What Are Keywords? Ultimate Keywords Selection Guide

What are Keywords?

Now that we all know what is SEO and how is works, let us deep dive into a very critical term in SEO i.e. Keywords. Keywords/Keyword phrases/ Keyphrase/Key Terms are the phrases that you want to be found with on the internet.

A step by step approach to choosing the right keywords for your business?

Step 1 — Keyword Search:
Keyword research is a process of brainstorming with the team of the internet on the keywords most used and visible on the internet when you search for a term online. You can also consider going through your competitors website for some keywords you may have overlooked. Using synonyms to the parent keyword is also a fruitful way of increasing your keyword list. This step is the most important and critical step in choosing the right keywords for your business. This is because when you go through this process you in directly work on your headlines and meta titles. This process also gives you a repository of words to incorporate into your blog. Lastly, this process is going to make you a better writer. So just go for it.

Step 2 — The shortlisting:
Now you have a list of some 100–200 odd keyword list from step 1, it’s time to narrow this down. You need to shortlist on the basis of competition and popularity of the keyword. They are further characterised as Low, Medium and High. Use the Free Google keyword planner tool (Can Link) to do so. You need to resist the high numbers of competition and run for the words with high popularity numbers. Words from your search list which have high popularity and low competition are your Golden/Primary Keywords. Shortlist them as your first few ranked keywords. You can also add words which fall into the category Medium competition and high popularity, these are your silver keywords. Ensure that your shortlist consists of words with either High popularity or Medium popularity as your keyword should be searched for (i.e.popularity) as per Google to rank on Google Search results page.

Step 3 — Polish the keywords:
Here you have an opportunity to polish your golden and silver keyword. How do you do this? Below are the top 6 types of keywords considered often while you are at your Keyword search:

Short tail keywords: As the name suggests, they are short keywords which have maximum 3 words. E.g.Digital Marketing Agency

Long tail keywords: Keywords with more than 3 words E.g. Ethical Search Engine Optimization services, Robust Social Media Marketing services, Efficient Digital Marketing Team, etc.

Product definition keyword: Here your services and product name is used as a search term. E.g. Website Development, Social Media Marketing, SEO, App Development, and many other services or products you offer.

Customer defining keywords: Here you put yourself in the target audience’s shoes and see what kind of words they use to define your business services or products. E.g, Facebook and Instagram Advertising, Optimising my website for Google Rank #1

Geo-targeted keywords: Here you add a pink of location to your keywords using the word “in”. This is an apt keyword style to adapt if you are a local business. E.g. Digital Marketing Services in Mumbai. Social Media Marketing in Mumbai and Pune, etc.

LSI Keyword: LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) keywords are thematic keywords that are closely related to your main keyword. E.g. If my parent keyword is Digital Marketing I can reframe it as Online Marketing, Digital Advertising, E-Marketing, etc.

All of these above mentioned types of keywords have their special strength that can multiply your SEO efforts. So make sure you have at least one of each in your Keywords shortlist.

Step 4 — Keyword placement:
Once you have a list of some 15–20 Keywords, you are ready to shoot them up on the web. How are we going to do this? Take one webpage at a time. You have to seamlessly merge these shortlisted keywords (as text) to your webpage. It must not look like you are trying to over fill the page. Every 1000 words on your webpage can have ¾ keywords incorporated. You are not done yet, your website may have many pages, you need to match your keyword to a relevant landing page on your website. Imagine a website selling general store items and you are a visitor looking for a specific shampoo. You click on the company website see products such as body wash and conditioner. I bet, you would not wait for more than 5 seconds on this page. Remember, you will get conversions only when a visitor searching for your service or brand is guided to the right page of information.

In Addition to placing keywords on your webpages. You can also incorporate these keywords in your social media marketing campaign but keep in mind the last lesson, your landing page must match the visitors search for optimal success in SEO.

Challenges:
There are some challenges you may face while you shortlisting keywords for your business. You may come across Homographs, which means the word has the same spelling but a different meaning. Can you think of any word like that? E.g. Lead could also mean leading a team of 5 or a type of metal. You may also encounter Acronyms used by someone else which accidently matches yours. So here the acronym gives you competition but not necessarily in the same industry. Let me help you out with an example, AMC for you may mean Annual Maintenance contract for your service or products but is widely used by the Amdavad Municipal Corporation. You have some competition but not a direct competitor for you. It’s only that if a visitor searches for you on the web, Google may guide him/her to the Amdavad Municipal Corporation page. So watch out. Spellings, Famous words and slang are best associated with many products and services. E.g. The word selfie was so famous in 2016 that in 2017 mainy mobile phone companies got your brand names incorporated with this famous word. Come on, we need no examples here. Would like to throw some light on Mac Donalds V/S McDonald’s as an example of how visitors spell your brand name wrongly. If you considered this spelling error in your keywords Google knows what your potential customer meant and will show him/her your webpage. The most critical point of action here is, embrace spelling errors, famous words and slang as they are the search terms visitors use to find you.

Keywords can be found throughout websites be it internet resources pages or blogs or even photo sharing sites and social media. Your website should contain words or phrases that customers will utilise while searching for your goods or services online. You will be able to search for clear, concise and well thought out keywords and phrases after going through this article. Saving you the effort, we at iDigitize have a dedicated SEO team who delivers SEO services in Mumbai where we attempt to bridge the gap between your business and potential customers in the digital space by optimizing your website to its full potential. Infact, one of them has written this article.