When looking for information on keywords related to SEO, you are bombarded with information about keyword research. And of course, keyword research is essential if you want your page to rank. But it is also important to understand the basic principle of a keyword. And that's the thing I'm going to explain here.
What is a keyword?
Un against-key , or a keyword as some call it, is a word that describes or represents the content of your page better. This is the search term you want to rank for with a certain page. So when people search for that keyword or phrase on Google or other search engines, they should find that page on your website.
Let's say you have a piano website: you sell all kinds and types of pianos. You blog about what to look out for when buying a piano and you share reviews of the pianos you offer on your online store. You sell digital pianos and have created a digital pianos product category page. Ask yourself this:
- What kind of search term do you want to find?
- What words do you think people will use on the search engines to find you?
- What would the search query look like?
Probably [digital piano], right? Because that keyword reflects the best on the page. If you had to explain the bottom line of your content, what would it look like? What words would you use? This is your keyword or keyphrase (if it is made up of multiple words).
We use the word "keyword" all the time, that doesn't mean it's just one word. A lot of times the keywords consist of several words. So, when we talk about keywords, we often say a key phrase instead of a single word.
Why are keywords important?
One of the things Google considers when ranking a page is the content of that page. He looks at the words on the page. Now imagine this, if every word on, say, a blog post about a digital piano is used 2 times, then all the words are equally important. Google will have no idea what words mean which are important and which are not. The words you use are clues to Google, they tell Google and other search engines what it is. So if you want Google to understand what it's about your blog, you have to use it quite often.
But Google isn't the only reason keywords matter. In fact, it's less important, because you should always you focus on the user: on your visitors and potential customers. With SEO, you want people to land on your website when you use a search term or keyword. You need to get into the minds of your audience and use the words they use when doing research.
If you use the wrong keywords, you will never get the visitors you want or need because your text is not what your potential audience is looking for. But if you use the keywords that people are looking for, your business can thrive. So if you see it like that, your keywords should reflect what your audience is looking for. With the wrong keywords, you'll end up with the wrong audience, or none at all. This is why having the right keywords is really important.
How do you use the keywords in your pages and articles?
There was a time when you could add lots of keywords to your pages and articles, do some old-fashioned keyword stuffing, and get rankings in the search engines. But a text with a lot of the same keywords is not pleasant. And because people find this kind of content terrible to read, Google also finds it terrible. This is why ranking in Google by doing keyword stuffing, fortunately, has become difficult to do.
So what are the ground rules here? First of all, it is very important that your content is easy to read. Of course, you should use your keywords in your text, but don't stuff your keywords into almost every sentence. In general, if 1 or 2% of all the words in your content are your keyword, it will be less effective. Make sure your keywords are well distributed in your text. Don't put all of your keywords in the first paragraph thinking you're done with that part of the optimization.
Diffuse keywords naturally on your page or post. Use your keywords in a subsection or a set of captions, depending on the length of your page or article. And use the keyword on the title of your content, first paragraph and in your meta description.
If you are using Yoast SEO, these are recommendations that you will find on the plugin interface.
