How to Know What SEO Keywords to Use

SEO keywords are important for a successful business, but how do you know which keywords will bring you the most success? There are a lot of keywords to choose from, so what is the secret to finding the right ones?

There is a big process to keyword research. It includes knowing your target audience, learning about the different kinds of keywords, and finding a balance between too little and too much. The following blog will outline how to weave the correct keywords into words and phrases in your web page or blog post. 

Finding Your Target Audience

The first step is knowing who your target audience is. Ask yourself who your product is for, and what is the need your product or service is filling? Are you marketing to other businesses, or are you marketing to consumers? Is your target audience dependent on location? 

Once you have these questions answered, you will have a better idea of what kind of keywords will attract your intended audience. Having that audience fixed in your mind will help you better create content for your site. 

Know the Different Types of Keywords

Knowing your intended audience isn’t the only thing you need to know to be successful at SEO. A portion of SEO is knowing the different types of keywords. Though there are many different types of keywords, this blog will only focus on categorizing them by length. 

Short-tail keywords

These types of keywords are also known as head keywords. These keywords cover broad topics, are normally one word, and have a lot of traffic. An example of these keywords would be “guitars” or “fans”. While they are important, it is hard to rank on Google using only these types of keywords. 

Mid-tail keywords 

These are your mid-range keywords in terms of traffic and competition with other blogs and websites. Think of these as Goldilock’s choice: not too competitive, and not too idle. You will have a better time ranking with these keywords, but the volume of searches may not be as big as the head keywords. A mid-length keyword would be, “electric fender guitars”.

Long-tail keywords

Long-tail keywords are those specific phrases that are meant to target a narrow audience. They are much easier to rank for because they are so specialized. Long-tail keywords are good for narrowing into a specific topic, like “used fender electric guitars for sale”. 

All of these are important, and a good website will use relevant keywords in the right places. Be careful to not overuse them.  

Find the Right Balance: Avoid Keyword Stuffing

Several years ago keyword stuffing was a legitimate strategy for online marketers. They would pick the keywords they wanted to target and fill the pages with them so that Google would put them on the first page of the search engine. This is impractical now. If Google suspects a page of doing this, they give that page serious penalties. 

Be Sure to Update Your Keywords

There is a lot more information on this topic, but these principles are the basics of what to look out for when doing keyword research. Keep in mind that these keywords are going to change almost constantly, so you should be updating the keywords you choose semi-frequently. 

Contact us for more information on SEO and keywords!