Having relevant keywords is crucial to the success of digital marketing. We define what keywords are and explain how you can use them to improve your search engine ranking.
Keywords are the backbone of digital marketing. They are crucial for increasing traffic to your website, improving your search engine ranking, and increasing the chances of converting visitors into customers.
But what exactly are keywords and how can they be used effectively?
A keyword is a word or phrase that describes the content of a web page, blog post, or online advertisement. They are the words and phrases that people type into search engines like Google to find relevant information about a specific product or service.
Keywords are the foundation of search engine optimization (SEO), which is the process of optimizing your online presence to rank high in search engine results. For example, to find good keywords, you can use tools such as Google Trends or Google Ads account, Semreush. By entering specific keywords, you can then select keywords that are relevant to your product or service.
Short-tail keywords are usually one or two words long and are often broad in character. Examples of short-tail keywords include “shoes” or “hiking boots”.
Unlike short-tail keywords, long-tail keywords are more specific and usually consist of three or more words. Examples of long-tail keywords include “women's hiking boots” or “best hiking boots for men”.
Keep in mind: Short-tail keywords can be used for headings, category pages, etc. Long-tail keywords that are more specific should be used for text content, blog articles, subheadings, etc.
LSI keywords (latent semantic indexing) are words and phrases that are semantically related to the main keyword. Examples of LSI keywords for the keyword “hiking boots” are “hiking shoes” and “hiking equipment”.
Including these in your content will help you increase your ranking in search engine results, mostly because this is a technique that is overlooked by many.
Now that you've selected relevant keywords and structured your website, it's time to use keywords properly to improve your search engine optimization.
Once you have selected your keyword, use it in your web content. You should use keywords in titles, links, blog posts and product descriptions, etc. Make sure to use relevant keywords that describe the content and focus on one keyword per page.
The most important places to include your keywords are:
Use your keywords in your meta tags. Below you will see an example of meta-description. This is the first thing that appears under the title of the page. Why you should include your keywords in that text, is because e.g. Google, make it boldmarkeded. This makes it easier for the visitor to see it and also read your selling meta description.
What we want you to bear with you is the following: is worth noting is that meta tags do not directly affect ranking.
Include your keywords alt-tag on images on your site. Page readability is something that Google looks at, so this can have a bearing on how your website ranks on the SERPs.
You want to use keywords in your URLs because you improve the user experience but also because you make it easier for search engines to understand what your page is about.
A good first step when writing URLs is to look back at their sitemap (if you haven't already made one, you can find it here) and ask yourself the following questions:
Once you've done this, you can now create a structure for your URLs. For example, we have a page in navigation called guides. Depending on which wizard you click on, that keyword will be used in the URL.
https://www.growthstackr.com/seo
For you to get an idea of what the structure might look like, you can see below examples.
https://www.growthstackr.com
-- https://www.growthstackr.com/seo
---- https://www.growthstackr.com/seo/sokord
This can get more convoluted than in the example above, and if you build a bigger page it will definitely be that. Therefore, it is important that you have a clear structure on how to proceed with your URLs.
Your URLs should contain the keyword and be as short as possible but also descriptive. It may sound complicated, but it can be simplified. We'll show you how.
The example below shows a link that contains a lot of information that is not needed. It will be difficult to interpret this, even for the crawler that we talked about earlier.
Keeping it short makes it a lot easier. Remove information that is not necessary and include your keyword. Not only will it be easier to read, it will also be more click-friendly.
Organic click-through-rate (CTR) is an influencing factor in SEO that has gained more importance in recent times. Therefore, it is better to do it well from the beginning so that you do not have to do it later.
By creating a good keyword strategy, you will be able to improve your search engine results effectively. But also build a good foundation and routine for how to create new pages.
Remember to research for the right keywords, organize your content and create a sitemap. Use your keywords in URLs, titles, headlines, and content and you're already well on your way to achieving SEO success.