A keyword is a word that

Internet search keywords

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This article was reviewed and updated in March 2022 by Web Webster.

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Understanding search queries is the most important aspect of search engine optimization (SEO). That’s because SEO is about optimizing for people who are looking for what you offer, not the search engine itself.

What is a keyword?

As noted above, a keyword is a word or phrase on your website that matches the words and phrases people are entering into search engines. By learning what keywords or phrases your target audience uses when they search for your product or service, you can create and optimize content to answer their query. It’s vital to rank for terms that are relevant to your business so that when users navigate to your site, they find the content they need and expect.

Answer search queries with keywords

When you use a search engine, the search query is the input, and search results are the output. A search query (or search term) is the exact word or set of words that a user enters into a search engine.

On any given webpage, the content might be a suitable search result for any number of search query variations. That’s why marketers use keywords to optimize in a way that’s useful for both searchers and businesses. Keywords are words or phrases in the content of your web pages that match the words and phrases users are entering into search engines as closely as possible.

Keywords allow you to build an SEO strategy around specific target phrases in a way that’s meaningful and measurable.

The journey of a search query

A user’s search query can indicate a lot about what (if anything) they know about your business. It can also tell you where they are in their journey to conversion.

If someone searches for “Mailchimp guides,” for example, it indicates a degree of pre-qualification. This means that they’re already aware of the Mailchimp brand, possibly already a user of Mailchimp’s all-in-one Marketing Platform, and they’re at a stage in which they need help of some sort.

There might be minutes, days, weeks, or months between any of these steps. At each stage, the user becomes more qualified—meaning that they’re closer to a purchase. This is known as the marketing funnel.

When searching for a solution, the user starts without knowing what path they’re going to take. They gain awareness as they move through the funnel. Eventually, they settle on a range of solutions for consideration and make a decision about what kind of solution they need. Then they research the potential suppliers, build a consideration set in their mind, and begin to compare their options. Eventually, they make a purchase decision and move forward with a specific supplier.

If you understand the journeys that users take on the way to becoming your customer, you can create content to capture their attention at each stage.

Why keywords matter

Identifying keywords that have the potential to fit with customer needs at different stages of the funnel enables you to effectively target your content. But before you can do this, you need to know why keywords are important to your business.

Keywords are the starting point for all optimization you do on your website. They’re the culmination of your research, the basis of your strategy, and one of the core metrics you can use to measure success.

The workflow is fairly straightforward:

1. Determine keywords.
2. Implement keyword optimization on your website.
3. Track keyword rankings, as well as traffic and conversions.

You’ll iterate this process over time, constantly improving content with new target keywords.

Prioritize your keywords

In SEO, keywords are the thing you want to rank for because, in theory, higher rankings should result in an increase in relevant traffic (and more conversions, like a sale or newsletter signup).

But some keywords have more people searching for them—known as search volume—and therefore have a higher potential to drive more traffic. Some keywords will align with users much further down the funnel, so the underlying intent is more purchase-driven, and users are more likely to convert (meaning that they take an action you want them to, like buying something).

When evaluating keywords, it’s important to take search volume and user intent into consideration. Search volume is very intuitive; it’s an estimation of how many people will search for a given keyword.

Searcher intent is also intuitive but requires a bit more explanation.

Consider searcher intent

Intent relates to what the searcher was actually looking for when they typed in their search query—it falls into 4 broad categories.

• Informational intent. The user is simply looking for information, learning or exploring a topic, or answering a specific question.
• Navigational intent. The user knows roughly where they want to end up, or they’re searching for a specific web page, and normally knows the website they’re looking for.
• Transactional intent. The user is searching with the intention to buy in the near future.
• Commercial intent. The user is searching with the intention to buy, but not quite yet, and they’re doing research before they can make a purchase decision.

With the customer journey in mind, you can see how the user’s underlying search intent changes as they move through the funnel. This allows you to map the data against your target keywords. Using this data, you can start to prioritize content.

Finding the best keywords

Determining which keywords to use in your website content requires keyword research. It’s an essential step in search engine optimization.

As with most aspects of SEO, the more competitive your market, the more effort you’ll need to put into keyword research. But for new websites or even those that are new to SEO, you’ll see results even with only a basic approach.

Keyword research basics

Keyword research should always start with your own understanding of what your website (and business) is about—the types of products or services you provide and the words you use to describe them.

Write down the primary topics you associate with your business. Start by thinking broadly, perhaps of the 5 to 10 interests or needs your business brings to mind. If you already have a website, these might align with the pages of your site, for example.

If you don’t have a website yet, you can gain inspiration by looking at competitor’s websites and talking to potential customers. Ask them what things they search for and what words they use. There are many free SEO keyword research tools to help you with your research.

If you run a website that sells dog supplies, for instance, then your topics would be something like:

• Toys
• Treats
• Food
• Bedding
• Walking
• Clothes

These might not be your keywords, but you can use these relevant topics to come up with a 2-word phrase for each that represents your seed keywords.

In this case:

• Dog clothing
• Dog toys
• Dog treats
• Dog beds
• Dog walking

Then, use each of your seed keywords to generate a list of keywords and corresponding search volumes. If you have access to a Google Adwords account, you can use their Keyword Planner tool to do this. If you don’t, a free option is to use SEObook’s keyword tool (though you must sign up for a free account to use it).

For each keyword you enter, it will generate lots of related ideas, and tell you search volumes and impression data for each keyword variation.

This allows you to take a broader view of the search landscape, and gives you some more context to decide what keywords you should prioritize in your website content.

In addition to search volume, it’s also important to understand what Google delivers as search results for a given keyword in a search query. (There are other search engines, of course, but SEO best practices typically focus on Google’s algorithm.) Search results are delivered on a search engine results page (SERP).

If you found that the phrase “dog walking” led to results about hired dog walkers, rather than dog walking equipment, this is an indication that you should shift your keywords. You might decide to instead switch this one to something like “dog leads,” which fits more closely with the actual product offered on your site.

By analyzing the SERPs for the keywords you plan to target, you can learn whether the results reflect the type of product or service you offer, but also if Google thinks the intent is informational, navigational, transactional, or commercial.

Understanding the long tail

When evaluating keywords, search volume isn’t everything. The intent behind each search is important, too.

There are 3 ways to define searches.

• Fat head. One or 2-word phrases with more generic intent. For example “dogs” or “vacation.”
• Chunky middle. Two or 3-word phrases with more specific intent. Like “dog supplies” or “Italy vacation package.”
• Long tail. Two, 3, or 4-word phrases (or longer) with much more specific intent. These could be something like “buy dog collars online” or “Lake Como, Italy vacation package.”

When choosing target keywords, you should typically ignore the fat head entirely. These keywords are usually dominated by larger businesses with the means to invest heavily in SEO. Instead, focus on keywords from the chunky middle or the long tail. As a rule of thumb, if you optimize your content around chunky middle keywords, you will usually also rank for some related long tail keywords.

Matching keywords to content

In some respects, website content and information architecture determine your keyword strategy. When doing keyword research, you may encounter keywords you wish to target, but do not currently have content that fits. It’s also likely that you’ll find keywords that fit within the current site configuration.

For e-commerce sites, you’ll often find that chunky middle keywords lend themselves well to pages dedicated to a category or subcategory of what you sell, whereas long tail keywords are appropriate on product pages. It’s often wise to simply use the product name as the target keyword for product pages.

However you decide to do it, it makes sense to assign target keywords to existing pages, and plan new content (like blog posts, or new subcategories, etc.) for other high-value keywords.

Doing this for every section or topic that your website represents will give you many keywords to target, one for each URL that exists on your site (and/or pages that you intend to build).
This is keyword mapping, and it allows you to form a more defined strategy with measurable results. With each effort to rank for a keyword, you can evaluate whether a particular page and content are ranking as you expected.

Keywords are the heart of SEO

Defining keyword targets is essential for later implementation phases of search engine optimization. Before you can start optimizing, you need to know the words and phrases that are most important to your business.

Written by Patrick Hathaway for Mailchimp. Patrick is the co-founder of Sitebulb, a technical SEO auditing tool.

Keyword: FAQs

How do you define keywords?

A keyword is a word that is common to your industry, one that a person searching the web is likely to type when searching for a business like yours.

Keywords are the hub of any good Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy. Their purpose is to draw in and match up with the search terms and phrases of potential buyers who have an interest in your products or services. Finding the right keywords takes research. You will need to find and often fine-tune your keywords for clarity, accuracy, and common use.

Furthermore, you will need to discover through keyword research what keywords your competitors are using so that you can change the way you use them or choose other keywords so that your content does not drive traffic to your competitor’s landing pages.

In addition to keywords, there are key phrases. These are longer terms that serve the same purpose as keywords. Key phrases are good for fine-tuning your organic outreach but require careful balancing.

What is a keyword example?

There are several optimal keyword examples for any business, or for any entity that wants to generate organic reach online. If you were running a used car business, your keywords might be any or all of the following:

Used car

• Pre-owned vehicles
• Certified pre-owned
• Warranty
• Service
• No money down
• Approval

You will have noticed that some of these are actually keyword phrases. Naturally, if you were running a local used car business, you would have stiff competition in the same town. They will be using the same keywords you are using. This could mean that your keywords will be less effective, and can even send customers to your competition. This is where we need to pin down your unique sales proposition to discover keywords that will draw in used car buyers that would prefer you to the others.

You may have special offers, longer warranties, better-looking salespeople, and so on. Whatever it is, you want to choose at least some keywords that hone in on those special value propositions.

What are keywords in a website?

Suppose a user is interested in immune-boosting vitamins and supplements. Such a user might type in words like «zinc,» «vitamin C,» and so on. For vitamin merchants, these would be important keywords.

That vitamin merchant would want to incorporate those words into blog posts. They would want to use them in headers on landing pages, sales pages, blog entries, and so on. Using these words naturally on a website is what draws in users searching online.

For example, when I type the word «candy» into a browser keyword search, I find a list of websites that sell candy. When I click on one, I find the word «candy» is literally all over those pages. That is no coincidence.

How do you use keywords?

Google search results are generated and organized not only by the popularity and specificity of a keyword but also by professional rankers working for Google. These rankings have an influence over your search ranking and will adjust it according to how relevant, original, and well organized your content is.

Google rankings favor content that is:

• Newer than other content
• Longer than similar content
• Better organized
• Contains pages with video
• Refreshed more recently than similar pages

For these reasons your keywords should be:

• Integrated into titles and headers
• Inserted grammatically into your content
• Positioned in or near video content
• Incorporated into authoritative, long-form, written material

But above all, your keywords should strike a balance between wide use and accuracy. To find the best keywords, only the best keyword research tools will suffice.

In corpus linguistics a key word is a word which occurs in a text more often than we would expect to occur by chance alone.^[1] Key words are calculated by carrying out a statistical test (e.g., loglinear or chi-squared) which compares the word frequencies in a text against their expected frequencies derived in a much larger corpus, which acts as a reference for general language use. Keyness is then the quality a word or phrase has of being «key» in its context.

Compare this with collocation, the quality linking two words or phrases usually assumed to be within a given span of each other. Keyness is a textual feature, not a language feature (so a word has keyness in a certain textual context but may well not have keyness in other contexts, whereas a node and collocate are often found together in texts of the same genre so collocation is to a considerable extent a language phenomenon). The set of keywords found in a given text share keyness, they are co-key. Words typically found in the same texts as a key word are called associates.

In politics, sociology and critical discourse analysis, the key reference for keywords was Raymond Williams (1976), but Williams was resolutely Marxist, and Critical Discourse Analysis has tended to perpetuate this political meaning of the term: keywords are part of ideologies and studying them is part of social criticism. Cultural Studies has tended to develop along similar lines. This stands in stark contrast to present day linguistics which is wary of political analysis, and has tended to aspire to non-political objectivity. The development of technology, new techniques and methodology relating to massive corpora have all consolidated this trend.

There are, however, numerous political dimensions that come into play when keywords are studied in relation to cultures, societies and their histories. The Lublin Ethnolinguistics School studies Polish and European keywords in this fashion. Anna Wierzbicka (1997), probably the best known cultural linguist writing in English today, studies languages as parts of cultures evolving in society and history. And it becomes impossible to ignore politics when keywords migrate from one culture to another. Gianninoto (Underhill & Gianninoto 2019) demonstrates the way political terms like, «citizen» and «individual» are integrated into the Chinese worldview over the course of the 19th and 20th century. She argues that this is part of a complex readjustment of conceptual clusters related to «the people». Keywords like «citizen» generate various translations in Chinese, and are part of an ongoing adaptation to global concepts of individual rights and responsibilities. Understanding keywords in this light becomes crucial for understanding how the politics of China evolves as Communism emerges and as the free market and citizens’ rights develop. Underhill (Underhill & Gianninoto 2019) argues that this is part of the complex ways ideological worldviews interact with the language as an ongoing means of perceiving and understanding the world.

Barbara Cassin studies keywords in a more traditional manner, striving to define the words specific to individual cultures, in order to demonstrate that many of our keywords are partially «untranslatable» into their «equivalents. The Greeks may need four words to cover all the meanings English-speakers have in mind when speaking of «love». Similarly, the French find that «liberté» suffices, while English-speakers attribute different associations to «liberty» and «freedom»: «freedom of speech» or «freedom of movement», but «the Statue of Liberty».

ReferencesEdit

BibliographyEdit

• Cassin, Barbara, 2014, «Dictionary of Untranslatables», Oxford, Princeton University Press.
• Scott, M. & Tribble, C., 2006, Textual Patterns: keyword and corpus analysis in language education, Amsterdam: Benjamins, especially chapters 4 & 5.
• Underhill, James, Gianninoto, Rosamaria, 2019, «Migrating Meanings: Sharing keywords in a global world», Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
• Wierzbicka, Anna, 1997, «Understanding Cultures through their Key Words», Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Williams, Raymond, 1976, «Keywords: A Vocabulary of culture and society», New York: Oxford University Press.

External linksEdit

• Understanding the role of text length, sample size and vocabulary size in determining text coverage, by Kiyomi Chujo and Masao Utiyama
• Frequency Level Checker

In general, keywords are used to describe the content of a work of art or a document in different areas such as art and culture, media, or industry. Today, the term keyword is primarily used in digital marketing and SEO to describe a word or group of words that internet users use when performing a search with a search engine such as Google.

Types of keywords

In SEO, keywords are classified as money, brand, compound, or other keywords, based on their content.

Money keywords

A money keyword is a keyword with high search volume and high competition in terms of ranking in Google search. For commercial websites, «money» means that these keywords are associated with a purchase intention. Examples of money keywords are «buy mountain bike» or «web design offers». For other, non-commercial websites, «money» describes the informative nature of the website content. For example, «mountain bike repair instructions» or «castles in Scotland».

Brand keywords

A brand keyword contains the brand name of a company or variations of it. Examples are “Nike», «Apple» or «IBM». In most cases, keywords of this kind are used for informational searches when users want to find out more about products or a company.

Compound keywords

A compound keyword is a combination of a money keyword and a brand keyword. The search intent is usually the purchase of a specific product. Examples of combined keywords are «buy Adidas basketball shoes» or «Honda CBR650R cheap».

Other keywords

All keywords that cannot be assigned to one of the above categories are so-called «other» keywords. Examples are «information» or «click here».

In SEO, keywords can also be categorized into short-tail and long-tail keywords.

Short-tail keywords

A short-tail or short-head keyword consists of three or fewer words. A short-tail keyword has a high search volume and high competition. Search engine users use these keywords when they search for information or products in the first step. For this reason, it is very difficult to determine the exact search intent for short-tail keywords. Conversion rates for these keywords generally are very low.

Long-tail keywords

A long-tail keyword consists of three or more words. With long-tail keywords, users can get more specific search results. For example, a search in Google with the short-tail keyword «headphones» will produce approximately 26 million results. Searching with a specific long-tail keyword such as «Beats Studio 3 Bluetooth Black Headphones» reduces the number of search results to a fraction. Long-tail keywords usually have a low search volume and low competition. Long-tail keywords also play an increasingly important role in SEO for voice searches with mobile devices, such as «Where can I find the best Italian restaurant in New York?”.

Importance of keywords for on-page SEO

Using relevant keywords on your website is an essential part of on-page SEO. Keywords tell search engines which topic your website is about. This information is used for indexing and ranking the website in search results. You should use your main keyword in the title of your website, in the meta-description, in the first heading [H1], in the content, and in ALT attributes of images. More important than a high number of keywords, however, is the value that your content offers to visitors, as well as a good structure and legibility of your content.

Importance of keywords for off-page optimization

There can be positive effects on your website’s ranking if relevant keywords are used in anchor texts of backlinks (links from other websites that refer to your website). Google and other search engines analyze these anchor texts and use them to assess the relevance of the linked page. However, the excessive use of keywords, and in particular money keywords, is considered spam and can be punished by Google.

Keyword tools

There are several free and paid tools that SEOs can use for keyword research, such as the free Seobility Keyword Research Tool. This tool allows you to search for similar keywords based on a focus keyword, and to find the most important traffic sources of your competitors, using the competitor analysis feature. Thanks to several sorting and filter options, you can then create your individual keyword set.

Screenshot of Seobility’s Keyword Research Tool on seobility.net

Google itself provides tools for keyword research as well, including Google Suggest (Google Autocomplete) and the Google Ads Keyword Planner tool. Google Suggest is an extension of the search engine. When a keyword is entered into Google search, Google displays a list of suggestions frequently entered by users. The Keyword Planner tool in Google Ads provides information about the search volume, competition, and expected traffic of keywords, helping advertisers plan their Google Ads campaigns.

Screenshot showing Google Suggest of google.com

Other tools such as AnswerThePublic and Hypersuggest help to search for questions frequently entered by users in Google Search.

• https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/keyword-research
• https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/how-to-do-keyword-research-ht

Similar articles

• Content is King

When looking for information about keywords in relation to SEO, you get bombarded with information about keyword research. And of course, this is crucial if you’d like your page to rank. But it’s also important to understand what the basic principle of a keyword is. And that’s the thing I’ll explain here. I’ll also share some suggestions about how and where to add keywords for SEO.

In this post:

• What are keywords?
• Why are keywords important?
• How to use keywords

What are keywords?

A keyword, or a focus keyword as some call it, is a word that describes the content on your page or post best. It’s the search term that you want to rank for with a certain page. So when people search for that keyword or phrase in Google or other search engines, they should find that page on your website.

Let’s say you’ve got a website about pianos: you sell all sorts and types of pianos. You blog about what to look at when buying a piano and you share reviews about the pianos you offer on your online shop. You sell digital pianos so you’ve created a product category page about digital pianos. Ask yourself this:

• What kind of search term do you want to be found for?
• Which words do you think people will use in search engines to find you?
• What would the search query look like?

Probably [digital piano], right? Because this keyword reflects what’s on the page best. If you’d have to explain the bottom line of your content, how would that look? What words would you use? That’s your keyword or keyphrase – if it consists of multiple words.

We use the word ‘keyword’ all the time; this does not mean it consists of only one word. A lot of times it consists of multiple words. So when talking about keywords, a lot of times we mean a phrase instead of just one word.

Read more: Keyword research for your online shop »

Why are keywords important?

One of the things Google looks at when ranking a page is the content on that page. It looks at the words on the page. Now picture this, if every word on, for instance, a blog post about a digital piano is used 2 times, then all words are of equal importance. Google won’t have a clue which of those words are important and which aren’t. The words you’re using are clues for Google; it tells Google and other search engines what the page or post is about. So if you want to make Google understand what your page is about, you need to use it fairly often.

But Google isn’t the only reason why keyphrases are important. Actually, it’s less important, because you should always focus on the user: on your visitors and potential clients. With SEO you want people to land on your website when using a certain search term or keyphrase. You need to get into the heads of your audience and use the words they use when they are searching.

If you use the wrong keyphrase, you’ll never get the visitors you want or need, because your text doesn’t match what your potential audience is searching for. But if you do use the words people are searching for, your business can thrive. So if you see it like that, your keywords should reflect what your audience is searching for. With the wrong keyphrase, you’ll end up with the wrong audience, or none at all. That’s why having the right keywords is really important.

How to use keywords

There used to be a time where you could add a lot of keywords to your pages and posts, do some old-fashioned keyword stuffing, and you’d rank in search engines. But a text with a lot of the same words in it is not a pleasant read. And because users find this kind of copy terrible to read, Google finds it terrible too. That’s why ranking in Google by doing keyphrase stuffing, fortunately, became hard to do. Nowadays, you’ll need to add your keyphrase in a natural way by writing focused content.

Use them in moderation

Getting the right amount of keywords onto your page is a balancing act. If you don’t use your keyword enough, you will find it hard to rank for that phrase. But if you use your keyphrase too much, your page will become spammy and unreadable, and that will also make it hard to rank.

You need to find that sweet spot where you’re using your keyword enough, but not excessively. Make sure you don’t stuff it into almost every sentence. In general, if your keyphrase makes up 1 or 2% of all words of your copy, then you’re not overdoing it.

Use them naturally

Aside from trying to add enough-but-not-too-many keywords, you need to make sure you include them in a natural way. Your keywords should be part of logical, coherent sentences that tell users something about that topic. Don’t force keyphrases into text (or headings) where they don’t make sense, or where they’re not adding any value for your readers.

And, that’s not all. Make sure your keywords are all well-distributed throughout your text. Don’t put all your keywords in the first paragraph thinking you’re done with that part of the optimization. Naturally spread them throughout your page or post.

Where to add your keyword

As well as distributing your keyphrase throughout your text, there are some other places that you should also add your keyword. Remember, always add keywords in moderation and put readability first!

• Page title and SEO title
  You should always add your keyword in your page title. Ideally you want to add it at the start of your title, especially if your title is long. The same goes for your SEO title, or meta title.
• Subheadings
  You should add your keyword to some of your subheadings (H2 and H3), but not all. It’s just the same as with the keyphrases in your main text. Use your keyword in a heading or a couple of subheadings, depending on the length of your page or post.
• Introduction
  The introduction is the first paragraph of normal text on the page. Your introduction should get straight to the point, so Google and your readers know what you’ll be talking about. This is a great opportunity to include your keyphrase!
• Image alt text
  Hopefully, your page or post includes an image related to the topic you’re writing about. Add some alt text to your images and see if you can find a natural way to include your keyword.
• Meta description
  Your meta description is part of the text Google displays in its search results. It should contain a short description of what users can find on your page. It’s another great place to add your keyphrase, too!
• URL slug
  The slug is the second part of a URL (web address) that identifies a specific page. For instance, the URL for this post is https://yoast.com/what-is-a-keyword/. The slug is the ‘what-is-a-keyword‘ part. You should try to create clear, descriptive slugs for each page you make, and if possible you should include your keyphrase in them too.

The Yoast SEO plugin checks all this for you

Want to get the right amount of keywords in all the right places? The Yoast SEO plugin makes it much easier! Simply add your focus keyphrase and the plugin will automatically check the points listed above — including whether you’re using it too much, too little, and whether it’s distributed well throughout your text.

These super helpful features are available in both the free and Premium versions. However if you upgrade to Premium you’ll be able to add more related keyphrases in addition to your focus keyphrase, too!

Up next: doing keyword research

Now you have a common understanding of what a keyword or keyphrase is. This knowledge will really help you with your keyword research, which of course is the next and vital step!

Keep reading: Keyword research: the ultimate guide »

Willemien is the Manager Content of yoast.com. She loves creating user-friendly content and making it easy to find for people and search engines.

Coming up next!

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What do you do when you have a question or want to find something? Quickly.

If you’re like most, you open your laptop or unlock your phone, pull up a web browser, and head for the search bar. Once you say or type a few words and hit “enter,” you browse the results until you click on a page that looks promising. After the page loads, lo and behold: the answer you need.

The words you type into search engines play a role in how easily you find a blog or web page- and the same goes for the way people find your website. If you want people to find your website, you must understand what keywords are, why they matter, and best practices for how to find them. In this post, you will learn how to do so successfully and strengthen your content strategy on your own (search) terms.

Navigate to what you need to know first about keywords:

What are keywords?

Why are keywords important?

What are good keywords?

Considerations for Choosing a Keyword

How many keywords should I use?

How to Find Keywords the Right Way

How to Create Unique Content Through Niche Keywords

For instance, if you were to type “bikes” into a search engine, the results would show a variety of results that correlate with those keywords:

Here, the term “bikes” is an example of a short keyword; you can count on keyword lengths to fall into two categories:

1. Short keywords that contain one or two terms
2. Long-tail keywords that contain typically three or more terms

As a result, short keywords are generally on broad topics, while long-tail keywords are all about specificity. Take a look at what a long-tail version of “bikes” would look like if you search “mountain bikes for beginners”:

Therefore, understanding which type of keywords to use on your website or blog requires performing some investigation. As you begin your keyword research, you will start to discern the difference between picking a related keyword and writing for a user’s intent.

The 3 Common Types of Search Intent

Behind every keyword is the reason the user makes the search query in the first place. This is known as search intent which falls into 3 categories: informational, navigational, and transactional.

Take a look at your keyword and think about what the user is really asking by making their query:

• If they were to search, “what are nfts” they are feasibly looking for informational content that will explain this topic in detail.
• If they look up “nft marketplace” they are likely searching for navigational content to take them to NFT platforms.
• If they type “best nfts to buy now” they are probably trying to find transactional content that will help them complete a purchase decision.

By speaking to the “why” of the search query, you can tailor each content page to fully provide value to the user and deliver the best possible experience. But to fully grasp how to provide this value, you need to know the impact of keywords and why they matter to your website in the first place.

Now, while keywords are still useful tools for conceptualizing and planning your content strategy, their effectiveness is entirely rooted in context.

For instance, say you’ve written SEO blogs about the various aspects of software. If you have been fleshing out a topic cluster to demonstrate your content authority, Google will have the context it needs when ranking websites like yours.

The keywords you include on your pillar and cluster pages will guide you to produce content on a range of user interests. But with the paradox of choice, how do you choose a good keyword? Your decision will depend on the marketing channel you’re writing for and your short or long-term goals.

Let’s dive into how to define good keywords across SEO and PPC channels to put you in the best position to benefit from your content.

What are good keywords?

What qualifies as a good keyword in SEO is different from what makes for the right target in PPC. But how do SEO keywords differ from keywords for PPC on the SERP?

Understanding this difference takes learning how to use SEO and PPC keywords to your website’s advantage.

Using Keywords in SEO

A good SEO keyword strikes the ideal balance between keyword volume, competition, relevance, and intent based on your website’s authority. Therefore, adding keywords that encompass these factors, will allow you to rank and drive traffic long-term.

Plus, because SEO keywords are free- to rank for and when users click on your content- you can receive high value from the content you produce.

While the roster ranges both on and off the page, SEO content includes:

• Blogs
• Articles
• Website copy
• Metadata like title tags or meta descriptions

Unlike the other forms, the keywords in metadata aren’t ranking factors. But best practices are to include your targeted keyword in the title tag and description. Take a look at how metadata appears on the SERP with the title tags outlined in red and descriptions in blue below: What’s special about finding the right keywords, is that it allows you to write rich content around what people are interested in and satisfy Google’s E.A.T. principle — a major Google core update from 2019. Your keywords will be your guide to writing a piece that meets a search engine like Google’s expectations of:

• Expertise
• Authoritativeness
• Trustworthiness

So before you dive into finding keywords, start by thinking about the topics that matter to your website. What are some things your audience may be searching for that would lead them to you? Have some ideas in mind? Start there.

Using Keywords in PPC

On the other side of Search are PPC keywords. PPC keywords are terms you choose to rank for in order to increase brand visibility and foster website growth. You can bid on your keyword choices, and when you win your bids, you will rank at the top of the SERP like these businesses below:

So, you can use keywords to create PPC ads promoting your products or services through platforms like Google Ads and Microsoft Ads. Then, when users select your ad, you pay for every click you receive.

Now, there are two main types of PPC keywords:

• Branded keywords are words and phrases that include your brand’s name. Their purpose is to attract customers in your audience that are near a purchase decision.
• Non-branded keywords are words or phrases that do not include your brand name. They help you gain new customers who may be searching for what you offer but do not know it yet.

Essentially, pay-per-click advertising generates immediate traffic that can convert into leads or sales. Subsequently, these conversions deliver a faster return on investment for the money and time you put into your ads. You will use PPC keywords to tailor your content to the audiences you decide to target.

When it comes down to when to apply SEO versus PPC advertising, it depends on your business goals. Will your business benefit from the long-term impact of Organic Search or the short-term results of Paid Search? While you contemplate this, remember SEO content concentrates on providing value to the reader, while PPC content focuses on promoting your products or services.

Still, the tricky part is that the internet is a busy place — making it virtually impossible to be the only person writing about any given topic. So even if you create rich content with keywords and provide the context for search engines to understand it, how do you stand out from the crowd?

Well, this is where the following keyword considerations come into play.

Considerations for Choosing a Keyword

Monthly Search Volume

Monthly search volume (MSV) is the number of times people search for a particular keyword in a month. By considering the popularity of a keyword, you can tailor your content strategy and write about new content opportunities.

To find out how many people are searching for a particular keyword, you can use keyword research tools like the one below from Ahrefs. For instance, when you type in the word “insurance” the tool provides the following MSV estimate outlined in red:

Oftentimes, competitive keywords with higher difficulties are the ones in which everyone in an industry wants to rank. For example, broad keywords like «insurance,» «marketing,» or «technology» are all going to be highly competitive because they have a high volume of monthly searches. There is also a bevy of written content on these topics vying for a keyword ranking.

The market for these and similar broad search terms is completely saturated. So getting a foothold for a search term like «marketing» would be like constructing a generic coffee shop between a Starbucks and a Dunkin’ Donuts — you may get a bit of business if a customer notices you in your area, but they’re more likely going to go to one of the established businesses they know.

For your business to truly gain SEO ranking, it’s important to consider less competitive keywords. Focusing on less keyword competition lets you demonstrate what makes you different and reach the best audience for your business.

If we return to our coffee shop example, concentrating on less competitive keywords is like branding yourself as the only ‘specialty cat cafe’ in the city. In this situation, it’s easier to stand out because you’re focusing on what makes you unique to your target buyer persona.

After all, the person looking for a cat cafe to sit in and relax is probably not the same person wanting a quick cup of coffee on their way to work — just like someone searching for «technology» is not the same person searching for «small business technology setup service.»

Intent & Relevance

We’ve established that search intent is the «why» behind the terms users search, but did you know that search engines use this intent to rank content? This relationship is called keyword relevance: how closely related a keyword or phrase is to a piece of content.

For example, say you own a website about baking and you want to target the keyword “easy cake recipes” in your content. But instead of writing a thorough article on these recipes, you write more about the history of cake. Even though this article may be intriguing, it’s not relevant to your primary keyword— and you’re unlikely to rank for your target. So be sure to keep keyword intent and relevance top of mind as you research.

How many keywords should I use?

It’s a question that has withstood the tests of time (spent on digital marketing): what are the optimal number of keywords for SEO content?

Well, for a long time digital marketers organized their entire content calendar around specific keywords — and the number of times to include these keywords on the page. They’d work with their teams to brainstorm focus keywords relevant to their products or services using keyword research tools. Then analyze all the variations of that keyword most likely to be a source of website traffic.

Unfortunately, as time went on, publications began keyword stuffing; publishing irrelevant, poorly-written content with specific keywords just to drive traffic. Eventually, search engines — largely led by Google, and the constantly-changing Google search algorithm — became more advanced. Instead, a more contextual-based approach to digital content was favored over simply keyword count.So as the power of keywords continues to shift, so does the importance of how often you use them. Yet, deciding how many keywords you should use is

still worth the consideration because it is a matter of keyword density: the ratio of keywords on your page versus the overall word count of the piece.

Aside from using a formula to calculate this ratio, you can also conduct a competitive analysis to examine the keyword density for specific keywords your competitors target.

There’s no magic trick to how to get on the first page of Google when it comes to SEO. To rank well on search engines, you need to consistently create rich SEO content and think about how it fits together in the long term. You must also be clear about your content strategy and the keywords you use to guide it.

Leveraging keywords to build your content foundation enriches your content marketing strategy and teaches you how to get traffic to your website — now, we’re going to tell you how to find them.

1. Clearly define your target buyer persona.

Having a clear understanding of your ideal audience is the key to any marketing endeavor. With keyword research, you must understand what questions you can answer or problems you can solve for this target buyer persona. At this point, it’s okay to think in broad search terms regarding what those problems or questions are.

For instance, if you’re a PR agency, you need to find leads who are interested in hiring a third party to help them run a PR campaign. To do this, perhaps you begin by writing digital content that answers the question «How to run a successful PR campaign».

A broader content topic is a good starting point for building a pillar page for your topic cluster.

2. Narrow your focus and investigate keyword competition.

Once you determine the overarching question or problem to address, it’s time to get more specific. Getting more specific allows you to cater your content to your target audience, and it helps you leverage less competitive keywords.

I like to narrow my focus keyword by using lsigraph.com. LSI, or latent semantic indexing, is a process of generating search query variations by determining how closely a given search term relates to other search terms. Think of latent semantic indexing tools as a way of brainstorming and generating a lot of keyword ideas quickly and easily.

From there, use keyword tools like Google’s Keyword Planner to analyze a competitive keyword. This analysis allows you to determine which keywords have the most potential for your business.

3. Collect data, analyze keyword research results, and repeat.

As you create content around specific keywords, keep in mind that a great content strategist doesn’t just throw content out randomly to see what sticks. Consider using a tool like Google Search Console to track how your website is performing for your keywords.

Google Search Console can also help you see whether your traffic is increasing from keywords you hadn’t planned on ranking for and this informs your future digital content strategy. Having this knowledge is crucial to further refining your keyword planning and identifying content gaps that have significant potential to bring you new customers.

How to Create Unique Content Through Niche Keywords

What’s great about leaning into less competitive keywords is that it will allow you to build your brand authority within a specific field through clearly defined niche content. Niche content is a specialized writing topic that engages a specific audience’s interests to make a viable impact in your industry’s content market.

If we reexamine our “marketing” example above, we see how difficult it is to make an impact by writing general content on “marketing” in such a saturated market. But what if your content targets a longer, more specific keyphrase like “marketing portfolio examples” and an audience of marketers trying to build or bolster their marketing portfolio?

As you can see, although the monthly search volume for this keyword is significantly lower, it would be easier for you to get a foothold in the market thanks to this phrase’s lower keyword difficulty. To become more authoritative in your space, you need to incorporate long-tail keywords into your content strategy.

Because these keywords have less SEO competition, it’s easier to establish yourself as a content authority on a given subject — which is invaluable in SEO.

Whether you’re just getting started with keyword planning or looking to amplify your current content efforts, keep your customer persona at the front of your mind, and don’t be afraid to recalibrate your content strategy as you collect more data. Great inbound marketing is about having the right content reach your ideal potential customers when they need it, and getting smart with your keyword approach is a fantastic way to do that.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in April 2019 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

We have talked plenty about SEO for e-commerce in this blog.
We have analyzed a thousand strategies to conquer Google, but we have never talked about one very important aspect for SEO: keywords.
And that just can’t be the case, so today we are going to tackle them in detail.

What are keywords and how can you find the best ones for your shop’s texts?

This post provides you with everything you need to know in order to determine which keywords should be included in your content without becoming an SEO expert.
Is it necessary to repeat a keyword ad nauseam so that we can position it?
Do we need to use synonyms? Which free tools can we use?
Keep reading – today we’re going to shed light on all of these questions.

Before we start talking about keywords in depth, there’s one concept that we want to explain first: the users’ purchase intention.
Or, as we can also say:

The information users want to find when they type things into the Google search bar.

In most cases, their intentions can be grouped into three main objectives:

• To be informed
• To make a purchase
• To surf the Internet

The fact is that if two people are looking for the same thing, it is quite probable that they do it in a different ways (they likely use different terms for their Google search).
For example:
If I want to know some NFL results, I can find the information by typing different things:

• “NFL scores”
• “NFL games”
• “National Football League”

…among other options.
That is to say, there are different ways of asking the question even when the intention is the same.
Actually, for many different keywords, such as football, Google is already able to offer the same SERP (Search Engine Results Page).
Now let’s get to the definition of a keyword:

Keywords are the MOST common terms or phrases used by users to express their search intention.

Did you notice that we used capital letters for MOST?
We’ll explain why in just a second.

1. Keyword vs. query

A term that you see often and that is typically used as a synonym of keyword is query, but they are actually different concepts.

A query is any word or phrase that a person looks for, even if it is not properly spelled, while keywords are those queries that are repeated often and those that we want to use to position our shop.

Talking about SEO is almost synonymous with talking about Google, but the same idea applies to Bing or any other search engine.

2. Long tail: when the keyword is more specific

Another term than can be confusing is the long tail keyword, but it’s simpler than it may seem.
Think about any keyword that is highly searched for – “hotel Paris”, for instance.
It is a very short keyword (only two words), which receives many searches and is highly fought over (there are many websites that want to position themselves for those words).
Now add one or more word either before or after those:

• “Hotel Paris romantic”
• “Best hotel Paris Latin Quarter”

The result is a longer and more precise keyword that will probably have fewer searches than just “hotel Paris” alone.

Those longer and more specific keywords that are created by adding more information to the main keyword(s) are referred to as long tail keywords.

Replace “hotel Paris” with “football shoes” and start adding words to lengthen the main keyword.
The most important thing is that the new keywords have concrete and unique search intentions.
Here you have another example:
The person searching for “football shoes for kids” does not want to find the same information as somebody typing “Cristiano Ronaldo’s football shoes”.
You get the idea, don’t you?
Never forget that satisfying a user’s search intention is always the main goal of any text that you are trying to position.

Key concepts when talking about keywords

Beyond understanding what a keyword is, the most important thing is to know how to use them to get more traffic.
And for that, you need to understand the following concepts:

1. LSI keywords – the age of semantic keywords

Some years ago, when Google was just starting out, websites only needed to repeat a keyword over and over again to position it.
That practice, taken to the extreme by many, has become a punishable tactic and is referred to as keyword stuffing (adding the keyword in a non-natural way just to position it).
This is why we recommend monitoring the number of times that you type the keywords. We revisit this topic later in the post.
Nowadays, instead of that, Google rewards what is called text relevance. A text is more relevant when it has more semantically related words – words that normally appear together.
Let’s go back to the Paris example.
If I want to position the keyword “Paris”, we have to include words that are usually written when people talk about Paris.

• “Eiffel Tower”.
• “Notre Dame”.
• “Latin Quarter”.
• “City of Love”.

If those words are included in most of the top 10 websites, your content should also include them.
Those words are the so-called LSI keywords (Latent Semantic Indexing). Google understands that a text talks about a topic in depth when it includes all of those words.
You shouldn’t confuse or mix long tail keywords with LSI – the former are extensions of the main keyword while the latter have no morphological relation with the main word or with each other.

• Main keyword: Paris
• Long tail: what to do in Paris with kids
• LSI: Notre Dame

Google’s objective is naturalness; when you talk about a topic in detail, some words will come up naturally.
Could a text that talks about Paris avoid mentioning the Eiffel Tower? Obviously not.

2. Keyword density

If your goal is to position your website and to see long-term results, you know that writing relevant content that includes as many LSI words as possible is the way to go.
Despite that, Google is just a robot that scans and interprets what it read, so you can’t forget about the number of times you repeat the main keyword or where it’s placed in the text (URL, H1, H2, etc.).

The keyword density is the number of times that it’s repeated, in percentages.

There is no definitive rule, but, just in case, your keyword density should not exceed 1.5% (in this text, the main keyword density is 1.3%).

Trick #1

One common SEO practice is to look at the keyword density of the content shown in the first 3 or 4 results on Google.
That way you can check what percentage is OK for that keyword.
For some specific topics, such as recipes, Google accepts a higher density without penalizing the post.

Trick #2

Before creating a text, make a list of the main keyword synonyms and check to see how the first results that appear refer to them.
This will help you to avoid sounding repetitive.

3. Prominence

In addition to text relevance and the keyword density, there is another important term: prominence.

Google not only checks how many times a keyword appears, but it also checks where in the text they are located.

If they are located in the title (H1) or in the first header, they will have more prominence/importance. The same happens when the word is placed at the beginning or at the end of the paragraph.
But don’t over use this strategy! Don’t finish every paragraph with the same keyword.
We just did it in the last paragraph. 😉

Tip

In order to check keyword density and prominence you can use a very useful Chrome extension called SEOQuake.

Tools to find keywords

Before you start creating posts for your e-commerce blog or writing your product cards, you should carry out a small keyword analysis.
This process doesn’t need to be overly detailed but you should at least determine:

• What people search for on Google.
• Which words your competitors use.
• What the average density of their content is.
• In which headings their keywords are placed.

Remember texts that are relevant for Google and useful for users.
OK, so let’s start analyzing the tools.

1. Google keyword planner

This tool is limited to those accounts that have active campaigns, so its popularity has decreased, but it’s still a great option.

• Pros: Nobody knows more about what is searched for on Google than Google itself.
• Cons: Since it’s an AdWords tool, it focuses on transactional keywords (purchase intention). This is a pro when working with online shops.

You can find it here.

2. Ubersuggest (Neil Patel)

Neil Patel is a very well known marketing specialist who acquired an extremely popular keyword research tool: Ubersuggest.

After purchasing it, he cleaned it up and now offers it for free.

• Pros: Under “keyword ideas” there are two tags: “suggestions” and “related”. The first one gives you long tail keywords and the second one shows semantically related words. It is free for now. 😉
• Cons: It focuses on the American market, so don’t trust the “success probability” percentages that it offers.

You can try it out here.

3. Keywordtool.io

Although the free version doesn’t offer search volumes, this is still one of the most comprehensive tools out there:

• Pros: In addition to Google searches, it offers searches on YouTube, Amazon, and eBay. If you are looking for transactional keywords, this is incredibly useful to discover what people are looking for on Amazon.
• Cons: It’s quite expensive – a decent plan can cost upwards of $68 per month.

You can try it out here.

4. Kiwosan

This is more than just a keyword tool – it’s a complete, low cost SEO suite and it’s becoming more and more popular as an alternative to the paid options such as Ahrefs or Semrush.

• Pros: It looks for transactional searches and website analyses to get keywords and their density. This is probably the best price-quality option.
• Cons: It’s still in a beta phase, so we’ll have to keep an eye on it. It is currently only available in Spanish.

You can try it out here.

5. Keywordshitter

If you are trying to get every single long tail keyword that’s been searched for on Google, this is the tool you are looking for. Its design leaves much to be desired, but it does what it’s meant to do perfectly.

• Pros: It’s free. It starts with the letter “a” and doesn’t stop until you tell it to. Keywords, keywords, and more keywords – maybe too many.
• Cons: There are no filters or control over the results, which can be a bit overwheleming.

You can try it out here.

The key to keywords…

The best content to position is the one that meets users’ needs and pleases Google at the same time.

Google always advises to aim for naturalness, but it’s also essential to take density and prominence into account.

And regarding relevance, if you have quality text that talks about a topic in depth, relevance is assured.
Go get those keywords!