trying to optimize a web page for the keyword group “gourmet parakeet snacks” should consider doing most, if not all of the following:
- Using the keyword in the page title
- Using the keyword in the URL (for example, online-petstore.com/parakeets/snacks/gourmet)
- Use of the keyword and its variations (for example, “gourmet parakeet snacks”) throughout the page
- Use of the keyword in meta tags , in particular the meta description
- Using the keyword in any image file path and in alt text of images
- Using the keyword as anchor text in links to the page from elsewhere on the site
When optimizing your web pages, keep in mind that keyword relevance is more important than keyword density in SEO.
Need help finding SEO keywords?
Try our Free Keyword Tool today. And, to get the most out of your keyword research, be sure to check out our resources on keyword grouping and keyword niches .
