What Are Keywords And How To Find Them
Keywords are used all day, every day, by everyone searching online.
We’ve written before about SEO and SEM. Each are key to people finding your website online. A big part of both is the use of keywords. Finding and targeting the right words makes it easier for people to find you. But exactly what are keywords? And how do you find them and use them on your site?
What are Keywords?
Keywords are the words a person searches while looking something up on Google, or any other search engine. They are the words that that help you find the content you seek. For example, let’s say you wanted to find the best local barber – what would you search?
- Barbers near me
- Brighton barber
- Best local barber
- Barber less than £20
Each of these are examples of keywords. Type any one of those examples into your favorite search engine, and you’ll find a number of barbers to try.
How To Find Keywords
There are many websites dedicated to finding keywords. Some of these options are paid (and give you more detail) some are free but leave you with a little guesswork. Our favorite tools for finding keywords are the Google Keyword Planner and Google Trends.
The Google Keyword Planner is free to use, even if you don’t pay for Google Ads. You can type in keywords you think are relevant to your business and it creates a list of the terms people are actually searching. This list comes with data on each term like competition (low, medium, and high) and other information like the top of page bid, and average monthly searches. You can use this information to weed out keywords. This process is very strategic and deserving of a blog of its own.
Google Trends gives you less specific detail but is very helpful in choosing between keywords. Going back to our barber example, we can see that in the last 12 months, “barbers near me” has by far the most searches. But this doesn’t necessarily mean you absolutely want to target that keyword. If this keyword has high competition or a top of page bid you can’t match, you may want to try a less popular keyword.
What Are Keywords Used For In Marketing?
Keywords are used by your search engine to help find the content you’re looking for. You can use keywords to help get more people visiting your website by catering to the terms people are actually searching.
You can use these keywords in your website copy, in paid advertisements, as inspiration for sales, even blog posts! Keywords aren’t magic though – keyword stuffing (the act of putting as many keywords as possible, or the same keywords as many times as possible on one page) can be detrimental to your ranking in search engine results. Besides that, it can also backfire if a user gets to your site and finds it frustrating to read. People bouncing from your site because of keyword heavy copy isn’t going to do you any good.
Also, you should note, utilizing keywords isn’t going to boost your SEO overnight. If you are making updates to your website or writing blog posts with keywords in mind, it can take months to see an effect on Google.
Besides your website and ads, you can use keywords on social media! If you have a core set of keywords you are targeting, you can use them to inspire Instagram Stories, tweets, and Facebook posts. Another great way to use keywords is through personal cards and brochures. These can be sent to customers as thank you notes or print marketing. Just because it’s not online, doesn’t mean a keyword can’t make your business memorable.
At Swamped Media we take the mystery out of marketing. Want to learn more about marketing your business? Let’s set up a strategy session!