What Is The Purpose Of Keywords?

What is the purpose of keywords? If you are building a website and wish to practice good SEO (Search Engine Optimization), you will need to find good keywords that will help you improve your search engine rankings.

Your keyword can be a single word or a phrase. The keyword gives clues as to what your content is. These words or phrases are what a person might enter into a search engine to gain the results of a specific topic.

If you can find keywords that are close to the query that the searcher made, you will have better luck ranking your article higher on the search page and perhaps catching the eye of the searcher, and bringing him to your site.

Why Are Keywords So Important?

Keywords are important because they make this connection between what people search for and the answer you are providing. Your goal with keywords is to match the word or phrase you choose as closely as possible to what people are searching for.

To help you do so, make use of Google, as it is a researcher’s dream tool. Look up articles already online about the topic you have chosen and study their headlines. What do you see as a possible keyword?

Often your visitors may be using language in a different way than you to find what they want. What are they asking for? Look for the most popular posts on your subject, and then incorporate their query into your own title with the keyword. The effectiveness of your keyword will determine what kind of traffic you will get.

There are two kinds of keywords. There are those that are only one or two words, and there are what is called “long-tailed keywords,” which might be a phrase containing several words. These latter, more specific phrases can be more closely related to your topic, and because they are so specific, they have less competition than shorter words.

This is a good thing, as they will give you more chance to rank higher on the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). Your higher ranking will draw more visitors to your site because you have hit closer to the top of the search page.

Think about this: When you are searching for a specific topic in Google, how often do you go beyond the first couple of pages to find what you are seeking? Don’t you find that you will usually make your selection(s) from Google’s first page? The keywords in the post are what get that article to that spot.

Your objective in your writing is often to uncover a problem that many people may have and then to provide a solution to that problem. If your keyword can let your visitor know that this post might just have the answer they seek, they are more apt to click and read.

 

What Tools Are Available?

There are a variety of online tools you can use when you are searching for the best possible keyword. Here are some ideas.

First, if you run Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns with Google Ads, you will have the option to use the Google Keyword Planner. This tool will pull data straight from the ads, and will provide you with accurate information on both the search volume and the competition levels of each keyword.

Here are other free research tools you might try:

• Keywords FX
• Keyword Tool
• Answer the Public

Look these up in Google search. You can use a combination of these tools to find the best keyword result.

Focus On Longtails

Remember, as you search for keywords, focus on the longtail choices as your primary goal. Even though these tend to have low competition, it is still important to check value and competition for each one.

Where To Place Your Keywords

1) In the URL

Having the keyword in your URL can make your post more SEO-friendly

2) In Meta Tags

Include your keywords in meta tags. If you use the URL as a title in the meta section, you will do this successfully.

3) In images

Check this out: When filling out the image information in WordPress, click on any image in your media library. On the right-hand side, you will see “alternative text.” That is the spot where you enter a description of the picture for visually-handicapped people. For example, the image I am presently looking at might be described as “black and white cat curled up in sink.”

Under the alt text spot is one called “Title.” That’s the spot where I enter the keyword from the post.

 

Using SEO Keywords For Content Marketing

When I write a post, before I start it, I research to find my keyword. Then I use the keyword in my title, and again somewhere in the first paragraph of the post.

It is not a good idea to repeat the keyword several times during the post, unless it ends up there naturally as you write. Too many repetitions is known as keyword stuffing, and is frowned upon by Google.

Instead, as we are taught in my company, Wealthy Affiliate, just make sure it’s in the URL and in the first paragraph. As the search engines “crawl” your site, they will rank you anyway for other keywords that occur as a natural process of writing about a specific subject.

My Best Suggestion For Finding Excellent Keywords

In Wealthy Affiliate, we are supplied with a tool called “Jaaxy.” I’m convinced that this tool is the best available to you on the market for finding good keywords. It was made by affiliate marketers for affiliate marketers, so it is designed to supply all you need.

As Wealthy Affiliate members, we have free use of this tool. However, Jaaxy is not a free service to everyone. If you go to Jaaxy.com, you will see that you are given 30 free searches to allow you to try out this tool. If you wish to purchase Jaaxy, please click on the link supplied at the end of this post.

By the time you have finished reading this article, you will have a basic idea how to find a keyword using Jaaxy.

Below is a picture of the front page of Jaaxy. As you can see, there are several choices. To search for a keyword, type your word or phrase in the top search bar and hit enter. You will be given several keyword possibilities from this search.

Now, let’s put in a keyword to see what happens. If your article is about cats, and you type in the word “cats,” you will see that the overall monthly traffic received from that keyword is 645,307. Though it gets a lot of traffic (109,703), it also tells you that you are competing with 226 sites each month. That’s far too many to get you a good page rank for your posts.

Next, we can check a long-tailed keyword, in this case, “how to teach a cat its name,” and we find some keyword possibilities.

First, let’s look at the headings immediately above the keyword list and learn what they mean. Each column gives you important information about the keyword. Here is what each heading means:

• Keyword. This is the search phrase that the data to the right represents
• Avg. This is the overall monthly traffic the search term gets globally
• Traffic. This number represents the estimated amount of traffic you will get if you rank on the first page of Google using this term.
• QSR. (QSR means Quoted Search Results.) This is the exact number of results in Google that represent your competition under this search phrase.
• KQI (Keyword Quality Indicator.)

If you click on the column labeled “domains,” it will tell you if the keyword is available in .com, .net, or .org.

We are taught in Wealthy Affiliate that the average number of searches per month should be a minimum of 30 or above if possible, and the QSR needs to be below 100. The SEO score is best if 90 or above.

Now look at the scores of each possible keyword shown on the list. There are actually several on this list that would qualify, having an average above 30 and a QSR below 100. You can choose the keyword that best describes your content.

Sometimes keywords will be shown as an incomplete phrase. For example, if it showed something like “teach cat trick,” that is not grammatically correct, and as such, is not one you want to use as a keyword.

Your keyword, if selected carefully, will help bring visitors to your site. When they visit, if they find your content genuinely helpful, they will have a good first impression of your site. This is important even if they don’t purchase, as your content can cause them to remember your brand and return again.

As you can now see, the purpose of your keywords is to get folks who need what you have to offer to visit you. If they are satisfied with your solution to their problem, they may then purchase from you.

Below are the references I used for this post:

semrush.com/blog/what-are-keywords-simple-keyword-definition/

moz.com/learn/seo/what-are-keywords

webfx.com/internet-marketing/what-are-keywords-for-seo.html/

Wealthy Affiliate Online Entrepreneur Certification, Level 1, Lesson 9 of 10, Understanding Keywords, The Start Of Your Content

To access this final one, you are invited to join Wealthy Affiliate, where you can peruse their very extensive library of training materials. You can join for free, give it a trial to see if it is to your liking, and then become a paid member. You will be enrolled in what we call Wealthy Affiliate University, and will find all the information you need to build a successful website. If you do not wish to join Wealthy Affiliate but would like to acquire Jaaxy, click on the banner below.