What are Keywords, and Why are They Important?
Believe it or not, there was a time when the Internet wasn’t the primary means of communication. Nearly every household had what is now considered an old-fashioned communications device called a telephone that plugged into the wall. Each year the telephone company would drop off a stack of telephone books. So, if you wanted to find a person or a business, you would look them up in the phone book, which was indexed in alphabetical order. We had to call the directory assistance operator (411) to look up the number of individuals or businesses in a distant town. It seems pretty archaic today. So, let’s look at keyword importance for SEO.
What are Keywords
The Internet is like a telephone book. It is a massive directory of web pages containing the URLs (IP addresses), which are like phone numbers that connect your computer to the content on the Internet. Simply by typing a keyword, which can be a word, phrase, or even a question, into a search engine, instantly displays listings for the most relevant content in your search request. So, if you want to find the nearest pharmacy, you can simply type “pharmacy near me,” and a map of pharmacies listed in distance order would pop up on your screen in less than three seconds. These are called long-tail keywords. You can even narrow your search further by including the product’s name, product details or features, or the town’s name in the search bar.
Using Keywords for SEO
So, when you’re creating content for your website, you want to include the keywords or phrases that your potential customers will use to find the information you are providing on your web page. Each content page should have a unique set of keywords to avoid confusion. These keywords should be included in the title and description and sprinkled throughout the text of your page content. Your content should also use some of the keywords as internal and outbound links to help the reader locate additional information about the topic. The more relevant your topic is to what users are searching, the more relevant your page will be and the higher it will rank in the search engine results (SERPs). You should also use your SEO keywords in the <alt> text field when including images and videos on the page. However, avoid overstuffing or using too many of the same keywords on the page. Otherwise, search engines may think you are trying to game the system and ignore your page entirely or penalize your site by reducing its page ranking. Now that search engines are more intelligent, it’s no longer a necessity to include the keyword into the URL, but it still helps if you do. More importantly, have your page’s primary keyword in the <H1> header and secondary keywords in the subheadings such as <H2>, <H3>, and so on.
Keyword Research
You will need to do some research to find the best set of keywords to use for your website or content pages. Keyword research involves writing down a list of words or phrases that users are typing into search engines to find the products or services you offer or for the content you are writing. For example, if you sell Acme pasta sauce and are writing an article about making pizza, you will want to jot down keywords such as pasta sauce for pizza, Acme pasta sauce, etc. You can also use keyword research tools, both free and paid, that can help find the most relevant and top-performing keywords. When you find top-performing keywords for your topic or industry, you can create a high-quality article using those keywords, giving you a competitive advantage in search results.
Improve SEO Keyword Results for Your Website
Your Web Marketing & SEO partner is vital to your business when you want to improve SEO and achieve profitable results from your ad marketing budget. Your website can dramatically increase business leads, store traffic, and revenue when you use the best keywords with the right digital and content marketing strategies for SEO to work better for your company in 2022. Frank Motola, President of Brandtastic, has been getting positive results for our clients since 1998. So, give Frank a call at (813) 441-0275, and let’s start improving search engine page results for your company today!