If you’ve read anything about search engine optimization, you already know some basic steps to take and what to change, but what’s often overlooked is the most important factor: keywords.
This article will teach you what keywords are, what keyword phrases are, where to find them, what they can do for your site, and how to analyze them.
What are keywords?
In simple terms, keywords are words and phrases that people enter into search engines to find products or services similar to yours. I’ll use Google as an example; These keywords and phrases are stored in Google’s database and make an evaluation of the web page and what it is about.
Google highlights specific terms and expressions that paint a picture of what your web page is about, these are ideally your keywords for this page. When someone searches for these terms on Google, your site will appear in the results.
Ultimately, how well you rank in search results is a direct result of many different factors, but I’m not going to cover many of them in this article, just keyword research.
Why do I need keywords?
You’ve probably heard a lot about keywords and how important they are to the SEO process. In short, keywords are the lifeblood of search engine optimization (SEO). Without the right keywords, you can change all the right elements on your site (title, description, alt tags, meta tags, H1, etc.).
It is essential to change all the appropriate elements on your site with relevant keywords. That’s what SEO is all about: matching the right search terms (keywords) to the right web pages.
You may have read some SEO references or you may simply believe that keywords are overrated and not as important for SEO as experts claim. You may even think you’re familiar with all the words and phrases people use to find products or services similar to yours; however, I can assure you that you are not and you do not need to research keywords.
Many people try to optimize their websites by inventing their keywords based on what they “think” are the right keywords, but 99.99% of the time these efforts fail – how do you know what the most searched keywords are? on the web? specific topic unless you do a little research?
By now you should realize that keywords are as important as they are created to be and that poor keyword selection or research will result in a site being incorrectly optimized which could cause it to drop in rankings.
How do I choose the keywords?
Choosing the right keywords for your website is a complicated process, but I’ll break it down into smaller, more manageable parts to avoid confusing you. There is a method to research keywords correctly.
We must examine our entire website. What is the overall theme of the site? What are the main products or services we offer? How many pages are there? Next, the website is divided into web pages. We optimize a complete website by optimizing each of its web pages.
It is essential that we understand the overall theme of the website, but also examine the content of the web page in more detail in order to optimize it effectively. Make a list of key terms that describe your site and your products or services.
I like to have two browser windows and a spreadsheet open when I do the following tasks. Some of the sites listed below may require a login but are well-known and reputable.
Now we need to identify the site we are going to optimize keywords for and write down the top terms that are relevant to this site. If you’re just starting out, I recommend doing some of your interior pages before you do your first page, as this will help you get used to the optimization process. So start with one of your main product pages.
To do:
Open the “overture inventory” website in your browser window.
Enter your product or service using your written notes and click the submit button.
Copy these results into a spreadsheet program and label their overture.
Next step:
Open “WordTracker” in your browser window and log in to the system with the free trial account or normal account.
Now using the WordTracker wizard tool, enter the same product or service you did in the previous step.
Copy the WordTracker results to the spreadsheet and tag them as WordTracker.
Next step:
Start “Google Adwords” in your browser.
Log in and go to tools->keyword tool and enter the same product/service that we entered in the previous two steps. Make sure the “Use synonyms” checkbox is selected.
After that, copy all the resulting words for the keywords you chose and click the “estimate search traffic” button.
Copy all the results to the spreadsheet now.
Next step:
Now look at the spreadsheet you created and you’ll see three columns of data: Overture, WordTracker, and Adwords. In this step, we want to get rid of all the irrelevant or unrelated items, so delete them.
Next step:
Sort the three lists in descending order by the search volume. In each of the three lists, we will bold the most searched and relevant phrases from top to bottom.
Copy the bold items from each list to a fourth space on the worksheet; will form our most comprehensive list of top keywords and phrases.
We now have a complete list of keywords and phrases to use on our website. All of the above steps must be repeated to identify and register relevant keywords.
Conclusion
Using the keywords you have identified, you can now start incorporating them into your web pages and website as a whole. There are numerous articles available that explain how and what elements to optimize on your pages.
Try searching Google for “Introduction to SEO Strategies and Techniques” and implement the most fundamental on-page SEO techniques. I hope this helps.
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