Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is a set of practices for improving your website traffic and ranking. One of its key aspects is SEO keywords or keyphrases, which play a major role in the outcome. But now, there’s this burning question of what keywords are in SEO.
To put it simply, SEO keywords are the terms you add to your content when you try to rank for them. They improve your search engine ranking and are what the user typically types into the search engine.
In the following guide, we’ll elaborate on this short definition. We’ll also see why keywords in SEO are so important and teach you how to identify and use them to your advantage. We recently discussed backlinks and their importance, so make sure you check that out as well.
Keywords in SEO Explained
Our introduction gave you a rough overview of what SEO keywords are.
When you open the search engine, be it Google, Bing, or any other, you type in what’s called a search query. This search query has two more names — an SEO keyword or a keyphrase.
Whenever you look for information on a certain topic, you type in the keyword, which doesn’t have to be a single word — it can be two, three, four, or more words! That’s why content designers and creators aim to include specific keywords, as they help the user find the information they need.
Let’s give you a simple example. If you’re looking for a website builder, you’ll likely going to use the search query along these lines: “best website builders“. This three-word “sentence” is a keyword that will display the articles that discuss the best website builders you can get.
Examine these articles and you’ll see this keyword at least a few times in all of them.
It’s a very broad keyword, so if you want, let’s say, a website builder for a church, you’ll type in something like: “best website builders for churches“. This more specific keyword will show the results containing pages with recommended website builders usable for church websites.
Again, examine these articles and you’ll see this keyword or its variations quite frequently.
As you can see, SEO keywords are VERY important for your website. They help Google understand what the page is about, allowing it to rank the page properly and drive more traffic to your website through increased visibility. We’ll elaborate on this in the next section.
Why Are Keywords Essential for SEO?
When discussing content optimization, it’s not always about proper grammar, punctuation, etc. I mean, you can have “weaker” grammar and still rank high because you implemented SEO keywords properly. To be honest, we’re seeing such examples at least once or twice a day.
Either way, the key to ranking higher on Google or any other search engine is to make your page appear higher in SERPs. SERP stands for Search Engine Results Page. The higher your page appears in SERPs, for example, as a first or second search result, the better it is.
To achieve that, you need to optimize your content around particular keywords.
Don’t be fooled into thinking you can achieve great results without them — it’s impossible, and you’re doomed to fail. Let’s say your page is about malware software. You’re writing about the best malware protection tools. Now, let’s guess what your SEO keywords should look like.
Words like potato or a shoe won’t cut it. On the other hand, including keywords like malware, anti-malware, best malware protection tools, malware removal, virus removal, spyware removal tools, etc, will do the trick.
When optimizing your content around keywords, you want to think about two things:
- What the user is searching for
- How to better describe your content to Google
We discussed the first one. You want to know what people are searching for and use these queries in your content for obvious reasons. However, keywords ALSO help Google figure out what your content is about so that it can rank it properly and “serve” it to the user who searches for it.
Discovering SEO Keywords – Things to Consider
In today’s day and age, thinking is reduced to a pulp. You don’t have to decipher what people are searching for to figure out which keywords to use. Instead, you can rely on some of the cutting-edge SEO tools to provide SEO keywords on a silver platter. Beautiful, right?
While powerful SEO tools like Semrush and SE Ranking can locate thousands of keywords, not all of them are meaningful. When talking about what are SEO keywords, it’s vital to know their characteristics, and that’s what we’ll explain.
Search Volume & Difficulty
Search volume is one of the best metrics to determine whether or not the keyword is worth “chasing”. If the volume for the keyphrase is high, as displayed below, it’s likely worth doing. In Semrush, you’ll also see something called Keyword Difficulty, and this is a crucial factor.
If the difficulty is very high, as displayed above, it’ll be very hard to rank for the given phrase. High volume usually goes along with high difficulty, but it’s not often the case. That’s why high-volume, high-difficulty keyphrases are usually “chased” by more competitive websites.
If your website is a new kid on the block, you’ll have to work your way up and try to rank for more specific keywords, also known as long-tail keywords — we’ll explain them later.
Perform Keyword Research With Semrush
Cost Per Click — CPC
Cost Per Click indicates how much an advertiser spends when someone clicks on an advertisement after the person searches for the keyword. Advertisements are displayed at the top of the search results, above all the organic search results. You saw them many times.
Let’s say you search for shoes, and the advertisement with the Nike website appears.
You click on it, and Nike, as the advertiser, pays this much (look at the screenshot below) to Google because it owns the advertisement space, i.e., the search results. Essentially, the advertiser, who can also be you, pays only for the ads that are clicked, which is great.
If you’re looking to make money this way, you’ll likely want to aim for SEO keywords with higher CPC because they’re more popular but also more competitive. Those with low CPC usually aren’t very “money-making”.
Search Intent
When optimizing your website around keywords, you need to understand search intent, which a tool like Semrush can provide. When you use its Keyword Overview tool, enter the phrase you want, and you’ll see the search intent behind it. It can be commercial, transactional, navigational, and informational.
For example, transactional search intent means the user who searches for the keyword is looking to make a purchase. The commercial intent means the user does their research and browses through products before spending their money on one.
Informational and navigational intents aren’t “profitable”. The former means the user wants information, while the latter means the user wants to go to a website — for example, if the search query is “Facebook”, the user wants to visit the Facebook website.
Now, the question is, why should you care about search intent?
Because of optimization! If you have a blog where you focus on education, you’ll want to aim for keywords with informational search intent. If you have an online store, you’ll want commercial and transactional keywords to endorse product research and purchases.
How to Find SEO Keywords for Your Content?
At this point, you know what keywords are in SEO and their important qualities.
Now, we’ll show you how you can find proper keyphrases to use in your content with Semrush. Of course, you can use SE Ranking, which was great in our review, or opt for a tool like SE Ranking, Ahrefs, Moz, or Mangools. We’re using Semrush because it offers the most information.
Step 1: Decide on the Topic
The first step is fairly simple. You need to decide on the topic you want to cover. Our website focuses on VPNs, cloud storage, SEO tools, website builders, web hosting, etc. Your website does something else — it could be a thousand other things. We’ll use something random.
Let’s say you want to craft an article on the best car vacuum cleaners.
In that case, you’ll open Semrush, go to its Keyword Overview tool, and type in something along the lines of “best car vacuum”, “car vacuum”, etc. We went with “best car vacuum,” and the difficulty at the time of writing was 49%, with the search volume in the US of 9.9 K.
So there you go. The keyword’s volume and difficulty are pretty good — onto the next step.
Step 2: Find Keyword Suggestions
You aren’t going to spam said keywords like a lunatic — some variety is needed.
That’s where Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool comes into play. You can access it straight from the Keyword Overview tool or simply open it separately. We went the first route, and under “Keyword Ideas” displayed below, we selected “View all 1,279 keywords“.
After doing that, the Keyword Magic Tool displayed the best keywords we could use for this page. As you can see, there’s the letter C in yellow, which signifies the commercial search intent — logically, because the user who uses this search query is in the process of research.
For better topical coverage, you can also select Questions for Semrush to display keyword-associated questions.
Phrases like “what is the best car cleaner” and “what are the best car vacuums” are good to include to boost your page SEO and enhance your chances of appearing higher in SERPs.
Find Keyword Suggestions With Semrush
Step 3: Locate LSI Keywords
LSI keywords are important, as well, as they’re semantically related words. These phrases are related to the main keyword and give it context. In turn, this helps Google capture the essence of your page and know what it’s about. So, what are LSI phrases for the “best car vacuum” keyword from before?
You can guess on your own because it’s not that difficult, or use a crafty tool from Semrush called SEO Content Template. Here, you’ll need to enter “best car vacuum” or any other keyphrase you want, and press “Create Content Template” to see the results.
However, you don’t necessarily have to use any tool for this purpose. Let’s go back to our “best car vacuum” phrase and think about related phrases. Possible LSI phrases are: deep cleaning, car detailing, vacuuming, car cleaning, car interior, car wash, and many more.
Step 4: Find Long-Tail Keywords
Earlier in our SEO keyword definition article, we touched on long-tail keywords.
Long-tail keywords are very specific phrases with a lower search volume and difficulty but more precise intent. The “best car vacuum” is our main keyphrase, but the long-tail keyword is “best car vacuum under $200” or “best car vacuum for small vehicles” — you get it.
The main characteristic of this type of keyphrase is length. As they’re more specific, they also tend to contain more words, which you can see above. Instead of just three in “best car vacuum”, we have five and six words inside the two examples.
Long-tail keywords are great for non-established websites that still have to climb the totem pole. You can work your way up by aiming for more specific keywords and then, as you build your authority, aim for more competitive ones or even opt for PPC marketing in some cases.
Finding long-tail keywords is easy with the Keyword Magic Tool in Semrush.
You can simply set the “KD%” filter to Easy and see what happens. In our case, Semrush has found only one keyword, but it has decent volumes and is easy to rank for, with a difficulty score of 18%. Again, notice how specific and long it is. That’s how an LSI keyphrase usually looks.
Use Semrush to Find Long-Tail Keywords
How to Use Keywords Naturally?
With everything done, you’ve successfully identified what you should focus on and what your keyphrases should look like. However, using tools like Semrush, Moz, or Ahrefs won’t necessarily teach you how to implement them. As it happens to be, this is even more crucial.
There are a couple of rules we want to go through, so take note of them first:
- Don’t spam keywords and use them too frequently
- Keep the variety going
- Don’t forget LSI keywords
- Place keywords in the key sections of your page
Okay, this sounds vague, but we’ll elaborate. We promise.
Keyword spamming is the worst offense to your SEO and will ruin your website before you say “cheese” or “ghee”. It’s also known as keyword stuffing and makes your page sound unnatural, barely readable, and borderline crazy. Google doesn’t like that. Neither do we.
If the keyword is “best car vacuum”, don’t use just that phrase. Instead of “best”, use “recommended”, “widely adopted”, “top”, etc. Variety plays into the whole LSI story, where these keywords will be descriptive and “fuel” your SEO, producing better rankings as a result.
Finally, you should place the key phrase in key sections, such as SEO titles, meta descriptions, slugs, alt tags, and H1 to H6 titles. The best way to ensure you don’t go overboard is to keep your keyword distribution between 1 to 3 percent of your content on the given page.
If it’s a 3,000-word article, only 30 to 90 words should belong to keyphrases.
The Bottom Line
In today’s article, you’ve learned the importance of keywords for SEO, as well as their definition, best practices for implementing them, and much more. Keep in mind that keywords alone aren’t enough to cover every aspect of Search Engine Optimization.
There are backlinks, internal links, technical SEO, and much more. However, proper keyword implementation is unavoidable if you want to succeed. A surefire way of having everything under control is to rely on a capable and reliable SEO tool, such as Semrush or SE Ranking. Even some free SEO tools are beneficial for detecting them.
Once you’re over that, take note of our handy tips to implement and distribute your keywords properly. With this knowledge engraved in your brain, you’ll carve your path to success effortlessly.