Chapter 3

Keyword research.
The most important
step of SEO
 The Importance of Keywords
• On the most basic level, keywords capture the essence of your web site.
Keywords are the words or phrases a potential visitor to your site enters into a
search engine to find web sites related to a specific subject, and the keywords that
you choose will be used throughout your optimization process.
• Using the correct keywords in your web site content can mean the difference
between being listed as one of the first 20 sites returned from search engine
results (which is optimum) or being buried under other web sites several pages
into the results (which means hundreds of results are returned before your site).
 The Importance of Keywords
• Consider for a moment the telephone book’s Yellow Pages. Suppose you’re looking for
a restaurant. The first thing you’re going to do is find the heading restaurant, which
would be your keyword.
• If you are so inclined, you can narrow your search to Chinese restaurants, which will
greatly reduce the number of entries that you have to search through. Basically, that’s
how keywords work in search engines and search engine optimization.
• Based on previous chapters of this course, choosing the appropriate keywords for your
web site will improve your search engine rankings and lead more search engine users
to your site, thus this chapter covers the following topics
• What are the keywords types ?
• How to pick the right keywords?
• What’s the right keyword density?
• Avoiding keyword stuffing
 The Importance of Keywords
• Used correctly, keywords should enable you to be placed in the first page
or two of the most popular search engines, and in some cases even as the
number one result. This extremely increases the traffic to your web site.
Keep in mind that the majority of Internet users find new web sites by
using a search engine. High search engine rankings can be as effective as,
if not more effective than, paid ads in marketing your business.
• To decide which keywords should be used on your web site, you can start
by asking yourself the most simple, but relevant, question: ‘‘Who needs
the services that I offer?’’
What exactly is a keyword?

A keyword is any phrase you would like your site to

rank for in Google's search results. A keyword can be a
single word, or a keyword can also be a combination of
words. If you are trying to target a single word, lookout!
You will have your work cut out for you. Single word
keywords are extremely competitive, and difficult to
rank highly for in the search results.
Why is Keyword Research Important
for SEO?e algorithms
• Keywords are like a compass for your SEO campaigns: they tell you where to go
and whether or not you’re making progress.
• As a bonus, researching keywords helps you figure out the thoughts, fears, and
desires of your target market. That’s because keywords research gives you
tremendous insight into what potential customers searching for… and the exact
words and phrases that they use.
• In fact, keyword research is just market research for the 21st century.
 How to Check Organic Traffic in Google ?
• There are dozens of applications helps you to See Your Website Traffic and Learn
Where it Comes From .the following show you an example of X website that use
google analytics .
• 166,205 of those visitors (62.95%) come from Google:
• Obviously, there are a lot of factors that
• went into my site’s success with SEO,
• including content, on-site optimization, link
• building and technical SEO.
• But the #1 factor that contributed to your
• site’s traffic growth was keyword research
 Types of keywords
• Head-term keywords: keywords with one to three words, i.e. classic movies. Sometimes
they are also called short tail keywords.
• For the audiences, they use short-tail keywords when they are at the very first step of
researching for stuff.
• That’s why it’s very difficult to pinpoint the clear search intent for short-tail keywords
because they tend to be all around the place.
• Let’s look at an example when someone searches for “lemon”, they might be searching
for what vitamins are provided by a lemon, or how much calories a lemon has.
• Short-tail keywords don’t convert well because of the difficulty in matching searcher
intent.
 Types of keywords
2. Long-tail keyword
• Long-tail keywords consist of more than 3 words. They are also usually much more specific than
short-tail keywords.
• They have a much lower search volume compared to short-tail keyword. But they make it up by
being much less competitive.
• The most important thing you have to know with a long-tail keyword is you can easily pinpoint
the search intent.
• For example, search on “330 mi S.Pellegrino limonata fizzy drink ”.
• This definitely means the searcher is looking for websites that sell this fizzy drink. So if you want
to target them, you know you’ll need to have the price, shipping fee and your store location on the
website.
• Better yet, when the users are making searches with these long, and detailed keywords, they are
usually ready to make a purchase!
 Long-tail keyword (cont.)
If your site is brand new. Or if you want to focus 100% on keywords that aren’t
competitive. Then you DEFINITELY want to target long tail keywords.
 Types of keywords in General
Most websites in SEO divide keywords into three main categories: head, body and
the (long) tail.

#1 - Head Terms: These are usually single-word keywords with lots of search volume…and
competition. Examples of head terms are keywords like “insurance” or “vitamins”. Because
searcher intent is all over the place (someone searching for “insurance” might be looking
for a car insurance quote, a list of life insurance companies or a definition of the word),
Head Terms usually don’t convert very well.
 Types of keywords in General
#2 - Body Keywords
Body keywords are 2-3 word phrases that get decent search volume (at least 2,000 searches per
month), but are more specific than Head Keywords. Keywords like “life insurance” or “order
vitamins online” are examples of Body Keywords. These almost always have less competition
than Head Terms.

#3 - Long Tail Keywords

Long tail keywords are long, 4+ word phrases that are usually very specific. Phrases like
“affordable life insurance for senior citizens” and “order vitamin D capsules online” are
examples of long tail keywords. These terms don’t get a lot of search volume individually
(usually around 10-200 searches per month). But when you add them together, long tails make
up the majority of searches online. And because they don’t get searches for that much, long tail
terms usually aren’t very competitive
 Types of keywords in General
3. Short-term fresh keyword
When you think about fresh keywords, you need to think about something that is hyped recently.
The latest blockbuster movies titles is an example of a fresh keyword. Take The Avengers: Infinity
War as an example.
You can make use of a fresh keyword’s explosive volume of search to attract more organic views,
but be prepared for a harsh fall when the hype is over.
The thing with fresh keywords is, you can peal in with the latest news and attract some new
audience, breaking from you old, existing audiences.
 Types of keywords

As you can see, the search volume peaked around the time of the movie’s release but drops sharply after.
 Types of keywords
• There are many keyword research tools that helps marketers to optimize their website
appearance on search engine , here are some free keyword tools to help kickstart your
SEO with zero investment:
• Google Trends
• Keyword Sheeter
• AdWord & SEO Keyword Permutation Generator
• Wordtracker
• Ubersuggest
• https://keywordtool.io/
 Types of keywords

• Evergreen content is content that is always relevant—much like the way evergreen trees
retain their leaves all year around. Interesting and relevant content that does not become
dated is necessary in order to be found online by search engines.

Writing evergreen content around keywords that bring value to your website will help search
engines direct readers to your page.
For example, if your website is about health and fitness, then writing content using the keywords
such as "best leg exercises" may be considered a smart evergreen topic, since your audience is
probably always searching for the best leg exercises, no matter the season.
 Types of keywords
Best Practices for Creating Evergreen Content
Answering reader FAQs (frequently asked questions)
Providing industry tips, "how to" articles, or advice
Explaining common concepts in your industry for your readers
Feature testimonials and product reviews (but these can be tricky since products are often
replaced with newer models).
Types of keywords
 Types of keywords
• Product defining keyword This is the keywords that explain and describe your product.
• Searchers searching for a product defining keyword is looking for something very specific. And you
can either be exactly what they want, or not at all.
• When searchers go for product defining keyword they are already at the early stage of purchasing.
• All they need is a little more information to click on that checkout button.
• So when you’re targeting a product defining keyword, remember to be as detailed as possible.
• The best way to get your product targeting keywords is very simple, just look at your product list, then
create a detailed description for each of them.
Types of keywords
 Types of keywords

• Customer defining keyword Customer-defining keywords are the terms and phrases your
customers use to define themselves. What do your customers call themselves? How do they refer
to others in their group? These two questions will guide you to uncovering these powerful
keywords.
• This type of keyword is important because it will help you discover others who relate to your
target audience. Some may be directly related to your customer base, and others may be in a
similar niche.
• It’s simple. Are they mostly male or female? How old are they? Where are they from? What is
their job?
Types of keywords
 Types of keywords
• Geo targeting keywords These are the keywords that focus on location. These keywords lead the
searchers to a local set of results so that local businesses and companies would be given priority
in this ever-growing world with an ever-growing market.

Example of Geo targeting keywords

• Scuba diving Philippines
• Scuba Diving Batangas
• Liveaboard Philippines
• Scuba diving Tubbataha
• Dive shops Philippines
 Types of keywords
• LSI keyword Latent Semantic Indexing Keywords are thematic keywords that are
closely related to your main keyword.
• Let’s look at it this way, your main keyword is lemon, its LSI keywords could be
lemon tea, organic lemon, lemon nutrition etc.
• In order to get an LSI keyword, you need to first decide on the main keyword.
• Tips: You can look at the suggested search section at the search result page to get an
idea of what keywords the search engine relates to the performed search query. Go to
https://lsigraph.com which will help you to find suggested latent keywords
 Types of keywords

• Intent targeting keywords includes :

• 1. Informational keyword: keywords used to discover on a particular topic. This includes
keywords beginning with ‘how to…’ or ‘what are the best..’
• 2. Transactional keyword: keywords entered into Google by customers wanting to
complete a commercial action, i.e. 'buy jackets online’, ‘free delivery’
 Types of keywords

• Despite of the importance of all types of keywords in SEOs , long-tail and

transactional keywords are top keywords types for most SEO projects.
 Keywords strategies

• 1. Steal keywords from competitors.

• If you're feeling sneaky, you can let your competitors do the heavy lifting for you and snatch up
keywords from their sites. There are many tools out there created for this sole purpose. A simple
tool is the SEOBook keyword analyzer. If you enter a page into this tool within seconds it will
scrape a list of the keywords your competitor is targeting on their page. You can then use this to
bulk out your keyword list.
• SEOBook Keyword Analyzer http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword-density/
• https://www.wordtracker.com
• https://www.keyworddiscovery.com/search.html
 Keywords strategies

• 2. Brainstorm your own master list.

• Assuming competitors have been thorough with their research isn't always the
best strategy. By brainstorming combinations of keywords, you can generate a
giant list of potential keywords. To do this, sketch out a grid of words your target
customer might use. Split the words into different prefixes and suffixes. Next up,
combine them into one giant list using the free Mergewords tool. With this
strategy you can quickly and easily build up a massive list of relevant keywords.
• http://www.mergewords.com/
 Keyword Best Practices

• The title tag is intended to be an accurate and concise description of a page’s content. Constructing a highly
descriptive, keyword-rich title tag is not only important for increasing rankings in search engines, but also aids
in creating a strong user experience.

• The recommendations below highlight the essential elements of title tag optimization as they relate to search
engine rankings and usability.

• Title Tag Length–Approximately 55 characters will be displayed in search engine results pages. This character
length restriction is actually based on pixel width and the number of displayed characters may vary. As a best
practice, it’s recommended to construct title tags that do not exceed 55 characters in length so that all of the
text in the title will be displayed.
• Keyword Proximity–According to various studies, the closer a keyword is to the beginning of the title tag, the greater
value it will carry in search engine ranking algorithms. Including keywords towards the beginning of a title tag can
also lead to a greater click through rate on the SERPs
 Keyword Best Practices

• Branding–In most cases the brand name should be included at the end of a title tag. The position of the brand
in the title can be modified based on the relative strength and awareness of the brand in the target market. If
the brand is well known, it can be included at the beginning of the title, but if brand awareness is minimal it
should be inserted at the end of the title tag.

• Readability–It is important to consider the entire user experience on the SERPs. In many cases the title tag is a
visitor’s first interaction with a page if they arrived from a search engine. Overall messaging in the title tag
should also be reflected in the subsequent page copy as well.

• General Recommended Title Tag Format:

• Important Keyword+ Value Proposition+ Brand
 Keyword Best Practices

• Meta descriptions should incorporate keywords, but also provide a compelling description that will entice
users to proceed to the website (in essence, to “sell the click”).

• General Recommended Meta Description Format: Brand+ Important Keyword/Product Name+ Value
Proposition(s)+ Call to Action

• Optimized Meta Content Example:

 How to find keywords that will
send traffic to your site.

• •Now you have a list of keywords, you need to understand how much traffic these
keywords receive in Google. Without search traffic data, you could end up targeting
keywords with zero searches.
• •Armed with the right knowledge, you can target keywords with hundreds or even
thousands of potential visitors every month.
• •You have to sign up for a free Google Adwords account, link provided below. Once signed
in, you need to access the Keyword Planner tool.
• •To do this, sign in, click on ‘Tools’ in the top-menu, click on ‘Keyword Planner’, then
click on ‘Get search volume data and trends’, copy and paste your keywords into the box.
Select your country, and then click the blue ‘Get search volume’ button. When you are
finished, you will have the exact amount of times each keyword was searched for in
Google.