How keywords help with your SEO
If you’re working with digital content, you’re probably already acquainted with search engine optimisation (SEO) to boost how well your site performs in searches. It’s not compulsory to have an SEO strategy - if your content covers topics that are relevant to your business and your audience then congratulations! You’re already influencing how well your site performs in search engine results. Before we go any further, let’s make sure we’re all on the same page regarding SEO and keywords:
SEO is activity that helps your web pages rank more highly in internet searches. Your team can influence some aspects of SEO such as making text more SEO-friendly and linking to your blogs from social media. Other activities are more technical, such as how your website is coded.
Keywords are words that best describe the content and themes of individual web pages. They are clues that help search engines (such as Google) determine what your web page is about. They indicate how relevant that page might be for a user typing in a given search query. Keyphrases – strings of words that are commonly written/searched for – work in the same way.
Using keywords to optimise your content
Using keywords/phrases on your web pages is just one of the ways you can make your copy SEO-friendly. These words and phrases should be terms that your audience may use to search for your content.
Some brands do keyword research, especially if ranking highly in searches is a major goal. Taking time to understand what your audience wants to know will ensure your content always focuses on their needs.
Imagine, for example, a wallpaper manufacturer publishes a blog post about the correct way to hang their products. Keywords such as wallpaper and wallcovering, plus keyphrases such as wallpaper hanging techniques and how to hang wallpaper are likely to be the kinds of words and terms that users might type into a search engine.
Therefore, the manufacturer’s blog text should feature these words and phrases prominently (but naturally) within the webpage. Overusing these terms (sometimes known as keyword stuffing) will make the text unreadable and your audience will lose interest. The skill, therefore, is in finding a balance. Most professional copywriters (including our team) are happy to incorporate keywords, and know the difference between good and bad keyword practices.
If you do decide to use specific keywords for each article, talk to your SEO expert about carrying out research.
Key places to use keywords
It’s not just about which words to use. Once you decide on your keywords, you need to maximise their impact by using them in the right places on the webpage. Important locations for keywords/phrases include:
headings and sub-headings
alt text for images – a short description of the image that is used by screen reading software for the visually impaired
the meta description – text summarising the page that is displayed as a snippet on the search engine results page
the URL slug for your blog post – e.g. www.wallpapermaker.com/how-to-hang-wallpaper
In our next journal, I’m going to give you more tips for writing SEO-friendly content. Whether ranking highly in search engines results is part of your strategy or not, these tips will improve your content – so keep your eyes peeled!