Keywords play a vital role in managing SEO. It is crucial that keywords are used appropriately in copy destined for the Web to ensure the effectiveness they have in boosting a page’s ranking on a web search.
Search engine optimization (SEO) relies on keywords to bring websites up the search rankings on Google and other websites and play a pivotal role in helping businesses target local communities. Companies in Utah, for instance, may use their location within their cities or counties to attract a narrower audience within close proximity to their physical stores.
These phrases and terms—used either as tags or as anchor text for links—provide a means for search engine crawlers to identify links faster. In general, search engine algorithms work toward bringing up pages that have information of value to the user. Although a vital part of the SEO equation, keywords are not to be treated lightly. Ideally, a keyword should be integrated organically into the text of SEO content.
Taking it Easy
People repeating and inserting redundant terms for themselves and what they do can be overwhelming for ordinary listeners. Likewise, too many people bemoan the state of web copy that seems to want to insert as much of the keywords in the copy (and in metadata) as possible.
Whether inserted surreptitiously to the code of the website itself or added awkwardly into the content, keywords are commonly abused in this manner by less effective and less scrupulous SEO managers. Keyword stuffing has since been recognized as an outdated SEO tactic, which Google and other search engines have since worked to push back.
Moreover, keyword stuffing within articles tends to undercut the quality of the content itself. Your communication with your target audience should provide them with quality information, not waste their time with the many awkward ways to insert one keyword too many.
Staying on Track
One challenge in the effective use of keywords is ensuring that they are used appropriately. Sometimes, you might be tempted to sidestep the issue of keywords altogether; this is heavily discouraged due to its effect on content. Without the presence of a set of keywords to anchor it to the rest of the blog and its related content, a piece of copy that isn’t associated with a keyword will languish in obscurity due to no over time.
Confronting Obscurity
Perhaps one of the most difficult parts of creating the content needed to bolster your SEO is dealing with obscure keywords. Especially obscure businesses may deal with the double-edged sword of their niche; although their enterprise is uniquely positioned to stand out, their business’ key term is so inexplicably niche that it is next to impossible to insert into web copy without sounding forced or hackneyed.
Jargon especially tends to cause this tendency, and an industry or brand keyword cannot be discarded altogether. However, even a layperson would often not know exactly what to look for and may instead choose to describe the service in words, relying on the search engine algorithms to define it for them.
Even if changing your business’ chief key term might not be possible (a brand name and a business cannot be changed once locked in, after all), you can still derive an effective business strategy that addresses your business’ service in words that are much more general. Doing so would help your business show up on web searches more readily without sacrificing the SEO content.
