What Is A Keyword?

What Is A Keyword And Why Should You Care?

A keyword is a single word or phrase that is used as a search term in a search engine. Exciting stuff, huh?

Here is why you care – it is the building block of SEO and how web users find websites. It is how people will find your website. Keywords identify the topic of each webpage for search engines so they can begin to analyze that page for content. If keywords are not used, or used incorrectly, not only will you page not be recognized well, it may be “punished” by the search engines.

What A Keyword Is Not And Does Not Do 

A keyword is not magic. Just by placing keywords on your website does not mean that your website will suddenly move to the front page of search results. In fact, if used incorrectly, it will hurt your visibility. It takes time for them to become effective and for search engines to index the content of your website. If this content is not on topic and related to the keyword, your ranking for that page will be very low.

Keywords do not define your target market, especially when you are starting out and have no traffic or SEO in place on your website. That does not mean that the two are not connected. Keyword research finds the terms that people are searching for that are related to your business. Once you have properly implemented these keywords found through research, there are tools that will allow you to begin to gather data about the people that are using those keywords. This information then let you refine keywords, content, and marketing strategies to more effectively target those demographics.

Keywords are not just what you think you ideal clients are searching. Sometimes those guesses are correct, but there are several other factors that come into play. You may use that keyword and still not move up at all due to the competitive nature of keywords. Targeting common search terms as keywords may be a waste of your time and money. Without proper research and analysis knowing which keywords to target is nothing more than a guessing game with your marketing budget.