Without the help of statistical representation, we are aware that the internet contains billions of information spread over one billion websites.
With this, important pieces of information are easily obtained with just a tap on a device. A Google search, for example, will expose an inexhaustible list of web pages relevant to the search query. Usually, people find their answers on the first page of the SERP.
Most web pages derive 75% of their traffic through this process. With these facts, you might want to know how to ensure that your page ends up on the highly coveted first page of the SERP to enjoy massive traffic.
The messiah to this can be summed up in 3 words— Search Engine Optimization (SEO). One of the effective SEO techniques is the use of keywords, and using an SEO expert might come in handy.
Keywords are essential in SEO because they help your page ranking and relevance, thereby increasing web traffic. It is important to know how to cluster keywords effectively while creating SEO content for your webpage.
Before discussing how to use these keywords to your advantage effectively, a definition of SEO and how it operates would give a brief insight.
What Is Search Engine Optimization?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the technique involved in improving a web page to increase its visibility and discoverability by search engines and generate immense traffic through non-paid (organic) search engine results.
When we place a search on a search engine, we are provided with lists of websites ranked from most relevant to the least relevant, and the element that makes a web page the most relevant is nothing but an effective SEO. Although, with the right cash, you can get a high rank (through paid ads).
Google, Youtube, Yahoo, Bing, DuckDuckGo, and Yandex, to mention a few, are search engines, a group of software systems designed to scour the World Wide Web to provide us with information relevant to our search.
Considering the billions of information on the internet, how this is possible must be a wonder to us. It is easy. Search engines operate in 3 main steps: crawling, indexing, and ranking.
First, the search engines deploy bots (known as crawlers or spiders) to crawl through all websites and every link to discover different kinds of content. This is called the discovery process.
On completion, the discovered contents are indexed and stored in a massive database which they can retrieve in the future consequent to a search query. In displaying the Search Engine Result Page (SERP), the search engine ranks the results from most relevant to least relevant.
How To Use Keywords For Effective SEO
Selection of Relevant Keywords
Before considering where your keywords can be used optimally, the first step of the approach should be selecting the right words.
As easy and trivial as it may sound, this is, in fact, the most important aspect of keyword usage. Using keywords unrelated to your content, irrelevant, and with zero search volume will place your work in a different race entirely instead of what you intended.
Therefore, selecting the right words gives you a fighting chance. It usually involves rigorous research, and you have to answer questions like:
– What do you want to be ranked for?
– What does your audience want?
– What do people search for?
– How many people are searching for it?
There are Keyword Research Tools that help to provide keyword analysis. Some include Google Keyword Planner, Google Trends, AnswerThePublic, etc. You have to select three categories of keywords for your content;
– Primary keyword— only one word will be required here because it is the main focus of your content. The title and content must reflect the primary keyword.
– Secondary keywords— several of these words will be required, and they will complement the primary words as words conveying the talking points and variations of the words.
Using Keywords in Meta Description and SEO Title Tag
When a search is carried out, the first thing that your audience gets to see is your meta description and the SEO title tag.
Whatever is contained in both of them becomes what the search engine displays on the result page. Hence, your ability to generate traffic is dependent on what your meta description and SEO title contain. The meta description summarises the page’s content, and the SEO title tag is not necessarily the title of the main article but the title that you wish to be displayed on the result page.
The SEO tag should be a 160-character-description, and the SEO tag should contain 30-60 characters which must succinctly reflect the page’s content.
Use the Keywords in the Article Title
Optimising your content title is essential, as it increases discoverability on the SERPs. You should include these keywords in the first 65 characters of the title to be more effective.
Use the Relevant Keywords evenly throughout the Content
You should include the keywords and variations evenly and naturally while doing this. If the content is bombarded with keywords making readability difficult for readers, the user experience will be negatively affected.
Also, this prevents bots from being able to “crawl” effectively. An effective method of correcting it is by including one primary keyword in every 100 words, which depends on the length of the content.
Use Keywords in Non-textual Content
Relevant keywords in the “alt” attribute for images will increase the visibility of images when related search queries are sent.
Input Keywords in your Page URL
You might be thinking, “would it not be smart to avoid these formalities and input as many keywords as possible?”
Well, these search engines are smarter than we think. Google, for example, is evolving every day and, as such, making improvements to its systems.
Google can see through the excessive stuffing of words, leading to an eventual penalty. In this case, your page may not be indexed nor ranked, and this is certainly something we do not want.
Conclusion
With the rising competition by website owners to be on the first page of SERPs, it is important to know these tips to up your SEO content game.
Keyword clustering is essential if you want to rank higher and enjoy great traffic on your webpage.
However, when you do it wrong, the results could be disastrous due to crawler bots not being able to crawl your site to rank it effectively and readers not reading because the content is not comprehensive.
With this being said, you should know and learn how to use keywords to get the best results from SEO.
