What are keywords and what are they for on the Internet?
What are keywords and what are they for on the Internet?
What are keywords and what are they for on the Internet? If you made it this far in this article, I’m sure you want to understand what those keywords are, right? Delve into the world of keywords and their pivotal role in search engine optimization. Our guide provides a comprehensive overview of how to research, select, and utilize keywords effectively to drive targeted traffic and improve your website's search rankings.
If you made it this far in this article, I’m sure you want to understand what those keywords are, right?
When we begin to study what SEO ( search engine optimization ) is, one of the most talked about points is about keywords, the choice of them and the real importance of those terms that dictate optimizations.
Without further ado, now you will learn – once and for all – what that means. Let’s go!
What are keywords?
The keywords (Keywords) are the main instrument of an investigation. They are terms made up of one or more words. They are the way in which a user writes their doubts in the search engines in order to obtain answers and solve their problems.
As much as the term itself is self-explanatory, it costs nothing to explain in detail what they are and what they mean. In the end, that was the question that brought you here!
Basically, keywords are the main search tools.
Think that all searches originate from a word used to present this problem to the search engine. Keywords can be defined as the terms used by users to get answers and solve their problems.
If you’re a marketer, keywords are the terms we use to target when creating our pages, blog posts, and sites.
That is, by defining a keyword for a certain page, you will be passing the message to Google, for example, that your content deals with the subject of that specific term.
If all goes well and you make the right choice, your content will be displayed to exactly the person who searched for that keyword.
In practice, this is how it works:
Keywords are used by users (as you can see the word in the Google search box) and is also used by sites that want to be entered that have the “answers” of that search.
Why are keywords so important to your business?
It is no coincidence that they are keywords. These are the ones that, when they fit together perfectly, open the doors for your content to the world of the internet. The truth is that a company that wants to survive the digital transformation cannot stop looking at them in detail.
For your business, it means the difference between being found, read, shared and liked or simply not being entered due to unawareness or complete ignorance.
And that is exactly why keywords are tools that help (and a lot!) to content marketing.
When preparing your investment plan, one of the main objectives of your company is to increase leads, customers and, consequently, your sales.
On the internet, your content will face greater competition than in your area of activity, no matter how crowded it is.
In Internet search engines , the borders are smaller and the results in each investigation, millions and millions of possibilities are within the reach of the public’s fingers.
That means it’s not enough to just pick a handful of keywords and sprinkle them in the middle of posts.
Thinking needs to be more strategic and careful about them in order for your business to stand out. Therefore, start by asking yourself why you need to use the keywords.
The answer should come quickly and obviously in your mind: “because I need to help my audience find me on the internet”.
Only the answer can’t stop there.
You have a conversion funnel with defined stages , which means that there are different types of audiences with different types of questions.
Who started the purchase process, still wants to know about the basic items referring to the universe in which your product or service is inserted.
Whoever is in the middle of the funnel is probably doing research among various brands to decide what are the benefits of one over the other.
And who is in the background, you are almost deciding on the purchase and need the assurance that they are making the right decision when choosing your company to close the deal.
And each of those groups has a more specific set of keywords that they choose to type into search engines.
Therefore, your company needs to recognize them in order to make the best use of them when producing each material.
You know why?
For these they will be the first contact between the brand and the public and will probably decide if that visitor will close the window and continue in the search results or if they will continue on your site.
Each keyword must be considered as a question that needs to be clarified objectively, without half words.
And the role of your company’s content is to focus on offering them, so that they are delighted with your ability to answer the questions and, based on them, build a trusting relationship with your company.
That is to say: it unlocks the locks from the keywords, informs and transforms visitors into potential customers.
And that conversion of visitors to customers is precisely the main objective of Marketing! That is why we invite you to download our free guide on the subject and learn about its strategies in detail. Do not miss it!
What do negative keywords mean?
Negative keywords are those that tell Google – in an AdWords campaign or ad group – what search terms you don’t want to attract your business with.
For example: selling sporting goods produced only in Brazil.
Then, you can include the term “imported” among your negative keywords, so that your ads are not displayed from searches that contain that word.
You will wonder what is the reason for this. Certainly, it helps you to invest with more quality, that is, you increase the opportunity of return.
How? From the moment you know that your target audience will not find what they want when entering your ad, you stop paying for clicks on your ad that will hardly result in generating a lead, or even closing a sale.
This means, in practice, bringing more customers who are really interested in your product or service, instead of curious visitors who will click ( it is worth remembering that clicking on the ad generates a fee from Google ), spending a few seconds scanning the content of the page, not finding what you are looking for and returning to the results page.
How to find keywords?
Let’s be a little bit malicious: Google won’t really care if you have some unnecessary paid clicks on your page. In the end, a good portion of their income comes from that.
So, it is necessary to think about how you will use the tools that Google itself offers in your favor.
If you’ve already searched, you’ll know that AdWords has a real arsenal going for it to get the most value out of every click. There are specific tools, Keyword Planner (we’ll talk about it later), which can be of great value when it comes to finding negative keywords.
To explain its operation, I will try to exemplify it in a simple and direct way.
If you have a company that sells umbrellas, put that word in the Keyword Ideas tab and click on the search.
In the list of results you will see several search terms related to the word with some basic information. In that list, you will mark all the ideas that you do not talk about in your universe.
For example, it could be “umbrella designs”, “umbrellas, new spelling”, and “custom umbrellas”.
As soon as you recognize the search items that clearly don’t speak to your acting branch, voila! The answer has already been given.
You will be able to create your negative keyword list including exactly those selected terms – in the example: “design”, “spelling” and “custom”.
Another way to make optimal negative keyword selection (and also find positive ones for your repertoire!) is to put yourself in the user’s shoes and use your keyword list.
Returning to the example of the umbrella as your product.
Search for that term and other related ones, which would be used in the production of content on your page, such as “imported umbrellas” or “umbrellas”.
You will probably see, on the first few pages, links to things that have nothing to do with that business, it could even be the name of a book, the lyrics of a song, etc.
In this way, you will be able to stay more and more at the end of the universe of words that should be in your content, helping your clients to reach you more easily and without wasting time entering links that have little – or nothing – to do with it. with what they want and need.
In our complete and free guide to keywords, you will take a more detailed look at the best practices for finding keywords in your SEO strategies.
How to define the keywords for your content?
Once you have a list of “seed” keywords, which we talked about in the previous point, it’s time to include more data in your analysis.
To define the keywords that will bring the maximum results for your company, you must consider some other factors. Take a look at some of them below:
Elaboration of the Buyer Persona
One of the most important factors to choose the keywords for a blog, is the adaptation to the needs of the person .
I am sure that when you are going to produce content for the blog that you created, you have in mind that the material must answer the doubts and questions of whoever is reading the content, right?
For your content to be considered useful and valuable to whoever is searching for that specific keyword, you should always think about yourself.
How would your audience search the internet when they want to find your text as a response? This is a good way to find efficient keywords.
Buyer Personas Guide
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Defining the objective of the strategy
This is very important information for when discovering the definition of the best keywords for your business.
The objective that is defined for your strategy must be taken as a guide for all the attitudes that are taken to achieve it.
That is, if your company has the objective of increasing the number of sales of your products, for example, it is possible to direct the keyword search for the terms that drive purchases.
It must be invested, then, in terms that contain “buy”, “review”, “the advantages” of the product and other similar ones. Thus, it is possible to lead the public to purchase through the texts produced for the blog.
Competitor research
This is another very interesting way to define the keywords that should be used for your business.
If you have large competitors who also invest in a content marketing strategy, it will certainly be interesting to analyze how they are dealing with issues related to products and services in front of the public.
Another interesting tip is to search for big players in the market, even if they are not your direct competition.
Probably, these companies will have interesting approaches on how to deal with the production of content, be it with an innovative language or producing complete pieces, which solve all the doubts of the public.
Competitor research can be efficient both to discover what is not being done to attack it as an opportunity, and also a way to identify the strengths of the competition, gathering efforts to overcome those points.
In case you have a tool like SEMrush that allows this analysis in a much clearer and simpler way, an optimal way to identify what your competition is doing is by monitoring the organic results in the search engine, as well as being attentive to their social networks. and newsletter.
How to search keywords for Topic Clusters?
The dream of most companies is to reach the first page of the results with the main keyword of their market.
For example, an advertising agency would surely like to be at the top of the search engine with the keyword “advertising”. But the term “advertising” is too generic and highly contested, so without a satellite strategy, it can be nearly impossible to achieve.
What are Topic Clusters?
The Topic Clusters or satellite content strategy is based on creating content related to the main theme and linking to it through the use of link building , thus strengthening its authority before Google.
To create this content, it is necessary to find out which topics are relevant and how they are searched for by the public.
In the case of our example, we could use keywords such as “abusive advertising”, “harmful advertising”, “ad planning”, “how an advertising agency works”, etc.
They will be the Topic Clusters or satellite content, which will revolve around the pillar content (“advertising”).
The content will tell Google that the company is an expert on the subject, and not that it just has comprehensive content on it. In the end, this will give you relevance and good positions.
What tools are used to find keywords?
You can use tools like SEMrush to search for your main keyword and, from there, find related and high-volume terms.
Another way to identify them is by analyzing the content of your competitors and observing what topics they are addressing, so that you can create even more complete content.
To do this, make sure you know who the benchmarks are in your niche and in other similar sectors.
Remember that you should not necessarily look at your direct competitors, from your own country, you can also follow blogs and sites from other countries, which can give you even newer topics and that have not yet reached the market in your region.
There are dozens of tools aimed at finding relevant keywords, but the main ones that you will find on a day-to-day basis are:
Google Trends
In Google Trends you can check the history of the performance of the words in a certain period of time, in addition to the search trends in real time, constantly updating.
Google Keyword Planner
Google ‘s “ Keyword Planner ” is ideal for creating optimized campaigns on Google AdWords .
This tool allows you to diagnose your strategy, identify what is working or not, to correct or maintain. The data can be exported in spreadsheets, which facilitates analysis.
SEMRush
It offers a report on trends and, consequently, gives advice on which paths to follow for the success of your content.
It is worth analyzing your own site, as well as the pages of your competition and those of whom you consider a reference in quality and results. The free version of SEMRush gives an overview, but the paid version is ideal for full planning.
Ubersuggest
Excellent for searching for more specific keywords ( long tails ). Ubersuggest is currently the most efficient free tool.
Just insert the desired term in the search area, select the language and the area ( web , images, news, shopping, video, etc).
You can click on the term suggestions and get other related words.
Their suggestions appear in alphabetical order, which makes searching quite easy. In addition, you can search by language and download a spreadsheet with your results.
keywordtool.io
The tool allows you to choose from countless languages, tons of countries, and various search engines, such as Google, Youtube, Amazon, and others.
In addition, Keywordtool.io analyzes Google ‘s autocomplete resource and gives you more ideas, offering options for keyword variations, especially “ long tails ” keywords.
KWFinder
This comprehensive tool also allows you to choose between multiple languages and locations.
In addition , KWFinder offers you a list of keywords with detailed information, such as search volume, cost per click, level of advertising competition, difficulty for SEO positioning, main competitors and even the number of shares on social networks. .
Keyword Revealer
Keyword Revealer allows you to generate filters by search engine, by monthly searches, potential earnings, number of words, helps to study the competition, numbers of backlinks , social shares, URLs, among others.
However, it requires a payment to perform more than one search.
Keyword Eye
Keyword Eye is that it is an extremely visual and playful platform. When you do a search for a site term or domain, the tool displays the keywords in a cloud.
In this cloud, suggestions appear in different colors and sizes, which serve to differentiate search volumes and keyword competition.
Moz Keyword Explorer
The Keyword Explorer is one of the Moz tool extensions for SEO. It doesn’t differ much from other options mentioned here, especially SEMrush .
Their features are very similar, such as related term suggestion, competition data, search volume, and organic survey difficulty score for keywords.
To find new keywords, you can also analyze your competitors “manually”. That is, observe what types of content they are publishing and what generates more organic traffic.
Accompanying your competitors allows you to have new ideas and inspirations for content that, perhaps, you had never thought of before, or even discover more in-depth topics that you can also address on your blog in your own way.
What are the types of keywords?
The keywords are responsible for responding to the needs of the users and positioning, at the same time, in the search engines. The keyword system has become more and more complex and meta tags are no longer used as in the past.
For you to choose the most suitable one for your strategy, let’s start by talking about the types of keywords you have available and what their differences are. Initially, there are 3 types:
Head tails
The keywords known as head tail keywords, are those that only contain one, or a maximum of two words in their composition.
They are also called generic keywords, since they are used by most of the websites on the Internet, which makes them more contested and, consequently, makes it more difficult to rank in search engines when using them.
An example of this type of keyword would be when we search the Internet for: “Sneakers”.
Middle tails
Middle tails keywords are popular word strings. That is, while the short tails are those words of frequent use, the middle tails are identified as short chains of frequently used words.
In general, middle tails can be made up of two, three or even four words. This makes them more specific than short tails , since their Internet searches are done in smaller numbers. Therefore, they are more likely to achieve the first results of search engines.
Continuing with the previous example, a middle tail keyword would be: “Shoes to buy”.
Long tails
However, long tail keywords are in charge of filtering, even more, the results through strings made up of several words in sequence.
Within a content marketing strategy, long tails are the most suitable for achieving good positioning. Their search level is lower, since they deal with much more specific terms, but this is precisely what makes them less competitive.
Long tails tend to be more efficient because they are used by users looking for immediate and precise answers to their needs.
In our example, it would be something like “Sneakers to buy in Mexico City”. The user wants to find the product, an establishment to buy it and also, that is located within their city.
How to define the keywords in your strategy?
Here are some actions that you can take to ensure that your keywords will meet the Marketing objective that you set for your strategy:
Put yourself in the shoes of your audience
As we said before, it is important to think about people to define the relevant keywords for the business. If you have not yet done the work of identifying your person, discover how it is done here.
It is important to identify what would be the most searched terms by your audience from the moment they start looking for information on the subject.
Think about how your public, not like the connoisseur and specialist that you are about your product or service. Reflect: How would you search for the product or service on the internet?
There are several possible variations of search for a certain subject and that search in relation to the public is efficient precisely to bring the results that would most coincide with the position of this public.
A good tip to identify those opportunities is to try to talk to some people who fit your audience, whether they are clients or potential clients and ask these questions to find out.
Consider the stage of the sales funnel
Keep in mind that your reader will search for different shapes as well, depending on what stage they are in the funnel. In a practical way, it is necessary to remember that: if you are looking for alternatives to solve a problem, you must focus on the problem, even as a keyword.
Good content practices for this stage are the definition of concepts and advice for carrying out some action, for example.
However, if he is starting to find your solution interesting, you should talk to him about his reasons for choosing yours.
A good list of reasons for choosing a plausible solution to a problem, or even the advantages of such a solution for the purchaser.
If you are evaluating and intend to act, talk about your differentials. The texts of your clients’ success stories or comparisons between market solutions, for example, are the most suitable for this stage of the funnel.
What role do keywords play in SEO?
The use of keywords is something recurring, and highly efficient, when we talk about optimization so that your site is well positioned in searches.
As an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) technique, keywords must be used strategically, thought out and defined within an effective planning of your digital marketing strategies.
Meta descriptions
When we talk about site optimization, we need to remember and give due importance to meta descriptions. You know that they are?
Well, the meta description is nothing more than the description that appears in Google (you know that summary that appears below the title that is in blue? It is exactly that!)
This must be done directly, but without ceasing to be stimulating for the people who visit the pages. Include the keyword of the content in the meta description, it is essential!
URL
In addition to always thinking about the user experience and creating friendly urls, another important point for content optimization is the address of the page itself.
Try to shorten your URL as much as possible and create an address that is simple and self-explanatory. The best way to use the url is to include the keyword in that area.
In this content we show you the best URL shorteners on the Internet.
SEO Title
It is not only the title of your blog that must have the previously defined keyword.
Unlike the page title, the SEO title is what will be displayed when your content appears in search results on Internet search engines. at this point, it is also essential that the keyword is present.
Learn more about how to create SEO titles .
Title tag
Keywords also need to be used in the internal titles of your articles. Depending on the format of your blog, possibly the title tag will be the same as the H1.
Regardless of whether or not it is the H1 of your blog, follow the rule that the keyword must always be present.
Unlike the SEO title that has the goal of making someone leave the search page to enter your content, the Title tag is the title that has the goal of ensuring that a reader stays on your page and continues reading your content. Article.
In this case, the use can be anywhere, as long as it is present.
Learn more about SEO by downloading the most complete guide on the internet on the subject for free!
How to explore the keywords in the contents?
Focus on keywords to optimize the content of your blog, but the priority must be to solve the problem and meet the expectations of your people.
Use the keywords in your blog posts, in your titles, throughout the articles and, whenever possible, in intertitles, as well as in the description of the images.
Don’t forget to keep it natural throughout the text. It is useless to write a text focused on the keyword getting tired by repetition. Readers don’t like that and will stop reading your content.
If you write for Google and not for people, you probably won’t get the best results.
The production of relevant content is done based on people, their ailments and problems; not thinking about the search engine robots.
Remember that if you create content that adds value, answers questions and solves problems, you will automatically be well in the reader’s priorities and, believe me, Google also considers all of this when ordering search results.
Strategically evaluate the use of keywords
Search engines are evolving at incredible speed.
Every six months or so, we’re seeing algorithm changes, mostly from Google, that are forever changing the way marketers create and develop our content and sites.
After the update that occurred in 2016, it strengthened the semantic analysis of searches and the addition of RankBrain. The first innovation guaranteed that the search engine was able to interpret the user’s intention, through the term used.
As for RankBrain, it is an artificial intelligence that became part of the Google algorithm and that is what is completely changing the way in which searches and results are being displayed.
How to find keywords for paid ads?
As well as the search for keywords for the organic marketing strategy, it is very important to take into account all the factors listed above when choosing the most important terms for paid ads.
Another factor that begins to have some importance when it comes to paid ads is the value of each keyword.
This price varies according to the search volume of that term, as well as the interest of people and companies in advertising using that specific keyword.
When setting up your account in Google AdWords, you can choose which type of campaign payment will be made: campaign pay per click (CPC, or cost per click), impression (CPM, or cost per thousand impressions), or conversation (CPA). , or cost per acquisition).
The value presented for each keyword represents the maximum price that can be paid for that ad.
If the ad was clicked so many times, making the total value reach the stipulated budget for the day, the ad will not be displayed anymore until the next day, when the budget is reset.
But how does that influence the choice of keywords?
For a paid-up ad strategy, it’s important to look for terms that have low competition and low EVs so that your ad can be shown multiple times to the people who searched for it, regardless of your budget.
On the other hand, if we were dealing with a deeper Google AdWords strategy, it is important to make ad groups with several different keyword variations, so that it covers the person’s searches, being able to use a larger budget to be successful.
How to use keywords in social networks?
In addition to being good ways to disseminate published content, social networks play a very important role when defining keywords.
A good piece of advice is to find your audience in the most important social networks for your business and look for the ways in which they communicate to clarify their doubts about the issues.
In addition to defining important questions about the language that should be chosen, it is possible to find possible doubts that they have regarding your business, which may end up becoming production opportunities for your blog.
But, there is a concept that is becoming more and more popular on the internet, mainly on social networks, which is the use of hashtags.
Once the content published on social networks, such as attachments, images and captions, is not indexed by Google robots, the only way to do this indexing is through hashtags.
These are considered hyperlinks that bring together all posts with that hashtag in a single search.
In addition to that, hashtags are widely used by the young audience and by those considered “heavy users” of social networks.
Therefore, by using hashtags that are relevant to your business, it is possible to index the content, at the same time that it approaches the public and creates a certain type of closer relationship.
But, it is important to be careful with some actions when the issue is the use of hashtags.
It is important to know that they must match the content that is being published.
If you simply use hashtags that have a high volume of searches on social networks, without them being related to your post, the public can interpret that you are just looking for more views for your post, without caring about the concerns and doubts of the person . That can end up alienating you from your audience.
In addition, it is important to choose words and expressions that are valuable to those who are looking for such content. Create and strengthen institutional hashtags that talk about the customs and values of the company.
In this way, it is possible for you to create a community around the use of the hashtag, encouraging its use by the public and creating a relationship with the people who decided to embrace your cause.
And so, now that you’ve learned a bit more about defining and using keywords, are you ready to use these techniques in your online marketing strategy?
Other very useful tools for SEO: