Keywords are the terms or phrases that guide the exchange of information between the user and a browser.
Nothing helps sales like customers coming to you of their own free will. Keywords are one of the ways to achieve this in the world of digital marketing.
Thus, using algorithms, search engines and positioning systems, keywords help an article, a website or a multimedia file reach a user… who is, at the same time, a potential client.
This happens because most search engines work by crawling keywords across the web. Therefore, keywords are crucial for designing digital marketing strategies, both for web positioning (SEO) and paid advertising.
Keywords are pure strategy. Working with certain words instead of others can boost your sales and generate trust in your brand or, on the contrary, keep you anonymous. Don’t stop reading to learn everything you need to know about the Roman Empire of digital marketing and how to apply it to your projects.
What are keywords in digital marketing?
Keywords are terms or phrases that guide the exchange of information between the user and a browser. They indicate, for example, what results to display when a search query is made in a search engine or what topics the user is interested in. In this sense, they work in a similar way to #hashtags, but on a deeper level.
They are a key factor in digital marketing, as they connect potential customers with pages that include the words they interacted with. The browser tracks the keywords that appear in the text and tags of different web pages. Then, it analyzes their frequency of appearance and other factors (such as the general content and the authority of the site) to determine which ones to show to the user and in what order.
There are several ways to classify keyword types. At the moment, two of them matter: primary and secondary keywords. How do they differ? Well. Primary keywords are the product or service being promoted, or the main topic of an article. Secondary keywords, on the other hand, serve as a complement and attract more users to the web page. While a page or article has only one primary keyword, it can have several secondary keywords.
Keywords are the terms or phrases that guide the exchange of information between the user and a browser.
Importance of keywords in SEO
As we said above, keywords are the basis of several digital marketing strategies, one of which is SEO or Search Engine Optimization. This practice consists of producing web content aimed at search engines. Thus, for example, an SEO article can “help” a search engine to place it among the search results for a certain keyword if this word appears consistently throughout the text.
Since more than half of web traffic comes from organic searches, working with them is essential if you want to achieve a good presence on the web. According to the Content Marketing Institute, for example, in the last 12 months, 84% of marketers used SEO (successfully) to improve the visibility of their brands.
But let’s look at a more concrete case: thanks to the application of SEO practices (in particular, working with keywords), one of our clients increased their organic traffic by 275% in one year. And it didn’t stop there, as this ended up resulting in a 1,707% increase in their lead rate.
In a way, SEO is like telling someone the answer to win a prize. Of course, the prize will be shared between the two of you: the search engine gains reliability and you, new customers, by appearing in more results.
Plus, the benefit of SEO is exponential. Why? Because the more people receive the link to your page in their search results (SERPs) and decide to open it, the higher your page will rank in the SERPs for the main keyword. And, as your page ranks higher, it will be more and more likely that new users will click on the link. In fact, if your page reaches the top of the results, its CTR increases on average by 2.8% just by moving up one spot. Going from second to first place in the SERPs can actually generate a 74.5% increase in your CTR.
That’s why it’s important that the primary keyword doesn’t just refer to the main topic or what’s being promoted on a webpage. It should also have a high search volume, so you can make sure that your page’s link reaches more people. Secondary keywords allow you to increase that volume. However, their search volume shouldn’t be as high as that of the primary keyword. If that’s the case, it might be better to create two separate pieces of content, one for each keyword, to double the number of visits to your webpage.
How keywords work in search engines
To understand how keywords work for digital marketing, it is best to think about the nervous system. Search engines are large “brains” that branch out into millions of nerves (millions of computers). Nerve endings receive stimuli from the outside world and encode them into electrical signals that are sent to the brain. In the case of keywords, a stimulus would be searching for a certain word in the search engine, clicking on a certain result, on a photo, etc.
In any case, when the signals reach the head, the brain decodes them and generates a response that it sends to other parts of the body using the nerves. With keywords, both signals and responses are of two types. First, the search terms are identified and a results page is generated that includes those words. Then, how the user interacts with the results obtained is recorded and, consequently, how relevant they are is determined. The more relevant a result is, the higher it will appear on the results page. If a link does not open, it will go further and further down the SERPs.
What does this mean? Keywords are not magic: they need a solid marketing strategy behind them to generate good results.
Types of keywords
There are different types of keywords, which can be used to achieve different objectives through SEO. Let’s see what they are and how they can help you optimize your web positioning strategies.
Short-tail / Head keywords
There are two ways to classify keywords, and the first is by their length. Therefore, you can find short keywords (short-tail/Head), medium and long.
Short-tail keywords are keywords with only one term or at most two. They are also called “generic” because they are usually used to search for general information about a topic. This makes it quite difficult to use them to rank well in the SERPs. However, since they have a high search volume, they are still a very good way to increase visibility.
If you have a shoe factory, for example, some short-tails would be: shoes, sneakers, shoes Argentina (or any other country), factory shoes, women’s/men’s/children’s shoes.
Ideally, they should appear in the tags , meta descriptions, and H1 and H2 headings of your website. If you have a blog, write articles where they appear as primary keywords. Even if you don’t manage to rank them, they will serve to improve the authority of your site. If you also link them to publications focused on long-tail keywords, you will strengthen the internal link structure of your site, increasing its credibility.
Keywords Middle-tail and long-tail
On the other hand, there are middle-tail (semi-generic) and long -tail keywords. These are made up of sets of 2-3 words and 4 words or more, respectively. They appear in more precise searches than short-tail keywords and, therefore, their results usually have better conversion rates.
For example, for the short-tail “women’s shoes” a middle-tail would be “men’s shoes in Chandigarh”. The long-tail of the series could be “men’s blue suede shoes in Chandigarh”.
These keywords (especially long-tail ones) are often more effective for SEO. Because they are more specific, they are used to generate targeted content that reaches users who are interested in them, or at least interested enough to search for them on the web. Therefore, it is best to use them for blog articles or personalized advertising pieces.
Informative Keywords
Another way to classify keywords is by the intent of the user searching for them. One type of keyword, according to this criterion, is informational keywords . With these, the user is looking to learn more about a topic. Indirectly, this can lead them to make an investment. This makes it especially productive for BTB marketing.
Right now, you might be the best example of this type of situation. By searching for “what are keywords” (or something similar) you came across this article, which has as its main objective to answer your question… And to let you know that, if you don’t feel like complicating your life with SEO, but you don’t want to miss out on its benefits, you can count on us.
Keywords Transactional
On the other hand, we have transactional keywords. These are usually middle-tail or long-tail keywords, as they include a specific action that the user wants to perform. For example, “buy women’s shoes.” They are generally used in e-commerce publications and advertising. It is also relatively easy to include them on your website, through CTA buttons and menu tabs.
Geolocation Keywords
These are keywords used in searches for a specific location. For example, “coffee shops in Buenos Aires” is a geolocation keyword. One way to exploit these keywords is, for example, to create an article, post or newsletter about “the ten best coffee shops in Buenos Aires”. At least one of them would be yours (or the one you want to advertise).
You can (and should) also add location tags to your website and create specific campaigns focused on your location. In any case, to use this type of keywords and be successful, you will need to start with a very good segmentation of your target audience, based on their location.
LSI Keywords
A separate type of keyword is LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing). They are not defined by the user’s intention or by their length: they are terms that are semantically related to the main keyword. If this were, for example, “shoe”, some LSI could be “rubber”, “leather” and “size”.
They are not exactly the same as secondary keywords, which are intended to attract more audiences, since their function is to demonstrate the relevance of the content. Let me explain: when they crawl a keyword, search engines look for content that includes LSI to know exactly what is being referred to. Additionally, they can infer how reliable the content is and, therefore, whether it should occupy a good position in the SERPs.
How to choose the right keywords
One of the most difficult aspects of digital marketing is selecting keywords that will help you better reach your potential customers. Luckily, there are several tools that can simplify the process and ensure better results.
Keyword research itself is not too complicated. First, you need a good keyword finder, where you will enter a short-tail or middle-tail keyword that broadly covers the topic of your article or offer. The search engine will show you the number of queries that keyword received in a given period of time, for a certain location, and other metrics. In addition, the search engine generates lists of associated keywords, often with the same information as for the main keyword.
The next step is to select those keywords that have the highest number of queries, without being too complex. Also, make sure they align with the interests of your target audience. Thirdly, to make your search more specific, it is recommended that you investigate which keywords your competition uses . Depending on the tools you use, you can even find out how much traffic they bring them and how difficult it will be for you to position yourself with them. Once you have all this data (and some extra, such as search trends for your area), it will be time to analyze them and define which ones are best for you.
Keyword research tools
Just as we use Google Maps on Earth to guide us, in heaven… sorry, in SEO we use keyword search engines. Some of the most effective ones (not because I say so, but because of their years of validity in the market) are:
- Ahrefs: This app has a number of resources, perfect for boosting your projects through SEO. Among them is its Keyword Explorer, which includes country, browser, and ranking difficulty (KD) parameters, among others. By simply entering a term in its search bar, you can find its query volume (local and global) and related keywords. You will also get estimates of how difficult it is to rank in the SERPs for a certain word and advice on how to do it. In addition, it allows you to investigate which links appear in the best search results, what their traffic is, how the ranking has changed, among other metrics. With this, you can draw up strategies to occupy the niches that are left empty, or to join the mainstream.
- Moz: Another tool for finding the perfect keyword and managing your inbound marketing campaigns is Moz. Its Keyword Research feature provides you with suggestions for keywords related to the one you searched for, as well as an analysis of its SERP and some metrics. These include monthly search volume and difficulty ranking for it. It also presents its organic CTR percentage and its priority, i.e. your chances of getting good results using that term.
- SEMrush: It allows you to investigate the web traffic that a domain, keyword or URL receives in particular, just by entering it in its search engine. One of its great advantages is that it includes the intention of the keywords among its metrics. This helps to fine-tune the tactics that will be used to position and to select secondary or related terms. Its metrics include the monthly search volume (local and global) of a word, its KD, its cost per click (in Adds), among others. Its Keyword Magic Tool presents keyword suggestions, classified according to their concordance. Another of its advantages is that it has the Keyword Gap tool that allows you to check which keywords your competition ranks for and you don’t (yet). It also offers a Keyword Strategy Builder, managed by AI, that tells you which long-tail and middle-tail keywords to focus on to position in the SERPs.
- Google Keyword Planner: This is a free tool for searching and analyzing keywords. To access it, you need a Google account and click on Discover new keywords. By simply entering the keyword in the search box, the tool will generate keyword recommendations. Each one has its monthly query volume and its level of competitiveness. The lower the latter, the easier it will be to position with the term in question. On the other hand, the option Check search volume and forecasts provides you with metrics for a particular keyword. Since it allows you to see which months receive the most queries, Keyword Planner is highly recommended for developing a long-term digital marketing plan.
Competitor analysis and search volume
Now, once you have all the metrics you want and may need, which keywords should you choose? The one with the highest search volume? The one that is easiest to rank for? Let’s see.
On the one hand, the best keywords have a high search volume. After all, the more people find a certain link in your SERPs, the more people are likely to click on it. Of course, for this very reason, everyone, absolutely everyone, wants to use them to rank on the web. This makes their level of difficulty too high to achieve good results without being a recognized brand or using paid ads.
Even so, it is advisable to use them, not to appear in the first results of a search engine, but to reinforce the authority of your website.
All of the tools we mentioned above (and a few more) provide you with the information you need to choose keywords with a good balance between KD and search volume. Also analyzing which keywords your competition uses can be the key to knowing how to differentiate yourself or if trying to outrank them is worth it.
For the time being, it is usually best to use long-tail keywords with low difficulty… Unless the search volume drops with their competitiveness. In that case, it is worth taking a little risk.
The advantage of long-tail keywords is that, as we said, they attract users who are looking for something specific, be it information, products or services. Therefore, you can know how to adapt your offer to meet what they demand… Which translates into higher CTRs.
In any case, the most effective advice for selecting keywords is to always rely on metrics and never (or almost never) on intuition. After all, numbers don’t lie.
Strategies to implement keywords in your content
To be successful on the web, it is important to keep in mind that search engines have recently tended to favour quality content. That is, pages that have good authority and are written not for robots, but for human readers… Something that is possible thanks to the development of AI.
Doing SEO, then, is not about including keywords willy-nilly in the content you create and on your website. On the contrary, it involves using them strategically to attract the attention of both the search engine and the users. This will allow you to appear among the top positions in the SERP and, on the other, get clicks. To achieve this, there are two specific issues that need to be taken into account:
Avoiding keyword stuffing
For search engines to recognize that an article or website is associated with a certain keyword, it has to appear several times. The number varies depending on the length of the text. However, the most important thing is not to mention it every now and then (i.e. “keyword stuffing”), or just two or three times. As a rough estimate, calculate that the primary keyword should appear once per paragraph, although in some of them it can (and should) be replaced by secondary keywords.
The best way to make sure every word is in its place, especially if you’re a beginner, is to use specific tools, such as the WordPress SEO plugin. This extension counts the number of times all your keywords appear and gives you recommendations on their frequency and distribution. It also makes sure that your articles have paragraphs of roughly the same length and that their sentences are cohesive and easy to read.
The latter is due to the already mentioned Google updates to be more reader-friendly. Keyword stuffing, on the other hand, has been avoided like the plague for some time now, as search engines penalize this type of content. In this way, they seek to promote the creation of quality products, instead of texts that say anything, but use a keyword a lot.
On-page optimization
Keywords can be used to improve the ranking of a website not only indirectly through articles, but also with on-page SEO, which is a practice that consists of optimizing different parts of a web page for search engines. One of the ways this is done is by adding keywords to them. Where exactly? We already said it above: everywhere.
To help with ranking, it’s important to include them (where possible) in your H1 and H2 headings. Including them in your meta description is also necessary, as your WordPress plugin or similar tool may tell you. If you use images, write your primary or secondary keywords as part of the alt text.
Using similar terms as part of the page URL also helps increase CTR by up to 45%. A final strategy is to add internal links to keywords, i.e. links to other pages on your website that offer more information about the subject. This way, you indicate to search engines that these terms are relevant to your website and invite users to continue exploring.
It all starts with a word (or two)
The explosion of e-commerce makes standing out on the web a feat that few can do on their own. However, humans survived the Stone Age thanks to their ability to create tools. Today, keywords are a crucial tool for surviving the digital age. Especially if you apply them strategically as part of a web marketing campaign.
Although keywords have their tricks , the good news is that there are enough apps, paid and free, to handle them without too many problems. Ahrefs, SEMrush, Keyword Planner, SEO plugins… In short, there are many options, all of them perfect for a do-it-yourself lover.
What is the limit? Perhaps applying them in paid advertising campaigns or framing them in a more general marketing strategy… Unless you have knowledge of this, of course. But, if you need help to exploit the benefits of keywords to the maximum, we can help you with that.
At Enjoy Minder we offer unique solutions tailored to each client. We accompany you step by step to help you achieve your goals through the web. We have a team of professionals who specialize, among other things, in placing keywords left and right. Whether you need to develop a digital marketing campaign from scratch or you don’t have time to stop writing articles, we can take over.
Let the words transform you. The growth of your company is just a “yes” away.
