Why SEO Keyword Research is a Foundation Aspect of SEO

Why SEO Keyword Research is a Foundation Aspect of SEO

6, Oct 2023 | SEO

With internet users carrying out over 8.5 billion searches every day on Google alone (that’s 99,000 every second), every business needs to be well represented online in order to be found in appropriate queries, particularly above competitors’ listings.

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is now a mainstream marketing activity and a critical area to strategize in order to gain competitive advantage. One area of focus within this wider aspect of marketing is SEO keyword research – and here we’re going to tell you all you need to know about it.

What is SEO Keyword Research?

Keyword Research is the process of identifying, analysing and understanding the search terms that users type into search engines relevant to a business’s products or services.

If a business is able to understand how their target audience searches for products, services or brands appropriate to their sector, they can target these queries and gain the necessary comprehension around their usage, popularity and ranking difficulty in order to use them successfully.

It is worth noting that SEO keywords do not just necessarily comprise of single words but also phrases, questions or word combinations that may be entered into a search engine.

Why Do We Do SEO Keyword Research?

While businesses may have a rough idea of what they think internet users input to search for queries relevant to them, human behaviour online rarely mirrors exactly what is expected.

SEO keyword research provides tangible and genuine insight into user behaviour in order to inform content and SEO strategy.

Without properly researching keyword usage, businesses are simply making assumptions as to their marketing opportunities within search engine rankings – and can easily leave gaps in their SEO efforts in which the competition can thrive.

Why Keywords Are Important To SEO

SEO keywords form the actual queries that users enter into search engines and so give the best possible indication of what target audiences are looking to find and will find useful.

Understanding exactly what queries are used has multiple benefits for an organisation.

Marketers who conduct effective SEO keyword research are able to keep abreast of marketing trends and shifts in online user behaviour, allowing them to tailor their content and strategies to fit and ensure they’re always right where they need to be within SEO rankings. In turn, this leads to increased traffic to the domain and online presence, and ultimately, lead generation and customer acquisition.

In comprehending the questions users ask of their search engines, marketers and webmasters can ensure they’re able to answer these on their site and as a result receive the traffic from these users as they search out whatever it is they’re looking for.

While the inclusion of keywords within website copy used to be very much the main SEO focus of digital marketers, today it forms just part of wider SEO strategies. However, it is arguably a more comprehensive exercise to tailor content and marketing efforts accordingly – as user behaviour moves away from the simple typing of a few related single words and further into full phrases, questions and brand references.

The way people interact with their devices is now more involved than ever and marketers must understand and work with this for the best possible results.

Why is SEO Keyword Research the Second Step, and Not the First in the Woya SEO Process?

In order for marketers and webmasters to best understand how to formulate their SEO strategy, they must first have an idea of the current performance of their website: what works and holds the interest and engagement of users, what doesn’t, what can be improved to better meet users’ needs, and how it is that users find them in the first place.

This is why website analysis forms the first step in the SEO process, to provide the foundation from which all other SEO efforts can work.

Understanding search intent

Search intent, or user intent, is the intention behind an individual making a query on a search engine. This uncovers what it is they hope to achieve by completing the search. There are four main types of search intent:

    • Navigational Intent – users are looking for a specific website or page, i.e. ‘tails.com’ or ‘Facebook login’
    • Informational Intent – users are looking for more information on a certain topic, i.e. ‘what is a durian fruit?’ or ‘orange marks on elm tree’
    • Transactional Intent – users are looking to complete a specific action, i.e. ‘buy Game Of Thrones DVD’ or ‘fill in school registration form’
    • Commercial Intent – users are looking to complete some research before making a purchase decision, i.e. ‘best SUV for families’ or ‘hotels in Newquay reviews’.

Once the intent behind searches being made is understood, content and pages can be tailored to meet each, providing a useful site that meets the user’s requirements.

Seed Keywords

Seed keywords are fairly generic words or phrases that often act as the initial query in a search.

These can be used as the gateway enquiry that a brand uses in its SEO keyword research, from which to identify more specific related terms.

For example, for a business selling baby clothes online, seed keywords for its website would be generic terms such as ‘babygros’, ‘sleepsuits’, ‘baby sleep bag’ and ‘newborn clothes’.

When initiating a keyword research project, seed keywords can be input into a research tool from which to generate other, more particular, terms. More specific queries will offer a more tailored search experience, be cheaper to work with and will be more likely to drive conversions from visitors.

Long-Tail Keywords

Long-tail keywords are specific search terms that demonstrate a user is looking for something specific from their query. These search terms are used less frequently than more generic seed keywords, but are easier to target.

For example, if a business sells baby clothes online, long-tail keywords for its website would be specific queries such as ‘buy blue sleepsuit 3-6m’, ‘best baby sleep bags for newborns’, and ‘spiderman Babygro tiny baby size’.

Long-tail keywords demonstrate search intent easily and so organisations can swiftly and effectively target these searches to meet the user’s needs and drive conversions.

Keyword Difficulty and Competitiveness

Keyword difficulty is the process in which a keyword research tool grades the difficulty it takes to rank for a set search term.

This grade is made based on a number of different factors including the competitiveness of those already attempting to rank for the term, the content quality on the site attempting to rank for it and the overall domain authority of the website attempting to rank for it.

Understanding keyword difficulty allows businesses to prioritise their efforts on search terms for which they stand a realistic chance of ranking and therefore driving conversions, so they may avoid investing unnecessarily on generic keywords for which they will rarely be seen.

Unfortunately, keyword difficulty grades vary hugely in their calculation criteria and display ranking based on the SEO keyword research tool presenting them. This can cause inconsistencies in SEO strategy and so it is always recommended that organisations work with a specialist agency when embarking on this part of keyword research.

Search Volume Analysis

The SEO metric of keyword search volume indicates how many times per month a stipulated keyword or term is searched for, on average.

This usually refers to Google but can also be analysed for other major search engines. This average likely varies between months of the year, based on regional, seasonal and thematic fluctuations.

These metrics usually pop up when a marketer is crafting a paid-for search engine marketing campaign, as the price they can expect to pay per click (PPC) will depend on how popular the keyword is. Balanced with other metrics, it can generally be expected that those keywords searched often are more expensive to work with than those not.

Analysing SEO keyword search volume allows organisations to understand which terms they should be prioritising for use.

Keyword Opportunities

Keyword opportunity is a Google KPI that analyses the potential for improvement in search rankings. Comparing current rankings to Google’s estimated search traffic volume, opportunities can be identified and efforts required to achieve rankings assessed.

Keyword opportunity can also determine the website’s current traffic share; although it should be noted that this is estimated.

Keyword Relevance

The term keyword relevance refers to how appropriate a search engine finds a keyword (or set of keywords) to a website’s content.

Judging what a website is about through its content’s topics, the search engine’s algorithm is able to determine how best to rank web pages when a relevant search query is made.

Keyword relevance used to be judged purely on the prevalence of relevant keywords within a site’s content, but today there are a wide variety of factors at play to determine appropriateness – and so it is not necessary to have an exact match between the search query and the text on a website.

SEO Keyword Research Tools

Keyword research tools are software tools that automate the research of relevant keywords to a seed keyword.

This presents a range of topic ideas for content through related keywords and phrases, and can be split by search engine to further appropriate targeting. From here, organisations can target their content strategy to fit the queries being made.

There are a number of online SEO keyword research tools that offer free versions, including Semrush, Ahrefs and Moz, as well as a number of tools offered by Google itself.

The difficulty most organisations find in the navigation of keyword research tools is that their metrics vary and can be tricky to ascertain tangible insights from. This is why many choosing to invest properly in their SEO strategy work with specialist agencies rather than relying on free software tools.

Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI)

Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI), is a mathematical practice that classifies and retrieves information – and is used by search engines.

Through a process called Singular Value Decomposition (SVD), the search engine scans through unstructured data to identify any relationships between terms and the context within which they appear.

LSI allows search engines to better judge what it is that users are really searching for without getting hung up on the specific individual meaning of words. A common example for explaining LSI is the product ‘silly string’. While neither of these words would be relevant individually, combined they refer to a specific item.

LSI is critical in keyword research in order for both search engines and marketers alike to best understand user behaviour when making queries online.

Analysing Click-Through Potential

Click through rates (CTRs) determine the performance of keyword usage and ads.

To calculate the CTR = the number of clicks received divided by the number of times it has been seen: clicks divided by impressions.

Through comprehensive keyword research, marketers are able to understand the average CTR for their industry and can identify areas for improvement in their own.

Updating Keyword Research

Keyword research is not a ‘one-and-done’ activity, but instead should be completed periodically in order to gather insights.

As industries and businesses change, so too do the search queries used to find them. In addition, emerging terms in language can be identified for content tailoring and changes in user behaviour can be monitored and worked with.

Keeping on top of SEO keyword research allows businesses to adapt and overcome challenges as they arise and identify areas for potential and growth ahead of the competition, gaining in traffic, leads and sales.

How SEO Experts Woya Digital Can Help

Woya Digital is a team of SEO specialists who support businesses through every step of their SEO strategies; from conception to completion, including white label SEO services for other agencies.

Working through our SEO marketing success strategy with a bespoke approach to fit every organisation’s idiosyncrasies online, we guarantee success and growth digitally – surpassing expectations to rank above the competition and grow the bottom line.

Why Duplicate Content is Bad for SEO

Why Duplicate Content is Bad for SEO

30, Nov 2022 | Content Marketing, SEO

Navigating SEO can be a tricky job for businesses, particularly if there isn’t the resource in-house to focus on digital marketing full-time.

We support organisations of all shapes, types and sizes to grow their organic digital presence, increase their search rankings, and to ensure their online exposure to both potential and existing clients within their target audience.

A common aspect within SEO is duplicate content issues. But why is duplicate content bad for SEO, and why? Read on to learn more and ensure you are producing valuable content and managing your online content in the best possible way.

How Does SEO Work?

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), is the process of making sure that the content on a website is as apparent and clear as can be so that the automated algorithms behind search engine rankings know what the site is about, who it’s for, and what purpose it serves.

This, along with several UX (User Experience) metrics such as fast loading speeds, good accessibility, mobile responsiveness, web design elements and high security standards allow search engines to identify the best possible results for users when they make a search query through.

SEO is usually considered to be the optimisation of websites and web pages specifically for Google, as this is the market leader in the space. In most of the world, Google holds a 90%+ market share of online searches completed, although there are geographical variations that businesses will need to be aware if they’re targeting audiences in locations other than the western world.

What is Duplicate Content?

Duplicate content issues can be considered any identical content that appears in more than one URL online. This may be the result of a bot or other website copy-and-pasting content onto their own domain, or from a company publishing duplicate content or duplicate pages. This applies to written content and not necessarily to shareable content such as videos, photos or infographics.

Shorter bursts of text that are likely to be organically repeated such as strap-lines or short descriptions are not considered duplicate content for search engine purposes.

Google instead indicates that duplicate content refers to “substantive blocks of content within or across domains that either completely match other content in the same language or are appreciably similar”. There are no specific limits or word counts given to the definition of ‘substantive’ in this case and so it could be anything from a product description paragraph to a lengthy article.

Duplicate Content IS bad for SEO, But Why?

Technically, Google doesn’t penalise a site for producing content that is duplicate within its own domain, saying: “Duplicate content on a site is not grounds for action on that site unless it appears that the intent of the duplicate content is to be deceptive and manipulate search engine results. If your site suffers from duplicate content issues, and you don’t follow the advice listed in this document, we do a good job of choosing a version of the content to show in our search results.”.

However, this doesn’t stop internal or external duplicate content issues being bad for SEO. Where duplicate content exists – particularly where it is spread across more than one domain – the search engines algorithm must judge which is the original and which is the most relevant to appear in each search engines results or search rankings – which is an automated process and may not necessarily decide in the original website’s favour.

If a site duplicating content from another is an older domain, has more backlinks to notate authenticity, hosts other content more relevant to the topic or has a higher DA (Domain Authority) than the original, the search engine’s algorithm may decide to feature that same content above other results.

This can mean that competitors, industry press or even entirely unrelated websites gain competitive advantage above the original and are subject to more click-throughs and completed actions. For this reason, the removal of internal duplicate content across your website web page can be considered improving its UX.

Duplicate content is bad for SEO

How Does Duplicate Content Affect SEO Rankings in Search Engines?

Generally speaking, the issue with internal duplicate content that results in it being bad for SEO is that it will confuse search engines. This is due to two primary issues:

  • Search engines will usually only show one version of content where the same content appears online more than once, and so it must differentiate between multiple versions.
  • Duplicate content dilutes link equity as other websites also must choose between which version of a duplicate content to link to. This can affect the number of inbound links to the original source of the content, and as inbound links are a Google ranking factor, it can impact negatively on search engines ranking and search visibility.

Managing Duplicate Content Issues

Remove Duplicate Blocks of Text

Ideally, a website will have no more than one instance of anything that may comprise a ‘substantive text’, and so webmasters and digital marketers are wise to remove any multiple versions of copy to improve the UX of the site and make it clearer for site users which version is best suited to their needs.

Minimise Boilerplate Repetition

‘Boilerplate text’ is the repetitive text that some businesses are required to repeat around their domain for legal reasons, such as copyright notices or legal disclaimers.

Where this appears in the main body text of a page, it is likely to be considered as standard duplicate content by the algorithm, but of course the organisation may have no choice but to feature it. Instead, it is best practice for webmasters to use a shortened version on each page and link through to the full required legal text. This avoids unnecessary duplicate content and the confusion it may cause for search engines.

Prioritise URL Parameters and Variations

Minor page URL variations may result in unintended instances of duplicate content, and can prove pretty harmless but should be dealt with and removed if possible. Most commonly, these small variations are as a result of analytics codes, click tracking, print-friendly page versions and session IDs. Despite the URLs only having tiny differences due to their sub-domain status, this can result in search engines indexing two versions of the same website page.

The Google Search Console can be used in these incidences to set the preferred domain for crawling and to tweak parameters around these so that the search engines algorithm knows which to ignore. Google search console often provides many immediate answers that will affect search results. Ensuring early Google search console connectivity with your website will provide insight on matters such as duplicate page issues, multiple pages of external duplicate content and even internal duplicate content across multiple urls that could affect search results.

Pay Attention to Any CMS-Generated Pages

It is not uncommon for content management systems to inadvertently create duplicate content on a website without the business realising. This may be a result of a bug or a shifted standardised setting on the back-end of the software. It is imperative that businesses understand the inner workings of their CMS and know how to remove same content when it does duplicate.

Get Website, SEO and Duplicate Content Support

Duplicate content is bad for SEO, and is an important aspect of your SEO that needs to be managed efficiently. Woya Digital manage SEO for businesses of all shapes and sizes, and can help advise on how best to manage and fix duplicate content issues. Get in touch to learn more and let us optimise your site to gain the best possible online search results!

Why You Must Include Long Tail Keywords In Your SEO Strategy

Why You Must Include Long Tail Keywords In Your SEO Strategy

10, Nov 2022 | Content Marketing, SEO

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is not just a ‘nice to have’ marketing tool for businesses presenting online – it’s not an option! Showing up in the right place at the right time digitally for customers searching online, is critical for any organisation wishing to gain competitive advantage, remain relevant and grow its audience.

The discipline of SEO covers a wide of variety of topics, but a prominent one is keywords. Here specifically we’re going to flesh out long tail keywords!

What Are Long Tail Keywords?

Most keywords refer to a single word or couple of words that match together to create a searchable phrase that users type into a search engine in order to find results. Long tail keywords are formed of between three and five words usually (though no such numeric limit actually exists) and are, by their nature therefore, more specific and less common.

The term ‘long tail keyword’ comes from a book called The Long Tail by Chris Anderson, which focuses on the niche of markets and products, and how successful focusing on a specific sector or area can be.

For example, a standard keyword search may be ‘pink trainers’ but a long tail keyword search would be ‘pink Nike trainers size 5’.

How Do Long Tail Keywords Work?

The longer nature of long tail keywords compared to briefer search terms means they are more specific and will as a result drill down more specific (and hopefully relevant) search results. For search engine users, they present an opportunity for more appropriate results and ideally, less clicks to find exactly what they want. For businesses, they present an opportunity to target more niche markets.

Generally speaking, long tail keywords are less competitive than more generic keywords because they’re designed to better reflect how users make queries. They are more likely to attract high-quality traffic to a website, which is likely to increase conversion rates.

Often, long tail keywords aren’t the first search query typed in by search engine users. It is not uncommon instead for users to type in a more generic search term, uncover generic results, and then use long tail keywords to drill down to more specific results.

How Do Keywords Form Part of an SEO Strategy?

Statistics suggest that over 70% of all search queries are now made using long tail keywords, with voice search being a key factor in consumer behaviour.

Users are more likely to use the same types of phrasing they would in colloquial speech, in such searches – an evolving behaviour recognised and catered for by Google with their focus on NLP (Neural Linguistic Programming) in search algorithms to produce relevant results. This high level of long tail keyword search means that including these keywords in an SEO strategy is imperative.

Long tail keywords should be used to create blog posts, web pages and other relevant content to explain the specific topics within the agreed product or service pillars of the business. Together, the relevant long tail keywords should create a cluster of information around each pillar topic, with the algorithms behind the search engines depending on these to connect users with exactly the details they’re looking for.

Once uploaded, businesses should monitor the performance of each piece of content and continue to produce relevant content around areas of both shortfall (to bridge the gap and supply info where it doesn’t already exist) and success (to continue to build upon the content that users find useful).

Long tail keywords should be focused on alongside other keyword types, as part of an overall concerted effort to improve a websites content quality and quantity.

Different Keyword Ranking Difficulty Levels

The most commonly used generic search terms, by their nature, have the most competition online. This means that it is difficult for businesses to rank highly for them.

Long tail keywords tend to be easier for businesses to rank highly for as they’re searched less and are considerably more specific. Generic search terms sit at the head of search, a tiny number of keywords with exceedingly high search volumes. Long tail keywords constitute millions of search terms all with very low search volumes. This leaves the opportunity for digital marketing and content production around long tail keywords to be more prevalent and more prosperous.

The type of keyword being used or focused on isn’t the only factor that contributes to the difficulty or ease of ranking. Other such determinants include the content type, the Domain Authority (DA) of the website on which the content is published and the links to and from the content piece.

How To Identify Relevant Keywords To Focus On

There are various tools for keyword research, all of which will advise of relevant keyword combinations (both generic and long tail), their competition levels, search volumes and CPC (Cost Per Click) fees. However, these research tools should be used with caution as oftentimes they are created independent of tangible human input and can be based around theory rather than actual user behaviour, particularly in fields where the relevant keywords may include an ambiguous word or phrase.

Ideally, once identified, businesses should look to target long tail keywords that are low in competition and high in volume.

It is not enough to just look up keywords and produce content including them. Instead, businesses should look to incorporate long tail keywords into a thorough SEO strategy that looks to improve all areas of a website’s accessibility and relevancy, and includes regular content creation as part of this.

At Woya Digital, we have a team of SEO experts who work on creating tailored SEO strategies to best improve our customers’ competitive advantage. Get in touch to learn more!

Find SEO Keywords Your Potential Clients are Searching

Find SEO Keywords Your Potential Clients are Searching

4, Aug 2022 | SEO

The world wide web has broadened the potential client base for businesses all over the world, taking local businesses global and heightening their horizons.

Google is undoubtedly the king of all resources for digital marketers, with some 3.8 million searches happening per minute on the site… that’s 2 trillion a year! Indeed to ‘Google’ something has become a verb in common English and it’s the go-to search engine for a competitive majority worldwide.

But how to best ensure a business’ web presence presents itself in front of the people most relevant for its products and services? The key lies in SEO Keywords…

What are SEO Keywords?

SEO Keywords are words, terms and phrases that users type into a search engine to find an answer to their query. These queries are what the search engine algorithms use to best understand which websites to present to users, and in what order to rank them. These queries, when matched with the content on a website, determine it to be relevant to the user’s search. Amongst a variety of other on-page factors, SEO Keywords conclude where the website will be ranked on the search engine results page.

Why it’s Important to Know Which SEO Keywords Your Potential Clients are Searching For

SEO Keywords used on a site that match with a user’s query help reinforce the relevancy of that domain to a search engine’s algorithm.

Understanding exactly which SEO Keywords a target audience is using to search for compatible products, services or themes allows for businesses to tailor their online content to match up with these and feature in front of them when they make that search. The more businesses know, the more they can work to meet user behaviours and adapt to them.

Why Organic Traffic Is So Powerful, Compared to Paid Placements

Organic traffic is that received from a user on a search engine without the domain having paid for any ad or search ranking placement. This makes it the most genuine of traffic and demonstrates well a business’ positioning and relevancy to the searches being made.

Of course, it’s also technically free, and so the more organic SEO can be utilised, the more potential can be reached without financial investment.

How to Optimise Website Content for SEO Keywords

There’s lots that can be done to optimise a website toward an audience’s search keywords.

Research into the Most Used SEO Keywords

Understand which SEO Keywords your target audience is using and how these fit with long-tail keywords, relevant phrases and related queries, as well as any misspellings being commonly used. This can be done through a variety of tools available online but the most comprehensive approach to take is to work with a specialist SEO agency who can deep dive into the topic.

Understand Search Volumes and Search Priorities

It’s important to remember that the most highly searched SEO Keywords will be the ones that the most businesses are focussed on tailoring their web presence toward; making the space more competitive.

You should, therefore, split your effort between SEO Keywords where you are most likely to succeed in driving conversions and those where your need to compete with a high amount of other websites.

Research Competitor’s Efforts

It can be beneficial to understand what your competitors are ranking for with your industry SEO Keywords so that you’re able to strategise how best to compete with them. This can help you position your business amongst the competition and work to gain advantage.

Enact Positive Change

Once you have identified a priority list of SEO Keywords, incorporate these into your content. This can be done through written copy as well as into your website’s coded meta data and usage in video and image tags. It is important, however, for this to be done in the correct manner.

The over-usage of SEO Keywords in an obvious manner or where their usage detracts from the quality of the content is known as ‘keyword stuffing’ – and is an unfortunately very popular but very harmful practice. Websites who use keyword stuffing will be penalised for it by the search engine algorithm and ranked down for it. Instead, copywriters and digital marketers should look to use the appropriate SEO Keywords organically and appropriately through your site’s content.

Monitor Progress

As with anything SEO related, it is not enough for a business to enact a piece of work instilling positive change for their ranking and then stop, it must be a continued effort.

Tools such as Google Analytics and other dashboard programs can be used to monitor the progress of SEO efforts over time and identify areas for improvement and/or change to gain and maintain competitive advantage. Consumer behaviours and attitudes also change over time along with demand, and so the usage of SEO Keywords may fluctuate, particularly in businesses affected by seasonal change.

SEO work should be considered a continuous cycle of effort as part of your wider business strategy rather than a simple one-off job.

Where to Get Support with SEO Keywords

Woya Digital are a team of SEO specialists with unrivalled expertise and knowledge in the Google algorithm and its rapid updates. Ensuring we lead by example by staying up-to-date with all changes and revisions released by the search engine, the Woya team are best placed to manage all updates as they happen and keep our customer’s websites top of the rankings above their competitors.

We work strategically and build a custom solution for every customer’s website – because we know your online presence must be as unique as your products, services, organisation, team and audience. Working together we can deliver incredible SEO performance that lasts the test of time; just get in touch to find out how!

 

The Importance of SEO Keywords

The Importance of SEO Keywords

28, Feb 2022 | Digital Marketing, SEO

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is the process of improving the quality of a website to make it rank higher in search engines, and be found by those searching particular terms or keywords. The higher the ranking on SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), the more likely users are to see and click onto the website.

The first step in the SEO optimisation process is to ensure that SEO keywords are used sufficiently and appropriately. But what are these keywords, how can you identify the relevant ones for your business and how should they be used?

What are SEO Keywords?

SEO keywords are words and terms users type into a search engine as a search enquiry. These same keywords in website content help the algorithm programs behind search engines understand the theme or topic of the website: which they can then match up with the same enquiries being typed in by users to display the most appropriate search engine results.

In more traditional terms, keywords are the index terms of the internet. Index terms are the theme or essence of a topic in a document, making up a controlled vocabulary for use in bibliographic records. Libraries and informational retrieval services collect, organise and disseminate documents in this way – and the use of SEO keywords is simply the same practice, but digitally.

Why are Keywords important?

Search engines have become a way of life for all of us and to ‘Google’ something has entered the everyday lexicon. With over 8.5 billion searches on Google daily (and plenty others on other search engines), businesses need to ensure that they’re present and prominent in search engine results to gain and maintain competitive advantage.

Many people default to an online search when looking for a product, service, experience or brand – making it a crucial marketing tool. There are few very businesses who will never be searched for online and so it’s critical to show up as a solution where customers are seeking one.

Different types of SEO Keywords

While the use of such themes online is usually referred to as keywords, there are a variety of different types of vocabulary used and they’re often not just single words. There are four types of intentional SEO keywords; that is, those defined by the intent behind the searching of them. These are:

    • Informational keywords – used to find the answer to a specific question or general information
    • Navigational keywords – used to find a specific webpage or website
    • Commercial keywords – used to investigate brands, products or services
    • Transactional keywords – used to complete an action of purchase.

For the words or phrases themselves, there are eight different types of SEO keywords:

    • Short-tail SEO keywords – keywords made up of three words or less. The most popular type of keywords by search volume but also the most competitive
    • Long-tail SEO keywords – keywords made up of more than three words. More specific searches than short-tail, but less popular by volume and less competitive
    • Fresh SEO keywords – a short-term and current keyword or phrase; that is, something that will be searched for a lot at a certain time (ie. For a news story or film release), but then will drop in searches sharply thereafter
    • Long-term evergreen SEO keywords – keywords that are relevant all the time. Search volume may fluctuate but not extremely
    • Product defining SEO keywords – keywords that explain and describe products
    • Customer-defining SEO keywords – keywords that reflect the person searching them
    • Geo-targeting SEO keywords – keywords that specify a geographical location
    • LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) SEO keywords – thematic keywords that are closely related to the main keyword used.

All SEO keywords need to be used and targeted adequately and appropriately to best ‘tap in’ to the search engine’s programming and rank well in results.

Finding the right Keywords for your business

It is imperative that businesses research properly into the keywords relevant for their brand, products and services in order to ensure that what they’re presenting matches up with what real customers are searching for.

This is achieved through the specific practice of SEO keyword research, which investigates and establishes exactly what is being searched and by whom.

There are a variety of keyword research tools available but their relevance and focus differs. Moz Keyword Explorer is considered a good ‘all-rounder’, and Semrush is favoured by SEO professionals. RankIQ focuses more on providing SEO-driven content and Jaaxy is a specialist service for affiliate marketers. Keyword Surfer is a newer tool that works as a browser extension for non-SEO professionals.

Keyword research needn’t be a lengthy process but it should be done properly to avoid the onward SEO strategy presenting incorrectly and resulting in little to no benefit. It is always best to consult with professionals before embarking on an SEO strategy to ensure that the keyword research has been done accurately and will inform the work positively.

Get support with Keywords and SEO Services

Woya Digital are always on-hand to help support with SEO services. We carry out a thorough SEO keyword research process before making any recommendations and will establish the target audience and ideal persona with customers before any work is initiated.

Our team work on a continuous learning cycle to keep abreast of all the latest Google updates and algorithm changes. SEO can be a tricky discipline to master but we thrive on the challenge!