Keywords are still important for SEO, but there’s a right and wrong way to use them.
If you’ve done much research on search engine optimization (SEO), you know that keywords are purported to be one of the most important factors for success. The idea is to do keyword research, examining what types of searches users are performing, then select a handful of target keywords to use when optimizing your site and offsite tactics, purposely improving your rankings for those specific keywords.
But the process has evolved since SEO’s early days, and if you aren’t up-to-date, your strategy could do more harm than good.
The Old Way
The old method of keyword optimization was pretty simple. You’d find a few keywords with high search volume, but minimal competition, and start peppering them, verbatim, throughout your site. You’d put them in your post titles, meta descriptions, and make sure they appeared at least a few times in each of your blog posts. It was a surefire strategy, since Google’s biggest concern was how often a keyword appeared in your online content.
Hummingbird and Semantic Search
Then Hummingbird came along and introduced semantic search to the search engine giant. Now, Google is capable of deciphering the intent behind a user’s query, understanding its meaning rather than blindly grouping the words and searching the web for an exact match. Plus, Google is stepping up its game when it comes to penalizing keyword stuffers—if you use a keyword too many times, or in an unnatural way, your site could take a hit.
Topics, Headlines, and Natural Variables
So what’s the best way to use keywords today? It’s still a good idea to perform some keyword research, to determine what people are searching for, but the exact match approach isn’t going to work. Instead, you need to use your target keywords as semantic hubs, using them as a basis for coming up with content topics and headlines, and to generate similar variables that you can use naturally in your content.
SEO keywords remain an important factor for your success, but you can’t just stuff them into your content and hope things will work out. If you’re ready to start the process with keyword research of your own, or you need help finding the best keyword strategy, contact us today!
