Are Keywords Important For SEO?

Importance of keywords

Are Keywords Important For SEO? In one word, YES! Keywords are important because they are the linchpin between what people are searching for and the content you are providing to fill that need.

Your goal in ranking on search engines is to drive organic traffic to your site from the search engine result pages (SERPs), and the keywords you choose to target (meaning, among other things, the ones you choose to include in your content) will determine what kind of traffic you get.

If you own a golf shop, for example, you might want to rank for “new clubs” — but if you’re not careful, you might end up attracting traffic that’s interested in finding a new place to dance after dark.

By targeting keywords with the right search volume and a low difficulty score, you can not only drive traffic to your website but improve conversions as well.

“Today it’s not about ‘get the traffic — it’s about ‘get the targeted and relevant traffic.” – Adam Audette, Chief Knowledge Officer, RKG 

What Are Keywords?

There’s a debate in the world of SEO as to whether keywords are still important.

The reality is that keywords are, and likely always will be, an important part of SEO. However, how you research, organize, and use your keywords is important if you want to be successful with search engine optimization.

Keywords Still Matter For SEO

As Google and other search engines continue to dominate the internet, search engine optimization (SEO) is a necessary tool to increase traffic to your website, improve your business’s position in search results, and boost your sales. And keywords are important in SEO because they help you stay relevant to what people are searching for.

Understanding how keywords work can help you create an effective SEO strategy and increase organic traffic on your website.

Keywords are an essential part of search engine optimization (SEO), and using them well can help you appear at the top of search engine results pages.

“Successful SEO is not about tricking Google. It’s about PARTNERING with Google to provide the best search results for Google’s users.” – Phil Frost, Main Street ROI

What Are Keywords in SEO?

To understand what keywords are and why they’re important, it’s helpful to know how search engines work. Search engines use bots to crawl through sites on the internet. They look for specific elements to determine what keywords a site should rank for.

When it comes to SEO, keywords are still the base for all optimization efforts. They are what you build your content around, and they’re what your audience uses to find you in search engines.

Keywords are critical for effective SEO campaigns, but what about the specific words you use for each keyword?

Long-Tail Keywords

This is where long-tail keywords come in. Long-tail keywords are phrases that contain three or more words. They tend to be very specific, and often have low search volumes.

Long-tail keywords have low competition and high conversion rates because they focus on very specific products or services. This means they can be a vital part of your SEO strategy.

A keyword like “computer” is a head term — it has a lot of searches and can be used by almost any business. However, it’s also highly competitive, which means it’s unlikely you’ll rank well for it without a targeted SEO strategy.

Long-tail keywords are much easier to rank well for than their shorter counterparts because there is less competition for them. As such, they’re an integral part of any good SEO strategy

Keywords are the words or phrases that people use on search engines to find what they’re looking for.

If you boil everything on your page — all the images, video, copy, etc. — down to simple words and phrases, those are your keywords.

Let’s say you run a hardware store and you’re trying to decide which keyword phrases to target on your site. You might start with head terms like “tools” and “hardware,” but soon you’ll discover that these terms yield very high competition and low conversion rates, so you’ll begin to drill down into more specific, long-tail keyword phrases.

At this point in the process, a lot of people will give up, not realizing that there are many more great keywords waiting for them. In fact, most websites expand their keyword universe by about 50% after using some basic keyword research tools.

A good keyword tool will help you brainstorm potential phrases without taking hours of your time. And once you’ve settled on a set of keyword candidates, it pays to invest time in targeting these terms on your website in order to boost traffic from organic search results.

“The best place to hide a dead body is the second page of Google search.” – Anonymous

Keyword Density.

Keyword density is the percentage of times a keyword or phrase appears on a web page compared to the total number of words on the page. In the context of search engine optimization, keyword density can be used to determine whether a web page is relevant to a specified keyword or keyword phrase.

Keyword density is not an exact science, and it should not be treated as such. There are many different opinions when it comes to what’s considered “normal” or “acceptable” keyword density. Most experts agree that 2-4% keyword density is acceptable for most pages.

Keyword Research Tools

Keywords are an important part of any Internet marketing campaign. If you’re not including the correct keywords, your potential audience will never see your content. There are many companies out there trying to sell you keywords and it can be confusing to know the best place to buy from.

Here are in rank order the top ten of keyword services.

1. Semrush Keyword Magic Tool
2. Semrush Keyword Gap Tool
3. Semrush Position Tracking Tool
4. Google Trends
5. QuestionDB
6. AnswerThePublic
7. TubeBuddy
8. Keyword Tool
9. AlsoAsked
10. Soovle
11. Sellzone Keyword Wizard Tool
12. Google Ads

Keywords Are The Gatekeepers

Keywords are an integral part of the search engine optimization process. They rank a website as high as possible in search engine results, allowing people searching for related content to find a site.

Although it’s not always an easy process, optimizing keywords is crucial to website traffic and popularity.

The takeaway is that SEO is a partnership between the site and the audience. Both parties have to do their parts right. If a site is optimized for search engines but has poorly written content, it can still fail to impress its audience.

The same goes vice versa; if a site’s content is engaging, but the search engine optimization isn’t done right, you can still fail to reach your audience.

By working together to achieve two common goals, website optimization and audience engagement, you’ll find success on both ends of your website.

Keywords are the gatekeepers of your endeavours to success. They play a major role in deciding whether search engines show your content on the first page of a search result or at all.

I hope that this article will help you understand and improve your SEO.

Got value from this post? Then please comment and share.

Regards,

Morgan Lewis

P.S If you want to know the common mistakes to avoid when starting an online business, then download my PDF here.