KEYWORDS - A Compiled Guide

What are Keywords?
www.moz.com

Keywords are ideas and topics that define what your content is about. In terms of SEO, they're the words and phrases that searchers enter into search engines, also called "search queries." If you boil everything on your page — all the images, video, copy, etc. — down to a simple words and phrases, those are your primary keywords.
As a website owner and content creator, you want the keywords on your page to be relevant to what people are searching for so they have a better chance of finding your content among the results.

Why are keywords important?

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.
Keywords are as much about your audience as they are about your content, because you might describe what you offer in a slightly different way than some people ask for it. To create content that ranks well organically and drives visitors to your site, you need to understand the needs of those visitors — the language they use and the type of content they seek. You can do this by talking to your customers, frequenting forums and community groups, and doing your own keyword research with a tool like Keyword Explorer.

What are long-tail keywords?

Keywords can be broad and far-reaching (these are usually called "head keywords"), or they can be a more specific combination of several terms — these are often called "long-tail keywords."  

Singular keywords might appear to be your ultimate goal as they often have temptingly... Read More

2- SEO Keywords: How Better Keyword Research Gets You Better Resultswww.wordstream.com

What Are SEO Keywords?

Your SEO keywords are the key words and phrases in your web content that make it possible for people to find your site via search engines. A website that is well optimized for search engines "speaks the same language" as its potential visitor base with keywords for SEO that help connect searchers to your site. Keywords are one of the main elements of SEO.
In other words, you need to know how people are looking for the products, services or information that you offer, in order to make it easy for them to find you—otherwise, they'll land on one of the many other pages in the Google results. Implementing keyword SEO will help your site rank above your competitors.
This is why developing a list of keywords is one of the first and most important steps in any search engine optimization initiative. Keywords and SEO are directly connected when it comes to running a winning search marketing campaign. Because keywords are foundational for all your other SEO efforts, it's well worth the time and investment to ensure your SEO keywords are highly relevant to your audience and effectively organized for action.

Settling on the right SEO keywords is a delicate process involving both trial and error, but the basics are easy to understand. Here we’ll walk you through researching what your customers are looking for, discovering those keywords that will help you rank on a search engine results page (SERP), and putting them to work in your online content.

Finding Your Best Keywords for SEO

Most beginning search marketers make the same mistakes when it comes to SEO keyword research:

• Only doing SEO keyword research once,
• Not bothering to update and expand their SEO keyword list, or
• Targeting keywords that are too popular, meaning they’re way too competitive.

Basically, SEO keyword research should be an ongoing and ever-evolving part of your job as a marketer. Old keywords need to be reevaluated periodically, and high-volume, competitive keywords (or “head” keywords, as opposed to long-tailed keywords) can often be usefully replaced or augmented with longer, more specific phrases designed not to bring in just any visitor but exactly the right visitors. (Who visits your site – particularly if they’re people who are actively looking for your services – is at least as important as how many people visit.)
And you’ve got to diversify. Here’s a tongue-twister that’s absolutely true: diversity is a key word in the keyword world. You’re not going to stand out if you find yourself using all of the same keywords as your competitors. Not only should you try new keyword search tools and keep track of the results, but you should feel free to experiment based on your own research – who else uses your keywords? And how do you make yourself stand out? ... Read More

3- Keyword Research for SEO: The Definitive Guide

www.backlinko.com

With all the talk in the SEO world today about content and social signals it’s easy to forget a little thing that happens to be the foundation of SEO: keyword research.
I’m not exaggerating when I say that without keywords, there’s no such thing as SEO.

Keywords are like a compass for your SEO campaigns: they tell you where to go and whether or not you’re making progress.

They also help you figure out the thoughts, fears, and desires of your target market.
In fact, keyword research is just market research for the 21st century.

To Benefit from Keywords, You Need to Know How to Find (and Use) Them

If you can master the art of finding awesome keywords for your business — you’ll not only benefit from more search engine traffic – but you’ll also know your customers better than your competition.
Despite the importance of keyword selection, most people’s keyword research process looks something like this:

• 1
  Come up with a few keywords that potential customers might search for
• 2
  Plug those keywords into the Google Keyword Planner
• 3
  Pick a keyword based on gut feeling

Well today, all that changes.
Because now you have a comprehensive guide that’s going to show you EXACTLY how to find words and phrases that your target market uses to search the web.
And when you tailor your on-page SEO around the right keywords, you’ll watch your site rocket to the top of Google — landing you more traffic, leads, sales in the process.
But there’s a catch:
Before you fire up a keyword research tool or fiddle with a single title tag, you need to identify Niche Topics in your industry.

Once you find these Niche Topics, you can tap into untapped buyer keywords that your competition doesn’t know about... Read More


4- 

SEO basics: What is a keyword?
www.yoast.com

 

When looking for information about keywords in relation to SEO, you get bombarded with information about keyword research. And of course, keyword research is crucial if you’d like your page to rank. But it’s also important to understand what the basic principle of a keyword is. And that’s the thing I’ll explain here.

What is a keyword?

A keyword, or a focus keyword as some call it, is a word that describes the content on your page or post best. It’s the search term that you want to rank for with a certain page. So when people search for that keyword or phrase in Google or other search engines, they should find that page on your website.
Let’s say you’ve got a website about pianos: you sell all sorts and types of pianos. You blog about what to look at when buying a piano and you share reviews about the pianos you offer on your online shop. You sell digital pianos so you’ve created a product category page about digital pianos. Ask yourself this:

• What kind of search term do you want to be found for?
• Which words do you think people will use in search engines to find you?
• What would the search query look like?

Probably [digital piano], right? Because this keyword reflects what’s on the page best. If you’d have to explain the bottom line of your content, how would that look? What words would you use? That’s your keyword or key phrase – if it consists of multiple words.
We use the word ‘keyword’ all the time; this does not mean it consists of only one word. A lot of times keywords consist of multiple words. So when talking about keywords, a lot of times we mean a phrase instead of just one word.

Why are keywords important?

One of the things Google looks at when ranking a page is the content on that page. It looks at the words on the page. Now picture this, if every word on, for instance, a blog post about a digital piano is used 2 times, then all words are of equal importance. Google won’t have... Read More

5- How to Do Keyword Research for SEO: A Beginner's Guide

While Google keeps us on our toes with all the algorithm updates they keep rollin' out, one thing has stayed pretty consistent for inbound marketers looking to optimize their websites for search: keyword research.


Well, the need to do keyword research has stayed the same. How you actually do it hasn't.

What is keyword research?

Keyword research is when people use keywords to find and research actual search terms that people enter into search engines. The knowledge about these actual search terms can help inform content strategy, or marketing strategy overall.
I'm going to lay out a keyword research process you can follow to help you come up with and narrow down a list of terms you should be targeting.
That way, you'll be able to establish and execute a strong keyword strategy that helps you get found for the search terms you actually care about.

How to Research Keywords for Your SEO Strategy 

Step 1: Make a list of important, relevant topics based on what you know about your business.

To kick off this process, think about the topics you want to rank for in terms of generic buckets. You'll come up with about 5-10 topic buckets you think are important to your business, and then you'll use those topic buckets to help come up with some specific keywords later in the process.
If you're a regular blogger, these are probably the topics you blog about most frequently. Or perhaps they're the topics that come up the most in sales conversations. Put yourself in the shoes of your buyer personas -- what types of topics would your target audience search that you'd want your business to get found for? If you were a company like HubSpot, for example -- selling marketing software (which happens to have some awesome SEO tools ... but I digress ;-) -- you might have general topic buckets like "inbound marketing," "blogging," "email marketing," "lead generation," "SEO," "social media," "marketing analytics," and "marketing automation."
Make sense?... Read More