Importance of Keywords from the Perspective of SEO!

 Let's understand what keywords are and why it is important for SEO.

Have you wondered that how search engine shows you the result when you search for something? Well, the words or phrases that you type on the search engine is called ‘Keywords” and search engine shows you the result relevant to it.

Hence, Keywords are very important to be found on a search engine. It is a major aspect of SEO as our website runs and ranks on search engines based on the keywords that we chose.

There are many factors which should be taken care of while using keywords.  For example, what type of keywords you should use? How to research it? What are the tools available for it?  Where to place it? How many times it should be used?

Well, let’s take explore each of these factors to understand it better:

Types of Keywords

Before choosing your keywords suitable for your business, you need to know about its type:

• Head Keywords- They are comprised of 1-2 generic words. For example, if someone searches for ‘coffee’, it is unspecified here what the user wants. Whether he is searching for a coffee house in a particular area or he wants to know how to make one. It is a broad term, so search volumes are very high.

Though it brings higher traffic, the conversion rate is very low. Also, competition on these is very high, so it is not much profitable.

• Search Keywords- They are comprised of 2-3 words. These are the search terms that user specifically searches for. For example, ‘Digital Marketing agency’ or ‘Digital Marketing fee structure’. It is a query of a user and it does not contain any particular brand or company or organization’s name.
• Long Tail Keywords- They are comprised of 3 or more specific words. For example, if someone searches for ‘Coffee shop near Connaught place’. Here it is specified that the user is searching for a coffee shop in a particular area.

Due to lower competition, the long tail is easier to rank. It derives more potential customers and hence conversion rates are high. Thus, it is considered more profitable.

These two are the main types of keywords for SEO. There are other types of keywords too on the basis of the term or keyword searched

• Branded Keywords- They are the search words or phrases which comprises company or brand’s name.
• Non-Branded- They are the search words or phrases that relate to your product or services but do not contain your company or brand’s name directly.

Keyword Match Types

However, when we talk about paid ads, it also ranks on the basis of keywords and there are five keyword match types:

• Broad Match Type- It includes any word in your key phrase in any order. It provides a wider audience.
• Broad Match Modifier- In Broad Match Modifier, the term or key phrase which has ‘+’ (plus) sign as a prefix, has to be present in a search query then only your ad will be visible.
• Phrase Match Type- When using phrase match, the key phrase under inverted commas must be present in the search query in the same order. Extra words or phrases can be added but either as a prefix or suffix without disturbing the order of the key phrase, then the only your ad will be visible.
• Exact Match Type- This is a very restrictive match type. In this, your ad will be visible only when the search query contains the exact keywords phrase. No suffix or prefix should be added only the key phrase in the bracket.
• Negative Keywords- These are search terms or phrases on which you don’t want to rank.

How to research?

Keyword research is the most important yet tiresome task. A strong keyword strategy must be adopted and executed to rank on search engine. Keyword research and planning is a pre-requisite for creating a content.

There are following steps involved in this process:

1. Discover Keywords: Find the keywords which are relevant to your topic.
2. Research related search terms: For this purpose, you can take ideas from related search terms that appear when you type or search keywords in Google. Or you can check some suggestions for the searches related to your to your actual search term that appears at the bottom of the Google search result page.
3. Collect metrics: collect the data or metrics of the keyword like search volume, competition, and relevancy. You can use keyword research tools available or Ad words keyword planner for this purpose. Prioritize keywords on the basis of this metrics. A keyword with the high search volume and low competition is more preferred.
4. Segment Keywords: On the basis of its type, segment them in different categories like branded or non-branded; long tail or short tail.
5. Keyword targeting: Choose or target your best-suited keywords for your content creation.

Keyword Research Tools

There are many online tools available that give the accurate result. Some of them are even free. Top 10 tools which I personally recommend are:-

Keyword Planner

Moz’s keyword explorer

SEMrush

KW Finder

Soovle

Keywords Everywhere

Word Tracker

Mondovo

Ubersuggest

Seed keywords

Keyword Density and Placement

Keyword density is the percentage of a number of times a keyword present on a web page relative to the total number of words on the page.

In the initial days, high keyword density meant higher ranking on the search result page. It is because earlier, it was assumed that more a keyword appeared on a given web page, more it is relevant to the user’s search.

But soon it was realized that people can misuse this by overloading their web page with the keywords, known as Keyword Stuffing to rank higher. And it need not be relevant to the user’s search.

Thus, now Keyword Stuffing is considered as one of the Black Hat SEO techniques. It can lower your ranking and Google can even penalize your website for this.

An ideal density which is considered best for SEO is between 1-3%. You can use synonyms or LSI to avoid keyword stuffing.

Placement of Keywords in the right place is very crucial for the ranking of your website. There are certain places in your blog post where your focus keywords must be present.

These places are Title of the post, heading tags, permalink of your blog post,  first and last paragraph of your post,  Meta description and image alt tag.

CONCLUSION

Content is the king and your content is made up of keywords. They are very essential in view of the SEO. It helps in the better ranking, bringing traffic and increasing conversion rate.

Whether it is SEO, Ad words, Content Marketing, Social Media Marketing, in short, every aspect of Digital Marketing functions on Keywords. So, it is very important to choose it wisely.